[zeiss150]

Hi there my Kawi love'n friends. Its been a few weeks since I posted. I have a bunch of pictures to post up but I'll do that on another day. I took my cafe' 650's engine apart this morning... at least the top end. I did it pretty quick (it only took me 2 hours) I'm sure some guys can do it in 30 minutes but I'm not one of them. Anyway... I got the top end off and took it to my local engine rebuilder. All he does is motorcycles. I brought him the pistons (with rings) the old cylinder jugs and the new cylinder jugs. I told him my theory that the rust in the cylinder bore was allowing oil past the rings and causing it to smoke. He looked the parts over did a little thinking and told me he thinks that the rings simply are not seating. He pointed out that there wasn't a good "cross hatch" pattern in my cylinders and the rings look like they have never been run before. So in his opinion If he just puts a really nice hone on my existing cylinder walls and if I put it back together right (a big if) then it shouldn't smoke at all.

He asked me if I put oil on the pistons and rings when I put the cylinder on. I said yeah ... just like the book says. Wrong! He say's that they should be put in "dry". If they have to much lube then they wont bite and seat. That makes good sense to me. He said I could use WD40 because that would burn off right away.

So I'm going to take his 20 + years of motorcycle engine rebuilding experience and get a good hone and put it back together dry. The worse thing that can happen is it doesn't work.

The good news is that I can reuse my head and base gaskets ....they came off totally in tact!

I ordered a few parts from Z1 today and I hope to have every thing by Friday. I should be able to put the bike back together in a few hours once I get all the parts.

Stay tuned cafe' fans

Matt-