OK guys, it's been nearly a week and I'm ready to talk about it. My next post was supposed to be in SVA section, with either news of a pass or a fail. But things didn't all go quite to plan.

I finished the car week before last, drove it about 2 miles to a local garage, where it failed it's MOT. Only on one item, that there wasn't enough thread showing after the nylocs holding the front mudguard brackets to the hubs. I drove it home, changed the bolts for longer ones. Drove back up to the garage, where I got my MOT certificate.

Then Chris_R and I spent all afternoon on Sunday applying trim, nut covers and finishing all the little jobs that needed doing before the SVA.

Sunday night I checked the oil, water, battery etc and put it away for the night.

6.45am on Monday morning I jumped in the car, with my bag of trim, tools, flask etc ready to go to my SVA at 7.30am on Monday morning.

I didn't get very far, about 3 miles to be exact, before the engine blew. So I didn't pass and I didn't fail, hell I didn't even get there.

So at about 7am on Monday morning, sat by the side of the road, I called the AA and cancelled my SVA. The AA guy came out, took one look at it and called a tow truck. The tow truck guy arrived at about 9am and by 10am I was back in my garage.

I have now drained the engine and taken it out of the car (thanks Chris_R and SteveB).

So, fellow Locostbuilders, I'm after three favours:-
1. Anyone know anything about rebuilding Kawasaki engines? Or can recommend anyone to do the work?
2. If anyone sees a ZZR1100 engine kicking about, please let me know. I already have my eye on Ebay and Bike Trader, but anything else that comes up please let me know.
3. Does anyone want to buy a 70kg aluminium paper weight??

Cheers

Mike

P.S. It was looking quite nice last Sunday night.

Finished

Bad luck mate

What went wrong with the engine?

Have you tried Colibriman?

Cheers

Mark

Oh t*ts
What exactly happened to the engine? I've had ZZR1100 bikes and in my experience it will be cheaper to get another engine as spares are expensive.
Best of luck. I'll keep my eyes open.
Cheers
Jon

Ditto the above comments regarding your feelings... you must be pretty 'fed-up'.

It would be interesting to know what happened to the engine and whether it is a reliable option for us BECers... for the future. Good engine in a bike but is it in a car? Any input would be appreciated... for what it's worth our ZX12R maybe be finally sorted with regard to the cooling problem... maybe IKYP

ive got a spare zx9 if thats any use Though it might be too much trouble changing it at this late stage.

Cheers lads, sick as a chip, but nevermind.

Colin is on the case already.

As for what went wrong with the engine, frankly I have no idea. It was running fine one minute and then started making a horrible grinding noise. At first I thought it was the propshaft grinding on the tunnel rail it was that bad. I pulled over to the side of the road and put it in neutral, but the noise didn't stop. Then I hit the kill switch.

I'll be honest in that the engine is a black box to me, never been inside one and don't know what I'm looking for.

So far I have taken the engine out of the car, taken the starter and alternator off, drained the oil and taken the right hand cover off. If I put a big spanner on the big nut I can still rotate the engine, all the valves go up and down, in the right order. However there is a point of resistance on each turn of the spanner. Is this compression or more likely a bearing? No grinding noise from the engine whilst turning by hand.

Help

Mike

Was the clutch working? The resistance sound like compression, take the plugs out and spin it on the battery to see where the noise is coming from. If it's knackered you can't do it much more harm but if it's clutch damage it should fix.

Yes Pete clutch was working OK, when I drove it about it was fine anyway, no stalling or creep at the lights.

I think I might have found the problem!!

I must have made a mistake in the wiring harness, that left the starter constantly turning when the engine was running, rather than being on momentarily. I didn't notice it was running, over the noise of the engine. Any electrical wizards fancy tearing my loom out and starting again?

My local breakers has a spare starter for £45 so I'm off to get one on Monday. In the meantime I've got to sort the loom out and put the covers back on and the sump back on. Then all I've got to do is put the engine back in and see if it works?? Refill the oil, refill the coolant, wire it back up etc.

Mike

jammy git really

Good to hear, bet you're smiling now. I'll come over on Mon and help you put it back then?

Also have some vinyl swatches for you to have a look at, see if there's anything you like.

I can confirm Kawasaki engines are strong units. The sidecar boys love 'em too! If you ever have a look at a drag racing catalogue, the vast majority of the longevity/strengthening parts are for the Suzuki engines. Most of the Kawasaki parts are just tuning parts.
I've given a couple of ZZR11 engines a woeful amount of abuse and the couple of problems I had with them were down to my stupidity/negligence.