Kawasaki Prairie 700

Today I have a Kawasaki Prairie 700 in the shop.  I think this machine is about 10 years old now.  When it was new it was the flagship of the Kawasaki line with a big 700cc V twin engine with 4 valves per cylinder and overhead camshafts.  The owner of the machine thought that the pistons were "wore out", so he changed them but could not get the engine started after putting it back together.  I asked a few questions about the rebuild job and discovered that he did not know about setting the cam timing or adjusting the valve lash.

Setting the cam timing is pretty straight forward.  Take the valve covers off, loosen the cam chain tensioner and turn the crank to the timing mark for that cylinder.  Then simply rotate the cam shaft to where the timing marks line up with the top of the head.  Put the chain back on the cam and reinstall the chain tensioner.  Repeat for the other cylinder.  

The next step is setting the valve lash.  This involves inserting a feeler gauge between the rocker arm and the top of the valve stem and turning the threaded adjusting stud until there is a slight drag on the feeler gauge.  On most machine it is a quick and simple process, unfortunately on this Kawasaki the access is very limited.  The access cover on top of the head is very small and it is hard to get a feeler gauge into the correct spot, also the exhaust valves on the front cylinder are impossible to see, and hard to get your hands to.  This photo shows the screw driver on the adjuster and the feeler gauge set on the right.  That is as good a view as I could get.  I basically had to make the adjustments entirely by feel.  On the lower part of the photo you can see the small access opening for the intake valves.

Now I need to put the carbs back on fill up the fluids and see if it will start?  Hopefully the rest of the rebuld was done ok.

C.O.



Kawasaki Bayou 250

I have a little two wheel drive 2007 Kawasaki Bayou 250 in the shop today.  I like this simple machine because it reminds me of my first ATV.  Back in the mid 1980s I had a brand new Bayou 185.  That is back when everyone else had 3 wheelers and I had a new 4 wheeler.  The machine seemed great back then, but it is laughable today.  Some of the special features it had were shaft drive, reverse, and electric start.  Some of the things that were missing are front brakes and rear suspension.  It had a solid rear end, I don't mean a solid rear axle like a lot of base models have today.  The rear end was solid, no suspension other than the tires!

The machine that is in the shop today has all the modern features.  It is in the shop because of a loose wheel  It wobbled around when you drove the machine.  I looked at it quickly a few weeks ago and assumed that it had a bad bearing.  I ordered a new bearing and shaft seal for it.  When I actually pulled it in the shop today and took the wheel off I realized that the hub was loose on the shaft. 

For some reason the hub was not seated all the way on the shaft and the shaft seems to have a lot of end play?.  I'm not sure what the problem is yet, I didn't get a chance to pull the shaft out.  As you can see in the photo the splines are a little wore out on the end, I hope I can get the hub back on far enough to engage what's left of the splines. 

C.O.