Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

The place to put pictures of your pride and joy - you can also post pics of your KR if you want!
User avatar
JanBros
Avgas Sniffer
Posts: 3306
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:50 pm
Location: the land of Francorchamps

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by JanBros »

swap over the stator to. it has seperate windings for the ignition which are known to fail often.
My ultimate goal is to die young as late as possible !
Coose
Heavy Smoker
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:26 pm
Location: Not far from York

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by Coose »

Yep, I measured the resistance of the two stator windings. Red-white is fine, red-black should be 100-200 Ohms. I'm getting 25 MOhms. Annoyingly I don't have an M27x1.0mm LH puller, pretty-much everything but!

Luckily a friend has a stator in his stash of spares so I can pick that up this week to get me going until I source either a new replacement or get mine rewound. Does anyone have any recommendations?
User avatar
martin
Premix Junkie
Posts: 1610
Joined: Sat Jan 13, 2007 10:35 pm
Location: luton,beds

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by martin »

Don’t waste your time getting the stator rewound( as it will cost the same as a new one)£

Go on to wemoto and buy a new electrexworld stator
current bikes
fully restored green/white kr1 b2
Coose
Heavy Smoker
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:26 pm
Location: Not far from York

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by Coose »

Cheers, I did look on the Electrex World site earlier but couldn't see a KR1-S stator, but Google helped. I shall get one ordered.

As the loom was already butchered (with a few wires just chopped and not insulated!) I've taken advantage of this and removed anything that it doesn't need.

Image
User avatar
JanBros
Avgas Sniffer
Posts: 3306
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:50 pm
Location: the land of Francorchamps

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by JanBros »

martin wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 12:33 pm Don’t waste your time getting the stator rewound( as it will cost the same as a new one)£
I've done it once myself and it is still running.
originaly it has 3 thin wires wounded in parallel. I did just 2 slightly thicker. I never managed to come close to the resistance needed, but it works anyway. and still does, after years.
My ultimate goal is to die young as late as possible !
Coose
Heavy Smoker
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:26 pm
Location: Not far from York

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by Coose »

The loom is now rationalised so that all superfluous wires are now removed. I've never seen so many joints in a standard loom, but at least unlike Yamaha Kawasaki decided to crimp rather than solder...

Electrex stator and flywheel puller is on order and I have the CDI ready to test on the pink kr1 hopefully this week at some point. Fingers crossed....

Image
Coose
Heavy Smoker
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:26 pm
Location: Not far from York

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by Coose »

The stator arrived yesterday, the puller today. The flywheel came off with no dramas, just to expose a stator that has had the generator windings removed. It makes me wonder if one of the exciter coils had been nicked when this occurred, but then the standard stators are weak and this one was quite scabby.

So on went the new stator with a battle to push the wires behind the clip that keeps them away from the flywheel, but within minutes we had sparks and not long afterwards we had life again.

Fingers crossed there might be an MOT tomorrow....
Coose
Heavy Smoker
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:26 pm
Location: Not far from York

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by Coose »

MOT passed this morning! 8)

I need to fiddle with the suspension as it's still an unknown quantity, but other than some numpty forgetting to plug in the temperature sender it's going grand! It seems to carburate well but I'll get some miles on the new plugs so that I can do a decent plug chop or two so that I know what's going on.

I'm a happy man so far!

Image
Coose
Heavy Smoker
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:26 pm
Location: Not far from York

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by Coose »

Today I came to the conclusion that the design of the ZXR400L forks that are residing in my KR-1 is dreadful - Richard Maxton is absolutely right with his description of the rubbish rebound control.

I also came to the conclusion that the Maxton stickers on my forks are exactly that; stickers....

So, does anyone have for sale a set of ZXR400L forks that are already fettled? I would like to get them sorted before Cadwell at the end of the month, otherwise I'll just put up with them for now and decide who to send them to afterwards.
Coose
Heavy Smoker
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:26 pm
Location: Not far from York

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by Coose »

Having got a few miles on it now a couple of things came to light. The thermostat clearly works but the temperature did wander around a bit, so the postie kindly delivered a nice shiny YFZ450 quad radiator.

Image

Now, that was all well and good but before I fitted the radiator I did notice that it was pushing out a little water. I changed the white makeshift header tank (a contact lens solution bottle) for a clear one (a shower gel bottle) and you could see it pushing coolant with frequent bubbles...
I was hoping I'd get away with it, but on today's test run with the new radiator and a proper header tank it was blowing bubbles like a soda stream!
So, off with its head....

Image

Yep, that's a dry pattern head gasket...

As we all know you cannot find a genuine gasket now, so in went a new pattern gasket with a smear of Hodnabond (thanks for the tip, Martin!). Hopefully it'll hold for Cadwell this weekend, though I'm hoping I can dodge the showers tomorrow and have a spin around the block. I have ordered another gasket set to be on the safe side, which will hopefully be here before the weekend. It's not really what I wanted to have to deal with so close to this weekend, but hopefully it's good to go.
It did give me a chance to look at the pistons and bores, which look pretty good with a lovely clean squish band and a ginger nut centre. I probably could get away with dropping off the filter socks to lean it up a little but I'd rather keep it safe....
Luders
Avgas Sniffer
Posts: 3926
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2010 11:29 am
Location: Oxfordshire

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by Luders »

Have you checked the head isn't slightly warped? Since when have they stopped selling genuine head gaskets by the way? Also, did you loosen the base nuts off?
Coose
Heavy Smoker
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:26 pm
Location: Not far from York

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by Coose »

Luders wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 6:14 am Have you checked the head isn't slightly warped? Since when have they stopped selling genuine head gaskets by the way? Also, did you loosen the base nuts off?
I wouldn't like to say that the head's perfectly flat, but as it's Cadwell this weekend I'll suck it and see.
The barrels look to have been skimmed, where the fact it's running three base gaskets under each backs that up, and they seem to be level.
Also, the point where the gasket has gone doesn't make me think it's an issue with mismatched barrel heights, just the usual pattern gasket failure. Yesterday it was also weeping externally on the front corner of the outer edge of the right cylinder, but that was between head bolts at a point where the gasket is most narrow, and I'd just been giving it the beans....

I did consider slackening the barrels but due to a lack of time I didn't want to disturb another set of gaskets and cause another problem, but if it goes again on Sunday I might just have to....

Nobody has a genuine head gasket in stock it seems. There was quite a long discussion last month on the Facemuck where various people had found stock listed at Corby Kawasaki, only then to receive a refund.
Cradley Heath and Fowlers both list them as discontinued so it's not looking good.
Vesrah list a kit on their website but I'm yet to find one....

Any suggestions?
Luders
Avgas Sniffer
Posts: 3926
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2010 11:29 am
Location: Oxfordshire

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by Luders »

Yeah Jarno IM'd me and filled me in on the gasket situation. You always used to be able to get them no problem.
I run Jan's billet heads, so no need for a gasket with the O rings.
Have you thought about getting one? I think he's doing another run at the request of someone, but I could be mistaken.
Coose
Heavy Smoker
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:26 pm
Location: Not far from York

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by Coose »

Yes, it's a pain....

I'm going to see how Cadwell goes and if this one holds up as I've been chucking quite a bit of money at it of late. Hopefully it'll hold out until winter and I can take stock then, though I have been looking at the billet head which would certainly cure the problem...
User avatar
JanBros
Avgas Sniffer
Posts: 3306
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:50 pm
Location: the land of Francorchamps

Re: Another newbie, never owned a KR before now but not a stranger to them....

Post by JanBros »

you can also put an O-ring in the original head arround the combustion chamber, and handle all the sealing off the water with just a smear of silicon gaskett. Have run like this for years with a head from Heiden tuning in Holland. Never had a water leak with it.
I think we need 2 more for a next batch of CNC heads.

Not once have I put a 2-stroke back together with an "oridinary" head gaskett. I put an O-ring in all of them !
My ultimate goal is to die young as late as possible !
Post Reply