Just drained oil, nice metal shard on sump plug magnet!

[AndyZ1R]

Latest update! After checking as much as possible without a full engine strip down, the general consensus is it may have been the remains of a previous gearbox failure, and as it ran fine before (except for the oil light) and all the usual suspect parts seem to be fine, then that is a plausible explanation.
The oil pump was worn, i had another which was also worn (one was worn gears ,the other worn housing) but combining the 2 has produced hopefully one good pump. Today, again with the help of top man Alastair, we put it back together and fired it up to see what happened. All seemed well, so i took it round the block a few times giving it a little bit of stick. Sounded ok, nothing obvious, when i got back and the bike was ticking over the oil light came on briefly again! Although it would only come on afterwards when the revs dropped to around 900rpm or lower, is that normal?
I drained the oil which looked ok, i was using my remainder of Kendall GT-1 topped up with Castrol GTX because i didn`t quite have enough and then refilled it straining it through some cloth to check for fragments. All was well, and nothing on the magnetic sump plug either.
So the bottom line is, is it normal for the oil light to come on at low revs? If so i`ll do a few more miles and another oil change using Amsoil already purchased from Debbens (cheers Steve) and just see how it goes. Would be nice to try and make it to the Ace Cafe Kawasaki day, so that`s what i`m aiming for. Plus of course racing it again this year. So fingers crossed!
Oh i`ve also now got an oil pressure gauge (Cheers Al) last used by Noahs dad, which i need to get a pipe made up for, so that i can finally see what the oil pressure is reading. Sorry for the long post!

[Padders]

Fingers crossed for you.

[AndyZ1R]

Cheers Padders, and thanks for everyone elses input and help as well.

[debben1]

Andy, Turn the tick over up or you will damage those camshafts, they really dont like ticking over that slowly, minimum tick over should be about 1500rpm, this will keep the cams from beating the surface off either the the lobes or dishing out the followers, hope to see yo at the track soon, Steve

[AndyZ1R]

Thanks for that Steve, will do, is it normal that the oil light will come on at around 900rpm? It may be that when i`m shutting off when slowing down that i push the throttle too far forward which lowers the revs too much. One other quick question, the Amsoil is fully synthetic, will that mix ok with the remnants of the Kendall?

[Pigford]

AndyZ1R, I use Amsoil from Debbens, and its mineral!?
My Z1000 used to flicker on idle sometimes, when hot. Bought a pressure gauge which read about 16psi when cold and got lower after a mile or 2, and didn't read anything when hot! As they only run a few psi anyhow, don't worry if it doesn't come on when croozing!

[Al]

Very old post;, reprise for those that expressed an interest
The drag racing activities of last year seem a dim and distant memory but the nightmare of the crumbling engine lives on. Andy's Z1R engine whilst trying to propell a fat bloke down a quarter mile in nearly ten seconds was being asked to do this with less and less bits in the engine at each meeting. Following all of the above it started with oil light problems in the previous year and continued on through spitting out bits and then the final insult; metal flake in the oil. Every weekend was illuminating. Question was how was it still running and returning ten and a half seconds without a hint of a complaint. Not even a rattle. The secret is; you need to keep some spare engine parts with you when racing and when you need them you can keep them at the right temperature by hiding them in the sump. You may or not know from other posts that this engine has had a couple of gearboxes and minor other problems. However when stripping the top end we found that on the pressure side of the oil pump in the gallery and wedged up against the working bearing surface of the cam shaft was a lump of conglomerated particles of metal stuck together with orange instant gasket. Also reading above you will see the lumps of metal with the familiar stamping on them which matches exactly the root cutting angle of the gear on one side and the coarsely machined hellical makings of the outer edge of a gear tooth on the other (inside surface of the concave newly formed part) This and it's sisters were almost certainly the tips of the gear dogs which for racing purposes were 'back cut' on the dogs. This leaves a very weak and unsupported 'tip' to the dog which would appear to snap off readily when using an air shifter and 10,500 revs/min. This not helped by the fact that the oil pump was cattle trucked and was only held in with two screws. Although those two screws did have loctite on them.
This then leaves the issue with the 1970's metal flake in the oil. I do mean metal flake too, it was more metal flake than oil. Still it kept going and still it made no bones about it. Still giving 10 and a half seconds and still making me very confused.
Poin number one. They dont mind extra bits in them, even if you store them up against a moving cam shaft or even loose in the sump.
Point number two. They dont really need an oil pump or in fact oil. They will run happily on air and metal flake.
Point number three. They are not allergic to instant gasket even if it does clogg the oil galleries.
Point number four. Any bits of the gearbox they feel they dont need they are quite happy to chew up and spit out. Or even stamp them into a new array of interesting shapes for you, for jewellery etc.
Point number five. You can lighten them for speed by removing any unnesseccary bolts. I would suggest one in every three is a good way to go.
Point number six. If your oil light (or metal flake indicator) comes on when your riding it really only can be a good sign because it demonstrates that the correct viscosity of metal flake is present in your engine which as you can see from point two above is optimal for racing.
Point number seven. Have your clutch out cover extended to allow for the fitting of a lock up clutch but do remember not to make it big enough to allow the clutch to turn when you pull the lever in. This way when the clutch slowly disintegrates it can burrow it's way out through the cover and provide you with all the metal flake you could ever need, free of charge.

All of these problems and more too numerous to mention have been sorted out with careful attention by Debbens (Andy says thanks Ray).
And one final point concludes this very lengthy message. Mikey; the answer is that the engine fully rebuilt with top end and every thing on, goes in better than the bottom end did coming out. Solution is to use a 2 ton trolley jack like a sledge hammer. If you beat it hard enough from the side it cant resist for long. You can either bash the engine from the side repeatedly with the frame standing up or if you lay the engine on the floor you can beat the frame over it. If you still want me to help with yours i'd be glad to.


P.S. in so far as i am aware, Ray found no broken components in the engine when he stripped it and re-built the whole lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AL

[london calling]

Have to say I prefer chocoalte flake to metal flake
Al,I'm glad to hear that it's all sorted and the mystery has been solved.