reepicheep
Member
- Apr 3, 2009
- 670
- 2
Got a really cheap 90 KX-60 and am restoring it for kid #2 for Christmas. Shhh. Don't tell him.
Anyway, tore it down tonight (geesh these things are easy to work on) and found two significant issues (beyond the bad stator, which I already knew about).
First, there was a new piston in there (never run). Good. But it had a small chunk of steel embedded in it's surface and in the head. Really small, like a slice of a ring about the thickness of a penny. Or like the tip of a jewlers slotted screwdriver pushed in about the thickness of a penny. There are matching holes in the piston and head, the chunk of steel popped right out.
So I'd like to just file the sharp edges to be rounded, and run the thing for next season, and tear it down next winter. But new pistons aren't *that* bad.
The next issue is the crank. Who knows how, but the crank nut was stripped completely, and the crank threads are there but very rounded.
So I'm first going to try re-tapping the crank with the right size die, then torquing a fresh nut on with lock tite red. If it goes to the factory spec, I'll call it good. If it strips, I'll use the next size smaller die and retap the crank for that, and get a correct corresponding nut. The cut threads will probably not be as strong as the rolled factory threads (if that is how Kawasaki did them), but hopefully they will be strong enough to hold.
Id like to have that get me thorough another season as well, and I'll lurk for a good deal on a used crank on ebay so there is one on the garage shelf waiting to go in next winter. Heck, even new cases for the KX-60 seem to be going really cheap.
Thoughts? This thing is so simple I can go from "running bike" to "complete top end rebuild" in about two hours... so I don't mind taking some chances at rework to try and stretch a little life out of what I have now... And this is only a 15 HP motor, so its not exactly a high stress application.
Anyway, tore it down tonight (geesh these things are easy to work on) and found two significant issues (beyond the bad stator, which I already knew about).
First, there was a new piston in there (never run). Good. But it had a small chunk of steel embedded in it's surface and in the head. Really small, like a slice of a ring about the thickness of a penny. Or like the tip of a jewlers slotted screwdriver pushed in about the thickness of a penny. There are matching holes in the piston and head, the chunk of steel popped right out.
So I'd like to just file the sharp edges to be rounded, and run the thing for next season, and tear it down next winter. But new pistons aren't *that* bad.
The next issue is the crank. Who knows how, but the crank nut was stripped completely, and the crank threads are there but very rounded.
So I'm first going to try re-tapping the crank with the right size die, then torquing a fresh nut on with lock tite red. If it goes to the factory spec, I'll call it good. If it strips, I'll use the next size smaller die and retap the crank for that, and get a correct corresponding nut. The cut threads will probably not be as strong as the rolled factory threads (if that is how Kawasaki did them), but hopefully they will be strong enough to hold.
Id like to have that get me thorough another season as well, and I'll lurk for a good deal on a used crank on ebay so there is one on the garage shelf waiting to go in next winter. Heck, even new cases for the KX-60 seem to be going really cheap.
Thoughts? This thing is so simple I can go from "running bike" to "complete top end rebuild" in about two hours... so I don't mind taking some chances at rework to try and stretch a little life out of what I have now... And this is only a 15 HP motor, so its not exactly a high stress application.
