Polished Tri-Z Engine

[El Camexican]

Are you going to polish the engine brackets? I got lucky and found some on eBay for mine, the polished finished has held up pretty nice on both my clutch cover & brackets.

I got a few small pieces from guys on 3ww for my engine: SS sprocket bolt & collar, aluminum shifter, billet stator cover, aluminum oil cap, and SS brake pin. One of these days I’ll polish my Calfab swing arm & put it on.

Attachment 251715Attachment 251716

The aluminum mounts at the front and the head stay? Mine are buffed, but they're on the trike.

I'm drooling over the stator cover, where did you get it? The rest I can live without, but if you're looking to sell the cover let me know.

What's the story on the double nut on your swing-arm bolt?

[El Camexican]

I really like that adjustable engine stand.

Me too, they’re “almost” perfect.

I was planning to build some and started looking online to see what others had done when I ran into these from Fly Racing. If you consider the cost of the materials and paying yourself $10 an hour you can’t build them for the price. I ordered one to see if it was any good and two more as soon as I looked at the quality of first one.

I used the word “almost” for a reason. The issues I’ve encountered so far are as follows:

- The bolts provided to pass through the cases look to be 3/8” which is larger than most of our older engines used
- The mounts can’t be raised or lowered after the engine is mounted as they need to be spun in the stand. I would have preferred something that was adjustable with the engine in place. So you have to place your engine on the ground and take some measurements before you mount it in the stand. Easy enough on a bottom end, but an assembled 4 stroke would be best mounted with a second set ogf hands
- In order to get a KTM 2 stroke to mount up I had to grind some material off the mount tabs. Not a big deal, but these are not plug and play in all cases.

They’re the cats pajamas for storing bullets.

In your first set of pics, the engine in the middle has the kickstart lever on backwards, or is that a YZ engine?

Backwards on a TriZ. Just looks better that way when out of the frame.

[Shep1970]

Those cases look great! Browsing ebay right now and saw this/ figure you may have missed it or its not what your looking for, I know squat about Tri-z’s https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?m...2F263599139822

Shep

[El Camexican]

Unbelievable! There were 2 covers on eBay! I’v been looking on there for over 6 months with no dice and then this, thank you so much!!!

I bought the other one that looks more like 3WD’s. It’s used, but I prefer the look.

[Tri-Z 250]

Thanks Shep good looking out.

[Shep1970]

I’m glad it worked out.. was going to offer to try to cast a cover out of aluminum but figured he wanted to be done sanding/ polishing. I kinda figured stock covers must be plastic? I’m always looking for things to sand cast but it’s great that it worked out this way.

Shep

[schlepp29]

that's downright fancy!

[Tri-Z 250]

I’m glad it worked out.. was going to offer to try to cast a cover out of aluminum but figured he wanted to be done sanding/ polishing. I kinda figured stock covers must be plastic? I’m always looking for things to sand cast but it’s great that it worked out this way.

Shep

You figured right they are a Fiber resin plastic cover not pretty, but hold up. Just a thought but a CR500 Case for a reverse kicker setup would blow the 3WW up. Might be a joint effort between some experts but could you imagine if it was pulled off? You make the market on roller R's go through the roof.

[this old rz]

Dude...get on with your bad self! That's allot of work, I sanded & polished a Honda NSR wheel once, I had about 20-25 hr's into that...Your motor is WAYyyy more complicated. Looks really nice, be proud of your effort!

[poolieZerUK]

Nice.

I polished a clutch cover for the tri z and it was a lot of work but looked ok in the end I was thinking of doing the full engine but too much work for me.

With them being a bit weak to start with I was a bit concerned about the amount of material I was removing to get down to flat alloy that could be polished.

It's been ok up to now I think a lot of the issues with broken clutch covers is down to setting up the kicker to hit the foot peg as a stop before it bottoms out so to speak.

[El Camexican]

Nice.

I polished a clutch cover for the tri z and it was a lot of work but looked ok in the end I was thinking of doing the full engine but too much work for me.

With them being a bit weak to start with I was a bit concerned about the amount of material I was removing to get down to flat alloy that could be polished.

It's been ok up to now I think a lot of the issues with broken clutch covers is down to setting up the kicker to hit the foot peg as a stop before it bottoms out so to speak.

As far as I can figure the issue with over rotating the kicker is that you can punch a hole in the cases (not the clutch cover) The clutch cover gets broken when that weird spring that clips onto the gear and has a tab that sits in the cases gets loose.

Here is an excerpt from a very boring Tri Z rebuild thread I've been working on.

The right side cases seem to have issues over time as well, especially in the kick start return mechanism area. The most prevalent issue I’m encountering happens when the kick start lever is positioned too far back on the shaft splines, or the foot peg bends and allows the kick lever to go too far forward. When this happens the tab on the return mechanism over-rotates and punches a hole through the cases and may even get stuck in it.


The second issue, likely rare, but sure enough it happened to one of the engines I have, is that the spring clip that fits in the square hole recess in the RH case can rust to the gear and will snap the aluminum tab off the cases when someone tries to kick it over for the first time in years and the clip is stuck. Let that be a warning to anyone with a barn find Tri-Z that’s itching to fire it up. Pull the plug and try to turn the engine over with the kick lever by hand. If it resists you need to pull it apart, don’t try to turn it over with your foot. Also keep your eyes open for damaged bolt holes on this side of the cases as it has the majority of the threaded holes in it. Even if the threads aren’t stripped the cases the can crack around the holes if they’ve been overtightened.


The third and most common issue with this side of the engine is also related to the kick start assembly, but the damage occurs to the clutch cover rather than the cases. What happens is that the same spring clip mentioned above starts to wear and lose tension and becomes loose on the gear. This spring must have resistance to slipping in order to retract the starter gear to its stationary position. If it doesn’t, the starter gear won’t fully disengage from the idler gear in time to avoid the force of the running engine. This will jar the starter gear on the worm shaft before it can retract and crack the clutch cover. These spring clips are still available from Yamaha for a few bucks and should be changed out with some sort of frequency unless you happen to have an abundance of spare clutch covers.

FYI, that stator cover guy hasn't responded, but thanks just the same

[3 Wheel Drive]

The aluminum mounts at the front and the head stay? Mine are buffed, but they're on the trike.

I'm drooling over the stator cover, where did you get it? The rest I can live without, but if you're looking to sell the cover let me know.

What's the story on the double nut on your swing-arm bolt?

I got my stator cover from the 3ww shop years ago when I built my Z there was plenty of inventory. I got greenboys pegs for my Zinger and Tri Z. Also picked up some trick Tecate parts that were in stock. I had a friend put my Z together for me and it came back with 2 nuts on it.

[Tri-Z 250]

^^^Went to the link above, hit the buy it now...2days it was at my door, came with a billet spark plug end cap(for your spare fanny pack plug). The pick does show lines but really understates the look. I will describe it as a smooth finish with a flip flop vertical wave finish. If you rotate the part it has a wave like hologram look. It would not take much to if a flat polished look was more suited. I'd inquire with Mean Machine as he's on top of his eBay sales might finish it as needed.

[El Camexican]

^^^Went to the link above, hit the buy it now...2days it was at my door, came with a billet spark plug end cap(for your spare fanny pack plug). The pick does show lines but really understates the look. I will describe it as a smooth finish with a flip flop vertical wave finish. If you rotate the part it has a wave like hologram look. It would not take much to if a flat polished look was more suited. I'd inquire with Mean Machine as he's on top of his eBay sales might finish it as needed.

Put some pics up please.

Mine is "in the mail" Seller went to a three wheeler race and couldn't ship till this week. I may still get one like yours as well.

Did anyone see the 310 Tri-Z top end that was on eBay?

[NEWDUCK]

^^^Went to the link above, hit the buy it now...2days it was at my door, came with a billet spark plug end cap(for your spare fanny pack plug). The pick does show lines but really understates the look. I will describe it as a smooth finish with a flip flop vertical wave finish. If you rotate the part it has a wave like hologram look. It would not take much to if a flat polished look was more suited. I'd inquire with Mean Machine as he's on top of his eBay sales might finish it as needed.

That wave look is from a 1in cutter spinning 10,000 rpm flying across that cover at 200 inches per minute I am Mean Machine. I posted on this forum I was making these. Guess I didnt put it in the high traffic spot lol. I wish you would of seen it earlier I could of saved you 10 bucks. I charge more on ebay because they charge me to sell. 110.00 is the forum price. I actually felt bad as yours was my last one and had light light surface scratches. Thats why I threw in the spark plug holder for free. I stewed on it for days If I should even sell that one. I can be anal haha. Glad you like it!!

El camexican let me know if your deal falls threw... Im going to do another batch in a few weeks but if you absolutely need one right away I can take the one off my Z. Should take someone only about 5 min to polish to a mirror finish. BTW nice engine!