Z1300, ZG1300, ZN1300 and KZ1300 Tech Tips

		Z1300 Tech Tips

Z1300, ZG1300, ZN1300 and

KZ1300 Tech Tips

Last Update 6/2/10

WARNING!

The following problem WILL be hazardous to your 1300's health!
If you don't spend the $85 to replace your cam chain tensioner NOW,
before it possibly goes bad, you'll wish you had should it fail.

Hello Denis,

Saw your question and just had to comment. I have four KZ1300's , including one like yours. In fact, I have a part time business servicing Kawasaki's. Allow me to assure you that you cannot possibly need a timing chain. You simply do not have enough miles on it. More than likely the culprit is the cam chain tensioner. A more foul piece of crap, Kawasaki did not make. If you were to remove and disassemble the tensioner you would probably find that the 3 little ball bearings that lock the tensioner push rod against the cam chain have dug holes into the shaft and allowed it to back off, making the cam chain rattle and causing you to think the cam chain has stretched beyond the limits of the tensioner. The best solution is to replace it with one from a ZX11. It bolts right on, though you will have to buy or make a simple paper gasket to replace the O ring. The ZX11 tensioner does not use an O ring, but rather a gasket. The ZX11 tensioner is a positive ratchet type and will be far superior to the one your bike has. And don't go into that engine unless you have to. It is superior to all and was built to last. I have plenty of other mod's and improvements posted on the site if you are keen.

Best Regards,
Paul Bezilla paul@kz1300.com
Patron saint to all 1300's

This is a reply Paul, our 'tech answer man', made to a 1300 owner on the site who is looking for an answer to their unusual engine noise. It's typical of what you can learn from someone that has years of experience working on 1300's. The cam chain tensioner is the one weakness on the 1300 that must be dealt with as soon as you buy one of these machines and BEFORE YOU START THE MOTOR, before you test fire the motor, before you start the motor after the bike has been sitting for many months, before, before, before anything else! The FIRST TIME you spin the motor after the bike has been sitting for awhile is prime time for the CCT to slip back, throw slack in your chain and jump time! The very first time you hit the starter button!

Many 1300 owners show up on this site after their bike is damaged and they're looking for answers. In this case, the ONLY answer is preventive medicine! It doesn't take high RPM's to cause the problem! In fact, if the motor is running, some times it can go out while you're just sitting still and revving the motor. When you back off on the throttle is when the tensioner gets a lot of pressure put on it and this is the time it may likely fail. The next time you ride the bike is after a $750-$1500 valve job with all new valves! Don't take a chance! If you purchase a 1300, replace or modify the original tensioner FIRST, even if you're just trying to start the motor to test it! It's a well known weak point on this motor so don't put it off another day! Prevent the problem, then go ride and enjoy. I went to buy a 1300 from a member one time, and when he started it up for me and revved it a couple of times the CCT failed right then! I did buy the bike, but for salvage pricing compared to what was asking.

Cracked ignition coils are another reality after 20 years of service. Bad coils led to hard start / no start problems or poor performance of course, but there are some good options to the stock coils. Paul has done a good job of covering the usual problems on these bikes so read the FAQ page at the link above, scan the tech articles for relevant info or use the search engine. david@kz1300.com

High Output Stator question -

Posted by Kevin on August 26, 2004 at 08:53:33:
Body of Message:

Has anyone used the high output stator that is being auctioned on Ebay by seller ID - pay034? Does it work and is it worth the $$?? Thanks for any input, Kevin

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Kevin,

I would guess it's an Electrex stator or some other brand that he's reselling and making a few bucks on. The Electrex stator lists for $142 on my links page. So if he resells an Electrex for $200 on ebay he makes $50. The only reason I say that is because I see his fuel pump upgrade kit he sells for our bikes.   You can buy those in most auto parts stores for $43 currently. In that auction he stated - "KZ1300 AND ZN1300 79 TO 82 ELECTRIC FUEL PUMP UPGRADE KIT. FITS KZ1300 & ZN CARBS."

Keep in mind a stock ZN1300 has fuel injection and this kit will NOT work on a ZN of any year because the DFI works at much higher pressure (around 36psi) and that pump only puts out probably 2 or 3psi. However, you could possibly convert a ZN1300 to use carbs from a KZ1300 and this is what he's actually referring to, but he needs to change the auction text to clarify this. This pump would probably be good for a lot of different motorcycles that use carbs and have fuel delivery issues.

He also stated -
"WILL NOT FLOOD OR BLEED BY YOUR FLOATS. DO NOT SUBSTITUTE ANY OTHER PUMP FOR THIS ONE. OTHER PUMPS WILL DAMAGE YOUR CARBURETORS AND ENGINE. THIS PUMP IS PRE SET TO OPTIMUM PRESSURE FOR THESE MACHINES."

Other pumps should work OK. I'm sure this is not the only pump, it just happens to be a good pump for our bike because it's a generic, low pressure pump that is easy to buy most anywhere. Stating that it will not flood is a bit of a stretch though. Installing any pump on our bike can cause flooding if your needle and valve seats are not in perfect working order as it can push gas by the valve seats or past the O-rings. If you have good needle and valve seats though this should work just fine.

I don't have an issue with adding a fuel pump if seems you really need it and being that you can buy this particular pump at most auto parts I'd choose it myself. Personally, I've never felt the need to go the fuel pump route on a KZ as I've always been able to solve any fuel delivery problems in the past by going with the Pingel petcock and rerouting the gas line so it goes straight out, through a regular automotive inline filter and down into the carbs instead of down and back up like the original route was done from the factory. The original route may work just fine as long as you dump the electric shutoff which we know can cause a restriction. I have a tech article on this posted now.

The other issue on fuel delivery is the tank vent. If it's not working properly it appears you can get a vacuum built up in the tank which will slow down or shut off the fuel flow as you're riding. If you open the cap, then the gas starts going again - so why does that work, if there's not a vacuum? The vent is the little tube that comes out the back of the tank. I pull just the metal stranded cable out of an old throttle cable or bicycle brake cable, chuck it up in a drill and spin it while working it through the tube. Spraying a little carb cleaner down the hole will get it clean and if there's rust; a shot of penetrating oil might be good to coat it with when you're done so it doesn't rust out over the long term.

You've still got the gas cap and the little o-ring seal to check to make sure everything works correctly when finished and most importantly - make sure the hose is new and unobstructed. This can also cause pressure to build up in the tank instead of a vacuum. I think it just depends on how much gas is in the tank, how hot it is outside, etc., whether you end up with pressure or vacuum. If you open the gas cap and it pops off with a release of pressure then your vent is not working properly. If you have pressure built up, when you shut the bike off that pressure can possibly be one of the reasons why the carbs may flood when the engine is off. That's assuming you left the petcock turned on when you get off the bike. This is a bad idea regardless. I always turn the petcock off a quarter mile before my destination to use up most of the fuel in the carbs as I talk about elsewhere.

There was also service bulletin issued on this bike when it was still new about the vent getting clogged up and causing fuel delivery problems. Seems that the hose runs all the way out the bottom of the bike and it would either get dirt clogging it up or suck water back up the tube up into the little one-way valve that was mounted inline (when new). They suggested making a 'V' cut into the vent hose just after the valve to solve the problem.

Maybe I'll try a fuel pump one day just as a test on a bike that already runs right and see if there really is some improvement in throttle response or whatever. If I did use a fuel pump as mentioned above, I'd run a manual switch to it so I could shut it off early too. The thing is - nobody has an issue with someone buying something at one price and marking it up to make a profit and you'll find a few good sellers on ebay with various items like he has for our bikes. I do basically the same thing only I sell my parts here instead of on ebay. If I find sellers that list items for our bikes on a regular basis then I add them to my links page under the "Ebay Sellers" section.   david@kz1300.com

Posted by Phil on March 31, 2002 at 02:54:36:
In Reply to: Re: Dies at light posted by MOE on March 29, 2002 at 11:54:59:

Body of Message: Hi Moe,

Mine is an '84 D.F.I. model, but seems to be afflicted with exactly the same fault, but curiously only on warm days. After slow-running in traffic and then when acceleration is called for, it splutters and then dies completely. No amount of churning the starter-motor will get a peep from the engine unless it's left to stand for about 20 minutes. It will run beautifully again after this, firing-up first press on the button and would run for hours at freeway speeds with no trouble at all, unless slow-speed filtering in traffic is encountered again. I've also been down the same logical routes as the fuel-tank cap breather, coils etc., but to no avail. In a fit of desperation I even thought it may be a component that was suffering from heat ingress when the bike was stationary, as the fault only seemed to manifest itself on warm days.

I fabricated a temporary heat-shield that ran the full length of the block, directly behind it, effectively shielding every component, including the throttle bodies, from convected or radiated heat from the block to see if this was the case. It seemed to offer only a very marginal improvement however. I've heard from various ( very-well informed) sources that the electric fuel shut-off valve (apparently located somewhere below the air-box region, I haven't had the time to look yet) is notoriously troublesome on these bikes and gives exactly the symptoms that my bike suffers from and that you describe. This valve is apparently also very voltage sensitive, so if you have an even slightly below-par battery, it will do the same.

The fix? Don't buy a new one, as that will do exactly the same sooner or later and quite honestly it is a component superfluous to the bikes' normal operational needs anyway, as it was specified originally to keep the Crash Safety Standards people happy. No, simply remove the offending valve, throw it into the nearest trash can where it belongs and then either install a piece of metal pipe or (better) a high-flow fuel filter to join the remaining open fuel lines. I'm told this valve (along with the cam-chain tensioner!) is one of the bikes' very few Achilles heels. I will be carrying-out this mod as soon as time allows and will keep you posted as to whether it cures the problem.

Best regards,

Phil.....

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Posted by Phil on April 12, 2002 at 07:44:29:

Body of Message:

I'm about to remove the fuel shut off solenoid valve from the fuel system on my bike and am going to install a fuel filter in it's place as recommended in the FAQ, as I think it is the cause of the engine cutting out problems I've experienced. I was wondering if the installation of a vacuum petcock is absolutely necessary on the D.F.I models when carrying out this mod? I can see the problem of flooding occurring on the carbureted models if there is even a slight problem with the float valves not seating properly, but with fuel injection the injectors are basically mini solenoid valves and should thus offer a much more positive seal when the engine is at a stop. Or can I just get away with turning the fuel off when the bike is not in use? I've been having nightmares about bent connecting rods on start-up!

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Phil,

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the DFI models don't have fuel solenoid valves. That thing you're looking at is a fuel pressure regulator. If you indeed have a DFI model I think you need to get a manual for it and spend a little time reading it. First you need to figure out whether you have a ZG or a ZN and get the appropriate manuals.

I found your old post on the problems you stated about your bike and it could be any number of things I guess. The first thing I toss on these bikes is the coils and replace them with Accel's or Dyna's though I'll be trying some new 'Nology' coils or possibly some coil packs off a late model car in the future since the Accel #140403 coil that fits our bike is no longer being made and recently we've had some issues with them. The 84's have what I would consider to be a slightly better coil since you can replace the spark plug wires, but they still crack the same as the older ones; they're just as likely to break down when they're hot as the older ones and they have nowhere near the output of a coil like the Accel, much less the Nology. New high performance coils are the 2nd most important preventive maintenance modification you can do to this bike. They're very reasonable new from Nology and you can buy Accel's or Dyna's reasonable a lot of times when you can find them on ebay.

Even if the original coils on your bike worked perfectly, I'd still toss them! Why? Because I can just about assure you you'll be able to tell right off that the bike runs much better and gets better gas mileage with the higher performance coils on it. It's a high performance engine, but the original style coils are marginal in my opinion. If that's not true, then why do the Nology coils make such a noticeable improvement over 'good' coils when I put them on? I don't even check the original coils anymore, I just trash them, period. That might not seem prudent for some of you, but I run my bike hard. I'll get by with good coils as long as I have to, but the minute I get the money together for a set of coils I'm going to put them on. I don't want to be sitting at a light somewhere for 30 minutes waiting to crank my bike because of coils that are breaking down from the heat and I can assure you my wife won't put up with that but once. If the bike breaks and has to be hauled home she'll understand, but she's not going with me if the bike's just going to die whenever it feels like it. She'd rather stay at home till it's fixed.

If I was a bike mechanic and was use to taking my bike apart and knew just what to check when I had a problem, I might feel like I could live with regular coils on my bike. I might feel confident I could isolate that problem the day it manifested itself, but I'm not, I don't, I just eliminate the problem and then I don't ever have that problem. So when I have a problem, I know it's not coils, it's something else. If my Nology coils ever fail I'll let you know. david@kz1300.com

Hey David,

My name is Steve T. and I just bought a 80 model 1300 touring bike one week ago not knowing a thing really about what I had bought. My wife and I love the bike and after reading your web site and talking to the few people we know about getting the work done, decided to write to you for advice and information. We had put about 600 miles on the bike when I discovered your website and it finally dawned on my tiny brain that YES we need to have work done to this bike right away to avoid problems in the future if we intend to ride and keep it.

This bike now has just over 36,000 miles on it and still rides like a dream, however probably due to sitting up for long periods of time smokes a little and I'm sure needs the recommended CCT and other things you name in your article. My question is how much money will it take to make the changes you speak of in your site? I am checking ebay everyday for a maintenance manual and I have someone to do the work at a reasonable cost. My intentions are to rebuild the motor, change the CCT, rebuild the carbs, solder the connections etc as you recommend....going to be checking with the local Kawasaki dealer to price the kits unless you tell me I can find them cheaper somewhere else. Just a ball park number is what I am asking you for parts only. I have no idea if any of the things you speak of in your article have been done, so I would doubt it.

We want a bike to ride that is dependable and safe. I know that this site takes a lot of your time and any help you could offer will be greatly appreciated. If it is too costly for us or would be better to buy a newer bike is the heart of the question, but we both really like this 1300 for sure. It runs good and looks good now (can send pictures if you like) but we want to be as sure as we can that it doesn't break down on us if we decide to take a trip with friends.

Thanks for your site, Steve T.

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Steve T.

I wouldn't rebuild the motor unless it was an absolute necessity. If it smokes a little I'd adjust the valves and ride it some first. After you've put some miles on it and the rings have seated good again, maybe it won't be smoking anymore. Rings tend to stick when they sit for long periods of time, but after the motor has been running for awhile they'll usually loosen up and seat good again. The first thing I do when I have the plugs out is spray some penetrating oil down in the cylinders. A few days later after I get the coils on and everything else done I go out and ride it some; that usually does the trick. The rings will tend to seal again after a few 100 to a few 1000 miles of riding; the compression will come back up, it starts easier and everything is OK as long as the carbs are working right.

There are no "kits" as you say for rebuilding anything except like gasket kits. I'm afraid that when find out how much parts cost you'll quickly realize that just a complete rebuild on the carb's alone could cost as much as you paid for the bike. 1300 parts are sky high from the dealer so you don't just start rebuilding anything on this bike you don't absolutely have to.

I have a links page for all the alternative sources of parts I know of. You should print that out so you'll have it. The CCT, coils and soldering the alternator wires are most important for preventive maintenance. The reality of these bikes is like any other 80' era bike. They're 24 years old now, parts are expensive if you can even get them and things do break; but overall they're very durable bikes. If the electrical connections are dealt with, there's only a few things that are likely to just go out and leave on the side of the road. The igniter, alternator, regulator or ignition pickup coil could just fail and leave you stranded. A clutch cable could break and that would be a problem or maybe a throttle cable, but these are parts you could actually carry with you as they take up little space.

The main things are to take care of the known problems we mention on this site as very little else except what I just mentioned would actually leave you stranded somewhere. One thing everyone should take note of - don't use car oil in your engine! Car oils don't meet the spec's for a motorcycle engine with a wet clutch so you can end up with a clutch that slips. Mobil 1, Belray and Amsoil are 3 of the most notable brands that have motorcycle specific oil and there are others like Royal Purple and so forth. Your local motorcycle dealer will always have a suitable oil. david@kz1300.com

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Dear David,

I am writing this to you personally to thank you for your site and the tons of information your site has available for anyone. It is not often that you can find someone as knowledgeable, kind and willing to share with others as you have been to me. I started writing and talking to you on the telephone back in September of 2004 about the old KZ1300B2 that I bought without knowing ANYTHING about what I actually had. After talking with you I still took a few months to decide to follow all of your recommendations that you have posted on your site.

Well, I did exactly what you suggested on the mod's and I just started riding it again on 3/26/05. I put 200 miles on it the first day and it used about 20 ounces of oil. I rode about 200 miles the
next day and I didn't have to add any oil! Everything that you have told me has been 100% right on target. If anyone will just read and follow your advice, not to mention watch the links and tech page I am confident they will be pleased with the outcome of their project and SAVE a bunch of money
too! Kawasaki wanted $90.00 for a valve cover gasket, your site showed me a place to get the same gasket for $14.95! Just another example of how great your site is and how much it helps in many ways. THANK YOU again David for all of your help and time. I now think I will be riding this bike instead of selling or trading it.

Sincerely, Steve T.

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Steve,

Since I've had so many similar emails to yours from people buying a 1300 and then wondering what to do with it after they got it, I hope you don't mind me posting your questions as written. The success you had with your bike is typical of the success I've had on most 1300's I've bought to repair and re-sell. Yes, you can spend a lot of hours working on an old bike like this trying to get it running and you probably won't get much help from anyone wherever you live because so few people have any experience with it. Usually though, assuming someone hasn't been into the motor before you and butchered it, they'll come back to good running condition after the right things have been done. Aside from the few common problems we've mentioned on this site, I think owners not making regular valve adjustments is the most common issue I see that can cause you to have to pull the motor apart.

For some reason, it seems people that own these bikes don't adjust the valves as they should. I don't work on other bikes, but I don't think adjusting valves on our bike is hard at all. It seems that every bike I've gotten so far though has had tight intake valves and some were run so long that way that they burnt the valve seats. Most of the time I've been able to adjust the valves, clean the carb's, replace the coils and fix whatever other minor issues there were and get the bike running as good as it should for the mileage it has on it. I've bought a few bikes that have not run for 6-10 years and still got them running just fine. At the least I would of expected to replace the valve springs since some would of been sitting in the compressed position for all those years, but I didn't and still had no noticeable problems. With every old bike there's going to be certain issues to deal with that are particular to that bike, but our bikes seem to be engineered very well and there's still a lot of them out there in good running condition.

I've had a few people write me and say that had it not been for this site and the info or tech help they were able to get here, they would probably of not gotten their bike running again. Or, some have said that the only reason that they even considered buying a running or non-running 1300 is because they found this site and thought they'd be able to get enough support from other 1300 owners to keep their bike on the road. Had there been no support at all, they'd of passed on buying a 1300 because they didn't want to buy such a rare bike and have to figure out how to repair it on their own.

I started riding 1300's in 1980 when they were still new. Back then when I had a problem I could go to the Kawasaki dealer and pick the brain of one of their mechanics who was trained on the bike. I don't know where all those mechanics are today but it would be great to have 5 or 10 of them here. People write me as if I'm the one that knows everything about these bikes, but I'm not. I'm really just the webmaster. I take what info others provide and try to put it in a format that will be helpful. Along the way yes, I've learned a lot about the bike, but I learned it from members like Paul, Clyde and others. I bought the domain and started building on the site because I was hoping to find someone experienced with the bike that could help me. In the process, I knew that whatever info I could collect would help everyone that found the site. I don't even know HTML that well! That's why the site looks somebody that doesn't know what they're doing put it together. It doesn't look professional, but for what we need, I think it's good enough and I'm glad that I put the time into it.

I'm happy to hear you took the information we have and put it to good use and had success on your bike. Now, you've just got to keep it running. New parts are a problem now and it can only get worse. At some point they'll be certain things we'll have to have made I guess. Until then, ebay has been the place to be. Good luck and keep in touch.

Thanks, David Ewing david@kz1300.com

Dave – Just wanted to say thanks. Within the first 2 weeks of acquiring my 1980 KZ 1300 (A2) I had some drivability problems and darned if I didn’t have 2 of the problems you mention prominently on your website – coils (2 out of 3 cracked, 1 failing, but only intermittently of course) and the fuel solenoid. Knowing what to look for saved a lot of time and consternation. The Kawasaki manual was pretty good too, in fact the level of detail and diagrams is excellent.

BTW, on the coils I was able to fit the GM 6 cyl coil in the “stock” location by cutting out the existing mounting plate and fabricating a custom bracket to mount it on its side (plug wires to the left). It’s a tight fit but I prefer to have 25,000 or so volts located some distance from my tender parts, rather than right under the seat if you know what I mean. On the ballast resistor I was able to identify a Standard Motor Parts unit rated at 2.25 ohms, which combined with the .7 ohm coil equals just under 3 ohms total. For safety (and performance) I used 3 separate ballast resistors, one dedicated to each primary trigger wire, to minimize heat buildup. At $4.38 each it seemed a good idea. Again, a custom bracket was required, but not a big deal.

On the solenoid I just bypassed it and put in an in-line filter. Will use the stock petcock until it screws up then will fit something better. Again, knowing what to look for really helped, as did the diagnostics in the manual. Mine would work on starting, but the alternator current-sensing circuit would cut out and the bike would stall. Using a lot of choke would get it to run by increasing the vacuum to draw down the fuel in the float bowls, but the key was that any opening of the throttle would stall the engine – a clear indication of fuel starvation as more air was the only thing that changed. The whole solenoid does seem to be a bit of unnecessary complication, but then it’s Japanese, and complication is somewhat of a religious issue for them.

Anyway, put some new rubber on (it had 20 year old tires), checked out all the basic safety items and now have a nice rider. Will work on some minor appearance and drivability issues over the winter.

Thanks again. Scott W.

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That's great! Another success story! I show the gas line routing I've been using on this page -
http://www.kz1300.com/techarticles/z1300-carb.html

The solenoid was important only in the fact that they didn't want fuel running into the engine from a bad float or stuck needle valve if you left the petcock on when you got off the bike. This can fill a cylinder with raw gas and give you a hydraulic lock problem when you go to start the motor with bent connecting rods as a result. A lot of older bikes used a vacuum petcock for the same reason, they just decided to go electric. So then there were fuel starvation problems from either the solenoid itself or maybe from the routing of the gas line or maybe both.

Still, there was one other problem they probably didn't anticipate and that was gas boiling out of the carbs when you got off the bike from residual heat coming off the motor. If you leave the bike on the side-stand and usually when you're riding in the hotter climates, that motor can get hot enough to cook dinner on! Paul commented you could see gas boiling inside your gas tank on the 79's that didn't come with insulation under the tank. They insulated the tanks the next year to help prevent that but he's right.

I looked inside one I was riding that wasn't insulated and I could see the gas boiling off the bottom. Same thing can happen with the carbs especially in hot climates like we have in Houston. You pull up and park somewhere and go in to eat lunch or whatever, and leave your bike on the side-stand. While you're away, some of the gas boils out of the carbs and runs down in your cylinders. There might not be enough in the cylinders when you come back to cause the hydraulic lock problem. Maybe you just notice that the bike doesn't want to start and when it does it smells real rich.

Either way that's bad news. It contaminates your oil real fast and you don't know it. That's really bad for internal engine parts. I've mentioned it before, but the best thing to do is to turn the petcock off an eighth to a quarter of a mile before you get where you're going. If that doesn't happen you should leave the bike on the center stand instead of the side-stand. With the carbs sitting level, hopefully you won't have that problem but you still have to be sure to shut the gas off regardless because of the bad float or stuck needle valve issue I just mentioned.

That's where the Pingel petcock mod comes into play. There's 2 issues with the stock petcock. #1) They're prone to leak gas around the seal, probably from age deterioration not necessarily from a bad design. #2) Now that they're so old, they tend to get extremely hard to turn on and off. I use to keep a set of pliers in my pocket so I could turn it off and other guys have wrote me they've been doing the same thing. The Pingel has a very smooth action to it, even better than ours did when they were new. Of course it's not a 25-30 year old design either, it's a lot newer technology. These fit the KZ's and the ZN's just as easy. I have a tech article on how to install the Pingel but it's really a no brainer. david@kz1300.com

Hi David,

Nice talking to you today on the phone regarding my 1981 KZ1300 I am going to sell. As I stated it has 65,000 miles and clear title. The bike is in very nice shape aside from having sat for 3 years, but it's currently not running. The tires could be replaced and all the carbs would have to be gone through and cleaned. The tank has some rust inside and may need to be treated. The bike has the Vetter hard accessory bags on it which were apparently made for Kawasaki by Vetter? It has a full front fairing and windscreen, etc. It is equipped much like the early Goldwings I suppose.

I may list the bike on Ebay this next week if you are not interested in purchasing it. I will send you some pics after I have taken some this weekend and I'd like to get an idea from you what it's worth in it's current non-running condition and also if I do the work to get it running right. Thanks again for your time and knowledge regarding the KZ!

Tracy B.

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Tracy,

The bike looks much nicer than I expected for the mileage but the running / non-running issue remains the same. After viewing the pic's I'd guess probably $750-$1000 not running and $2500-$3000 in very good running condition. There are no carb kits for these bikes and individual pieces all together for the carbs could run $750 - $1000 alone if you needed everything; floats, diaphragms, pilot jets and the rest. The trick here is not to damage any of these parts in disassembly and only replace what's needed. If you go to Kawasaki to buy parts you'll think they're talking about parts for a $70,000 Mercedes, not parts for a 25 year old bike.

Chances are your local dealer has never seen one of these bikes and doesn't even know Kawasaki ever built a 6 cylinder. That actually happened to me at one of the Kawasaki dealers here in Houston. The parts guy laughed at me when I told him they use to make an inline 6! He says, 'you're confusing us with Honda'. When he found the microfishe on it he was amazed he'd never heard of the bike before and he had been there 10 years!

Most likely all you'll need is new gaskets and a set of needle and valve seats. I have both sets and there's a couple of sellers on ebay that offer these on occasion which is where I buy from. Cleaning the carbs properly without damaging any of the parts is the key issue. If you're not pretty sure you can do that and get it all back together right then get someone else to do it, otherwise you've wasted a whole bunch of time and you'll be searching for another set of good carbs.

From looking at the pic's I can see that it has original coils. It would be extremely unlike you'll get this bike running right unless you put some new coils on it. I have many articles and info on the site about replacing the coils and they're not very expensive or difficult to deal with.

Absolutely take my warning on the cam chain tensioner problem to heart and do not try to start the bike until you've dealt with this. The warning is posted above. There's a tech article on that section and more info on the FAQ page about it too. And after those things if you really want to make it run right, set the valves and synchronize the carbs. If the motor has low compression, usually it's the intake valves that are tight. Setting the valves on this bike is easier that most older bikes, but it's a real problem area if it's ignored.

These are all the things I would do to the bike personally before I offered it for sale. And all this is pretty normal stuff on any old bike, but if you had to pay someone to do this maintenance you could expect to pay $300 for the valve adjustment + a gasket and $300 for the carb clean and synchro plus parts. $100 to do the coils + the cost of the parts and an hour labor on the tensioner. Probably $750 labor + maybe $400 total in parts unless you need more carb parts to get it right.

You still have the fork seals you mentioned, flush the brake lines and cooling system or whatever else it may need. Brake pads - $60, usually new brake lines if they're original - $200, the tires as you said $200, POR-15 the tank to take care of the rust - 5hrs labor, air filter - $45, change the oil or whatever I have to do. If I sell it, I'm going to deal with everything, put whatever time it takes into it, make it right and expect a good price. By the time I sell this bike if I paid $750 for it, put parts and my labor into it, I usually just get paid for the cost of the parts and my labor. If I get more than that out of one of these bikes I'm lucky.

Most of the time on these bikes when I add up estimated parts and labor to bring it back to good selling condition the numbers just don't compute, and I do these repairs all the time! Most of these bikes I part out because I can't justify the time and labor for what they bring on the market. The bike has to be really nice and little work needed for me to actually make a real profit on it. I would have to say though that the prices on these bikes seem to be increasing slightly over what they were selling for last year and the year before.

I've had a lot of guys say they wouldn't of considered buying one of these bikes until they found my site and saw that there was some tech support and parts availability such as it is. You don't want to be on your own with a bike like this and nowhere to turn to even ask a question. Kawasaki dealers are no help whatsoever on pretty much anything older than 10 years old. They want to sell new bikes. Even in a city the size of Houston I've gotten no help from any of the dealers or found any mechanics here that know the bike. Let me know what you decide.

Thanks, David Ewing david@kz1300.com

Continued from the entry page...

Pleeeeaaassseee.. DON'T break the nylon timing gear on the backside of the 79'/80' models!

Refer to the manual on how to remove it. Do you know how it sounds to me when someone writes me wanting to buy one of these gears because they didn't have a manual to refer to so they could see how to get it off without breaking it? You can get a used manual for $15 - $25 on ebay a lot of times or a new one for $50 - $60, but people write me from half way around the world every month wanting to buy a gear, because they broke it trying to service a sticking timing advance mechanism. Some times I hesitate to even answer their emails because I don't want to hold a conversation with someone that's trying to repair their bike without a manual. These guys ask questions that are already answered in the manual or on this site, but they think I should have time to tell them things that I know are already answered in the manual. That's my clue that they don't have a manual and they feel their time is so important they can't look over our site and read any of it.

It goes without saying that you need to check brake pads, fluids, cables, tires, or whatever, but all this is regular maintenance stuff. Things like carburetors is where most people get stuck, but I can assure you these carb's are not nearly as hard to work on as a lot of bikes out there. Any of you guys ever had to work on a set of CBX carbs? If you can deal with Hondas' idea of a 6 cylinder bike and service it you're a better mechanic than I am. I do have a link to a shop that specializes in rebuilding carb's on the links page. "Seafoam" is a good additive that you can get at the auto parts for cleaning carb's and it's other uses include use for a fuel stabilizer, oil additive, gas additive, top end lubricant, engine fogger, frees sticky valves, etc..

I go through the things I just mentioned on a bike and that's it. I'll put 1000's of miles on it and usually not have any issues at all. The mod's Paul mentioned about the vacuum petcock, fuel pump, and some of those things I've never done, but only because I haven't had any problems that I thought one of those mod's might solve. And there's a lot of electrical related things you can run into on the DFI bikes. On a Voyager for example, the electrical connections on the back of the main electrical junction box is the first thing I pull off the bike and look at. The inline fuses coming off the battery are the second thing I pull apart and check. On a Voyager, there's all kind of things you can run into, the list is endless. The manual gets very elaborate on tracing down problems, but it's confusing because of the round about way it gives you information with flow charts spread across many pages without ever really telling you what you want to know in a plain simple fashion. Still, I guess they did the best they could at that day in time.

I understand that you don't always want to throw a couple hundred dollars at a problem not knowing whether that's your real problem or not, or if you could get by without those coils, and maybe find something simpler that would fix it for a lot less money. But look at it this way...; we're hundreds or thousands of miles away from you and trying to help you diagnose your problem on a 30 year old motorcycle that could possibly have any number of oddball problems wrong with it besides the stuff we already know about. We shouldn't have to go around and around with the stuff we already know about. That should be a given.

The reason I hardly ever post on the discussion groups is because I see people post with problems all the time that could very well be nothing more than BAD COILS, and they want us to speculate on what it COULD be. But they THINK they're coils are all right because they've checked them and them ohm out OK, or they can see a spark. But you know what...; they didn't check their coils when they were broken down on the side of the road when the coils were being cooked from the heat coming off that motor while they were sitting at a traffic light. If you check them when they're cooler you might think they're OK, but with electrical components, it's a known fact they can break down under extremes of heat and appear to work just fine otherwise. I assure you that the top of our motors fits the definition of "extremes of heat", and the coils just bake in it.

The only thing I'd prefer to hear about coils from here on out is that I replaced the coils, I checked my electrical connections, I eliminated fuel delivery as a possible contributing factor, and those things didn't make any difference. I could count on one hand the number of times we've had someone post with a problem who's already covered all the preventive mod's, and still has an issue to deal with. Usually these guys are out riding, and if they have a problem they've already narrowed it down through the process of elimination. Maybe it's going to be something like a bad ignition pick-up coil, or they're pulling their carburetors apart and doing a better job cleaning the crud out, replacing the pilot jets or whatever, but they've probably got a handle on it.

So, maybe it's bad coils and maybe it's not. Maybe you have a carb problem, fuel delivery problem, vapor lock, or any one of a number of other things, but we've covered all these things. If I could ride your bike I might have a little better feel for just what's wrong, but we can't do that so you're going to have to take our free advice and act on it because it's still a heck of a lot cheaper than paying a local bike mechanic to figure it out. Assuming you can find anyone willing to work on a KZ1300, much less someone that's actually worked on one before... more than once. I've seen blockage in the fuel rail between the carb's where 2 sets were getting plenty of fuel, but the right side carb was starving for fuel. It's an old bike. Expect the unexpected. I mentioned this to someone that had an odd fuel delivery problem and sure enough, they found the exact same issue with theirs. david@kz1300.com

Every week I get emails from people that want an answer to a problem they're having and the answer is in their manual or it's on the FAQ page already and they either haven't taken 10 minutes of their time to read the page or they're not willing to spend $20-$30 to obtain a used manual, but they want to waste my time. This is an insult to me and an insult to the members. You own a motorcycle, it has a problem you'd like to find a solution for, but $30 for a book that will show you how to diagnose the problem is too much money to spend?

Or better yet, do you want to guess how many hours it took me and other members to put that FAQ page together; maybe your answer was on the page and you're sending me an email or submitting a question to the site and you didn't even bother to read it! We want to help 1300 owners here. This is the whole purpose of the website! If you have a legitimate question, there's plenty of people here willing and eager to help, but don't insult us with your 'I don't have a manual and I haven't bothered to read the FAQ page but I'd like an answer to my question' post. I update the FAQ page, Tech Articles or this page just about every week with new info.

If you need technical help with your KZ1300, Paul Bezilla has extensive knowledge with this bike and answers most questions unless the answer has already been posted previously. I answer some questions if I think I can be of help and Paul doesn't know the Voyager all that much where I deal with it frequently, but internal engine parts are the same and I'm not knowledgeable about the inside of the motor hardly at all. I think I've really accomplished some work on the motor if I install a new clutch, set the valves, replace the mechanical seal or maybe put a new starter clutch in it! I personally do not have much technical experience with these bikes, except for the ZN1300 Voyager, but I've owned quite a few and I've read the book when I had to because I couldn't afford to pay someone else to fix my bike! I've learned more about this bike myself in the last few years from reading this site than I ever did in the last 20 years of fixing them.

We're going to assume that anyone that's seriously looking for answers to a problem they're having has already done the proper diagnostic routines that the manual gives them. Many times we're going to refer you back to a page in the manual. You can send emails directly to me or Paul or others for that matter, but please practice some restraint. It's the best of any 1300 site for technical help that I've seen yet and this is why it pulls 1,300,000+ hits a month as of 8/08! Please feel free to respond to posts if you have useable information to give. I use any information submitted to add to the Technical FAQ page. Over the next few years I expect this part of the site to grow quite large as more members send things in I can add to it.

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