Hi mileage Zephyrs

Introduce yourself, share your heroic Zephyr tales, put the world to rights, gossip, etc.
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Freddy
Posts: 695
Joined: 06 Sep 2017, 11:06
Location: Sydney Australia

Hi mileage Zephyrs

Post by Freddy »

Bike just turned over 170,000 kilometers (106k miles). Curious if this is one of the bigger mileage Zephyr's still running.
David Richard
Posts: 273
Joined: 04 Sep 2017, 20:21

Re: Hi mileage Zephyrs

Post by David Richard »

hi mines shy of 86 k on that one but its good to know they go that far ,with a bit of maintenance ,david
s_in_fl
Posts: 14
Joined: 04 Sep 2017, 14:37

Re: Hi mileage Zephyrs

Post by s_in_fl »

Hello Freddy,
I haven't been active on the Zone for a number of years. I Bought my ZR1100 off eBay back about 2006ish with about 86,000 miles on the clock.
It now has a bit over 116,000 miles indicated. I'm in the midst of a rebuild right now and it hasn't run in about four or five years.
I'm hoping to be back up and running this summer.
The problem that took it off the road was the dreaded 2nd gear issue. I split the cases and got lazy. So the project was put on the back burner.
Scott
One down, Four up. Life begins when you touch the red line.
Swampy
Posts: 323
Joined: 04 Sep 2017, 18:01

Re: Hi mileage Zephyrs

Post by Swampy »

When I put my bike to bed for the winter last October it had 7900 miles, completely the opposite of you guys :o
Attachments
miles.PNG
Swamps :)
gazzz
Posts: 27
Joined: 04 Sep 2017, 12:11

Re: Hi mileage Zephyrs

Post by gazzz »

My Zephyr 750 has 98000-990000km on clocks. My bike was made for internal Japanese market and originally had 180km/h speed limiter built into ignition unit and speedometer. Couple of years ago I replaced speedometer, wiring and ignition unit for units from European Zephyr, thus now I have to calculate to be precise with total mileage.
Bike just turned over 170,000 kilometers (106k miles).
I am curious, did you replaced timing chain and if yes, at what mileage that was done?
Freddy
Posts: 695
Joined: 06 Sep 2017, 11:06
Location: Sydney Australia

Re: Hi mileage Zephyrs

Post by Freddy »

gazzz wrote:My Zephyr 750 has 98000-990000km on clocks. My bike was made for internal Japanese market and originally had 180km/h speed limiter built into ignition unit and speedometer. Couple of years ago I replaced speedometer, wiring and ignition unit for units from European Zephyr, thus now I have to calculate to be precise with total mileage.
Bike just turned over 170,000 kilometers (106k miles).
I am curious, did you replaced timing chain and if yes, at what mileage that was done?
Nope, timing chain is original. The genuine service manual has a specification for the cam chain, and it is still well withing that spec.

All the cam chain guides have been replaced, but to be honest it wasn't really necessary. Automatic cam chain tensioner was chucked away years ago and a manual tensioner fitted. Rubber dampers in the primary drive were replaced when the starter clutch was replaced.
gazzz
Posts: 27
Joined: 04 Sep 2017, 12:11

Re: Hi mileage Zephyrs

Post by gazzz »

Nope, timing chain is original. The genuine service manual has a specification for the cam chain, and it is still well withing that spec.

All the cam chain guides have been replaced, but to be honest it wasn't really necessary. Automatic cam chain tensioner was chucked away years ago and a manual tensioner fitted. Rubber dampers in the primary drive were replaced when the starter clutch was replaced.
Thank you. I check timing chain every time I check valve clearance and it is still within service limit. I just wondered how long it may last. I even bought D.I.D. timing chain to have replacement at hand, but looks like it's long time before I'll need it...
Freddy
Posts: 695
Joined: 06 Sep 2017, 11:06
Location: Sydney Australia

Re: Hi mileage Zephyrs

Post by Freddy »

gazzz wrote:
Nope, timing chain is original. The genuine service manual has a specification for the cam chain, and it is still well withing that spec.

All the cam chain guides have been replaced, but to be honest it wasn't really necessary. Automatic cam chain tensioner was chucked away years ago and a manual tensioner fitted. Rubber dampers in the primary drive were replaced when the starter clutch was replaced.
Thank you. I check timing chain every time I check valve clearance and it is still within service limit. I just wondered how long it may last. I even bought D.I.D. timing chain to have replacement at hand, but looks like it's long time before I'll need it...
I also bought a DID timing chain some years back when everyone was saying the noise was due to a worn timing chain. I don't expect to ever use it, not unless for some reason I'm down to pulling the crankshaft out, and then I'd just stick the new one in because I have it already sitting on the shelf.

How long will the original timing chain last? IMO, forever. All the people who have paid someone to replace their chain have unfortunately just thrown their money away. The noise comes from 3 main sources, in the order of priority:

Faulty design automatic cam chain adjuster (easily fixed)
Hard rubber dampers on the primary chain drive (only worth doing if the starter clutch is being repaired)
Primary chain having no tensioner in its design (nothing can be done about it)
gazzz
Posts: 27
Joined: 04 Sep 2017, 12:11

Re: Hi mileage Zephyrs

Post by gazzz »

How long will the original timing chain last? IMO, forever. All the people who have paid someone to replace their chain have unfortunately just thrown their money away. The noise comes from 3 main sources, in the order of priority:

Faulty design automatic cam chain adjuster (easily fixed)
Hard rubber dampers on the primary chain drive (only worth doing if the starter clutch is being repaired)
Primary chain having no tensioner in its design (nothing can be done about it)
I think such long life of Zephyr timing chain is also result of relatively smooth rotation of inline four engine. There are engines with quite short lifetime of time chain. Few year ago I rebuilt Yamaha SRX600 engine (similar to XT and TT600) with around 50000 km on clocks. There were no specs to check if timing chain is OK, but when I put it back I found that I couldn't align timing marks satisfactorily. I checked tensioner and found out that piston was out for 12 notches from 15. Sure I replaced chain with new OEM. The difference between length of new and old chain was quite visible. However replacing timing chain on SRX is easy thing. I suppose that was a moment when I began to think how soon I have to replace timing chain on Zephyr.
IMG_1144.jpg
Yep, manual tensioner is good thing. By the way, PMC has automatic tensioner (notch type) that fit Zephyr 750
https://www.webike.com.ua/products/20878525.html

Yes, I know about hard rubbers in primary chain drive. Now I am working on KZ650 engine which is direct ancestor of Zephyr 750 engine. Both engines share quite a lot of part numbers including those for primary chain drive.
IMG_2654.jpg
Another set of hard rubbers located in clutch housing.
IMG_0981.jpg
ZR7 engine has primary chain tensioner and its cases compatible with Zephyr but yes, it's quite complicated solution.
Freddy
Posts: 695
Joined: 06 Sep 2017, 11:06
Location: Sydney Australia

Re: Hi mileage Zephyrs

Post by Freddy »

Yes, replacement of the clutch damper rubbers is a must do job. I can't recall the noise difference when I did mine, but the gear change difference was MASSIVE. The CLUNK when changing gears completely disappears (which granted could be minimized with lightening fast and spot on rev matching)

Image

Regarding replacing the cam chain to restore factory timing, rather than just replace the chain, what I'd rather see is a good reliable source for the factory timing specs so the cams (with current chain and guides) could be 'degreeed' in. Webbike sell a couple cam chain sprockets already slotted for this purpose.

However I've never seem a set of cam timing figures I trust. Did see some numbers once in an article, but didn't trust them. I'd like to see something on Kawasaki letterhead. There's nothing I can find in the factory service manual.
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