ZX10R rebuild thread

haaammit

haaammit

haaammit

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Joined
22 Aug 2010
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On the Wagon-East Angular
Well hi all. If peeps are interested I thought it might be fun to do a rebuild thread for the 10R that I binned last week at Snet. I went in too hot into Riches which is a right hander at the end of the start/finish straight at Snetterton with cold tyres + too much lean and low-sided the bike. The slid over the track, bounced over the curb, dug in and then flipped and landed on the left side. Here's the first pics of when I dropped the poor old girl off at my place.











Not a pretty sight. She's now in my workshop - more pics to follow in the next post
 
All the broken parts are pretty much off, with the exception of the battery tray and a broken off fairing mount fastener. I had to bend the crash bar up to get it out. There's an oil gallery behind that oily mess in the timing pickup area - I'm going to have to drop the sump to clean it out. I'm assuming I'm really going to have to take the valve cover off to fully check no grit made it up there?













 
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Parts deffo needed thus far:

Fairing bracket: 110541905
Ram Intake: 390450035
Light cluster: 230070101
Engine Timing Pickup Cover 140910860
Coolant Reservoir: 430780050
Rear Fender: 35023011727G
Coolant Pipe: 391920089
Engine mounting bolts to replace the removed crash bars - haven't found the part number for those yet!
Indicators

New end can and pipe

I've ordered a pattern engine cover for £30 and a very kind person has sourced me the coolant reservoir ( <3 )

Then ofc I'll need a fairing kit, which will be a Chinese one and either a repaired tank or a replacement tank + paint. Then like a million other bits and bobs I've missed

There's no obvious twists or impacts to the frame, forks or swing arm, so all in all pretty lucky. Mirrors are all intact and work fine, indicators not withstanding!
Clutch cover will need removing and repainting, as will the stator cover on the other side (might buff out though tbh)
 
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@haaammit this is the technique I was gonna use on the ZZR before I lost interest. It looks like it actually works quite well.

The materials are acetone and the powder is acrylic powder, don't spend £lol on those "kits".

You can find acrylic powder for buttons on Aliexpress.

 
Ye, the fairings are gna be 500 and I've budgeted 500 for the tank and then easily 500 in random parts. tbf, there's no real rush on this one.

So, today's "challenge" - I need to drop the sump, to drop the sump you have to remove the exhaust, to remove the exhaust you need to remove the radiator. To remove the radiator you need to remove the airbox.........fml. Did all that, although the lower mount for the rad had to be hacksawed through as it was seized to buggery! Then on to the exhaust......the nuts are meant to be 12mm - the 3 that are left are anything other than 12mm (I belted a 10mm socket onto one of them lol). Suspect the headers have never been off! A few others have sheared off, couple studs have unwound, I'll replace all the studs anyway, but the issue is these three remaining "nuts". They've been plusgassed, but they are mullered. Best way to tackled them? The sheared off ones, once the headers are out will probably come out with a pipe wrench/stillson once there's more room to move, but ye. I know there's easy-outs for broken bolts but I'm sure there's like a cap that goes on knackered nuts and does the same type of thing to remove them.

Ideas? Small dremmel and cut them off? Harsh language? Mole-grips? (one of my most hated tools tbh). There's not much room with the headers there. ta everso!!

 
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Sooooooooo - I bought some nut extractors and a blowtorch and got to work on the 4 remaining mullered nuts. They actually came out pretty easily. I do still have 3 snapped studs in place.......but that's a future problem:

With the exhaust out of the way I could now drop the sump. Quite a bit of contamination in there (about a teaspoon)and a little crack that I somehow missed!!! There is debris up inside the case, but very little in the oil strainer. I am going to cut the filter in half tomorrow, but it's looking quite likely that the grit hasn't made it into the lubrication system, BUT the engine is going to need to come out to be sure to as a minimum flush all the crud out. Whilst it's out (and no obvious issues) I'll also do the valve clearances. There has been a niggling 1st-2nd gear under WOT issue where she would sometimes hook up second for like half a second and then jump into a false neutral, so will address that as well.

There are a few sparklies in the oil I dumped out of the filter, will check tomorrow if they're magnetic or not.

Still no obvious frame or fork damage, my blimming headstock stand doesn't have a large enough peg, so one of those is on order so I can remove each fork and check.

So on to the job of getting the lump out! I had allowed 3 months, but this will now take more like 6 I reckon and to be fair I've forced myself to take it slow and steady and not burn myself out on this new project - will add updates as I go along!

Shagged Nuts:


Teaspoon of grit and a tiny crack:


Oil strainer inlet:


Oil strainer outlet:


Lump of crud near the bottom of the crank:


Contamination behind a gear:


Stripdown time then!!:


 
Quick update. Took the oil filter off and got it apart. No metal paste!!! Hurrah!! A few flakes from the ground casing, but it's looking good. Spent a couple of sessions getting everything disconnected ready to drop the lump - just waiting on getting my frame tool back tomorrow to continue, but everything is all off ready.

Also pulled the forks to check they're straight - yup, all good. So, all in all, things are progressing well. Slow and steady for this one, there's no rush and I want to do it right! Not many pics, although I have got loads and loads of all the wiring/hoses etc etc for future reference!

Flakes, no paste!


Straight forks - noice!!
 
So a little update. Took the valve cover off and there's good and bad news. Bad news is the contamination has clearly made its way up there. Good news is that the engine must have stopped running as there is not a mark or gouge on any of the cam lobes that I can see. I'm guessing the lower cover wore through, the bike cut out then became airborne and landed, shaking all the crap up there. Or down there depending on what mavity had to say about the subject at that particular point in time. So - the engine will require a complete teardown to clean, but the signs are looking good. However, before I invest ~60 hours in an engine strip and rebuild, for peace of mind I do want to get the frame checked.

There is a local engineering company called C S Engineering that I called on Friday. Initially he seemed less than enthusiastic, until I casually mentioned that the engine was already out of the frame. He then became much more animated. Looking at £80 for a check - obviously rising should there be any issues that I want sorting. A very low outlay considering imvho. Dropping the frame off hopefully 22nd.

Spent today getting the rest of the stuff off the frame ready for checking. I'm pretty sure now that this is going to be a full resto, so fresh paint all over as well, unless I can be convinced otherwise. All the stuff thus far is in boxes for cleaning, but I've not done anything other than get the frame ready - no point if it's boned tbh. Few pictures from last couple of days. Thank goodness I have my own space to do all this and store all the stuff as well.

Yup - crap up there!



More debris and an undamaged lobe



More shiny lobes - look good tbh



Apart from the crap - looks good



Wires? Yes. Lots.



Not much of that left!



Forks back on to roll about



Boxes and boxes of bits!!!

 
Great thread! Following!
Are you still struggling with the studs in the head? I used a mig and just welded some nuts on mine, and wound them off. I had never welded before, and used an £80 gasless MIG to do it :D

I have used that approach on MANY bikes now, works great!
 
I'm hanging fire on any engine work now until the frame comes back next week and will then tackle the studs as part of the engine strip.

I don't know if enjoying it is the right word. I could do without having to do it, that's for sure, but I'm pretty certain I'm going to have one very clean and minty fresh gen 3 by the time I'm done. What I *AM* enjoying is having my own space, indoors, with my tools to do it all. Previous stuff I've either had to do outside, which royally sucks ass, or had to do at my parent's place, which I could only go certain times, only spend so long, didn't have my own gear there etc etc etc.

I'm still not 100% certain I'll get away with just a strip, clean and rebuild on the lump - won't really know until I fully get the cams out and crank to check bearing journals etc, but judging by the state of the bits I can see, I'm pretty hopeful tbh.

It's all within my skillset (let's face it, it's just a big model really, innit?), I just didn't really want a big summer project this year, wanted to be riding the damn thing. At least I've still got the ZX-9R whilst the 10 is in bits, although she needs some love too, which was pencilled in for this summer!!!
 
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