[cash68]

Hey Guys,

I recently restored a 91 Wildcat 700, then promptly found a sturdy tree to smash it into. Here's the build/death thread:

http://www.arcticchat.com/forum/vintage-1992-older/344468-1991-wildcat-700-budget-build-thread.html

Anyway, I learned a lot, and after weeks of looking for another one, I gave up and bought this:

It's a 1999 ZR600, with a 2000 hood. There is some play in the steering, the key switch/kill tether is missing, and the kill switch has been bypassed. The engine has been rebuilt, and has over 130psi on both cylinders. The carbs were removed and replaced with flat slide mikiunis with a manual choke. It's also currently running premix, which is the first thing I'm going to tackle. I'll try to document everything I do to it, like I did with my last sled. More pictures and updates tonight. Cheers!

3/5/14: Maiden voyage! Woah. This thing is easily as fast as my old wildcat... probably because it actually has traction. However, I noticed the alignment is off. That needs to get fixed, because it's kind of annoying to drive. Anyway, the big issues:

- IDLES EXTREMELY HIGH: this thing has flat slide mikuni carbs, but it hangs at high idle. Once I got it to settle down, somehow, and it was idling nicely at around 1000rpms, but as soon as I gave it a little gas, it slowly climbed (by itself) up to about 3.5k-4k rpms and just sat their revving. Not sure how to fix this, as there is definitely an idle screw that controls both carbs at once.

- Oil injection: The guy was running premix. He said he had no idea if the oil injection system worked. I put oil in it. And premix. It smoked a lot. The oil went down. I think that means it works. What I'm concerned about is the carbs with the oil pump. If the carbs 'hang' open a bit, that's lots of fuel.. but if there's no throttle, that means not much oil, which means lean which means death which means NO. So how do I go about fixing this?

August 19, 2014: Alright alright alright! Getting pumped for this season, got a new to me ENCLOSED trailer:

Ordered some green ski loops (used) on ebay for $22 shipped, and ordered a new carb boot from partspitstop.com, they had the lowest price by far ($63 compared to $85-110 from other places), I also used a coupon code YTYAMAHA to get $5 off.

I also picked up some black magic twin pipes and a clutch kit! Stingers too!

I spent a few hours cleaning up under the hood, this thing was filthy and CRUSTY. What do you expect from an $800 sled? I sprayed everything with degreaser and used a wire brush, then used brake clean. It's looking a lot better:

Here's a shot of the front suspension, just to show you how crusty it is. It'll look a lot better in a few weeks.

I got the old seat off. The seat riser I bought on ebay doesn't fit, and is way too narrow to use. That sucks. Here's the new seat sitting on the gas tank, haven't started cutting anything to fit yet.

So my tunnel looked like total ass, as the paint was just peeling off everywhere. Scrubbed it with a wire brush, used compressed air, tried to get all the loose stuff off that I could. Hit it with brake clean, and wiped off:

2 coats of duplicolor wheel paint, and 1 coat of clear:

Not really a great paint job, but I don't care that much. I'll be painting the front suspension this same color, should look pretty sharp. Also, I noticed my tunnel has a build date of 1997. This explains why it still has the old style rear grab bar, and everything is kludged together. What I'm worried about is the front suspension, as I googled shocks specs that said a 2000 ZR600 has 17" CTC spacing on the front shocks, but what I have looks more like 14". The new shocks I have are 18". I'm not sure if they'll work or not, but what I have is definitely shot.

Used a sawzall to remove the storage area in the back. I left part of it there for now, I'm hoping I can use that to help mount whatever taillight I wind up installing.

I then pulled the staples off the new seat, and peeled back the vinyl. Test fit, marked it, and starting to trim:

After trimming it a bit more at a time, it's starting to have a decent shape. I'm going to be making some black plugs for the sections where the seat does not extend into:

Okay, here are some more updates:

Finished rebuilding the carbs. What's weird is I still can't tell exactly what these are. I've scoured Mikuni's website but I think they're custom carbs made for cat by Mikuni, because the TM38s and TM40s you find online don't look like this.

Stripped to the body, soaked in chem dip, new jets, sandblasted linkages and springs, painted the linkages flat black

Polished the caps and spacers, new black hardware, and made the idle screw lime green for visibility.

Painted the crusty carb clamps too. Engine is starting to look a lot better.

I'm wondering how the fuel line routes from the gas tank to the pump. Right now the fuel hose was ziptied to the steering shaft, is that correct?

Sandblasted the traction pads, sprayed them white, then green, new rivets.

New grips from a BMX bike, love the diamonds on them, way cool!

Tore into the front suspension, everything is so corroded. Ugh. Surprisingly the lower control arm is very loose, but the upper one is very tight. I tried removing the upper one but the bolt isn't coming out at all. Going to be painting everything very soon, then putting everything back together.
I wound up using a cutoff wheel to get the spindle off. Ordered new hardware from countrycat, also ordered the stupid brass choke adaptors that I needed. $20 each for a small brass threaded part is borderline criminal, but okay.

Seat took way more time then I thought. Used nylon webbing and pop rivets to make the front mount.

After a LOT of trimming, it was getting close. I decided to try to mimic some of the existing design language of the seat's aesthetics. The electric trimming knife worked awesome, and yeah, huge mess!

I'm trying to avoid spending money on actual upholstery work, so I cut the vinyl, rolled the edge, and glued with pliobond. No idea how it will hold up though. Here it is almost fully mounted:

It was a pain to get the belt off, there was barely any clearance between the clutch and the bodywork. I checked the motor mounts, and sure enough, one was toast. I took it out and realized it was a melted motor mount with stacked large washers on top of it, wrapped in electrical tape. Who does **** like this? LOL.

I reused the BMX grip flanges around the spark plugs. They're silicone so they shoudln't melt, and they look kind of cool. The studs on the exhaust manifolds were 3 different sizes, but all the studs were identical. Again, WTF. Threw all the hardware away and used some stainless washers and stainless freakin' ACORN NUTS for added bling.

Removed the belt cover, forgot to get a before big put it was pretty beat/rusty looking. Sanded, sprayed with the same charcoal metallic as the tunnel, then clearcoated:

After that, I tore into the front suspension. The front a-arms had a lot of rust, to the point where they wouldn't even flop downwards when disconnected from everything. Note the upper a-arm frozen upwards:



Total costs so far:

SLED: $800
Green Ski loops: $22 (ebay)
Carb Boot: $70 (partspitstop.com)
Mikuni Choke Cable Kit $9.73 each (amazon) WRONG CARB ARGH
Black Magic Twin Pipes + Clutch Kit $100 (craigslist) DIDN'T FIT
2012 Proclimb Shocks/Springs $145 (ebay) DIDN'T FIT
2008 M8 Seat $70 (ebay)
New Fuel Gauge $20 (ebay)
BMX Cardinal Grips $7 (ebay)
Front Motor Mount $16 (ebay)
Magnum 6" snowstuds carbides $68 (ebay)
Tie Rod Boots $7 (ebay)
Choke cable fitting: $17x2 (Countrycat)
New front suspension hardware: $25 (various)


I'll update this list as I go.

 

[hiusken]

i seen your wildcat thread that really sucks man after all that work!
what are your plans for this ZR600?

 

[cash68]

Plans are to tighten up the steering, fix the oil injection, and RIDE it. Over the summer I might make it cooler looking, IDK yet. Still bummed about Sir Wildcat's passing.

 

[hiusken]

should keep the motor out of the wildcat and swap it into the ZR chassis

 

[GregB]

Plans are to tighten up the steering, fix the oil injection, and RIDE it. Over the summer I might make it cooler looking, IDK yet. Still bummed about Sir Wildcat's passing.

IMO that is all I would do to it. BTW those sleds are known for sloppy steering.

 

[Zrt1200]

should keep the motor out of the wildcat and swap it into the ZR chassis

X2, The 700 has a lot more power than that 600 ever will.

 

[hiusken]

the wildcat motor is pretty much the same motor the 94ZR700s have

 

[Zrt1200]

Its the same engine, The cases may have the mounting bolts locations changed though?? Other than that they are the same unless you are talking EFI.

 

[hiusken]

there the same engine but cases cylinders crank and cases are diffrent well diffrent part numbers anyways

 

[mopar4u]

Buy spare stators for the 600

 

[hiusken]

ive heard the zls and zrs have motor and clutch problems
is that so?

 

[cash68]

3/5/14: Maiden voyage! Woah. This thing is easily as fast as my old wildcat... probably because it actually has traction. However, I noticed the alignment is off. That needs to get fixed, because it's kind of annoying to drive. Anyway, the big issues:

- IDLES EXTREMELY HIGH: this thing has flat slide mikuni carbs, but it hangs at high idle. Once I got it to settle down, somehow, and it was idling nicely at around 1000rpms, but as soon as I gave it a little gas, it slowly climbed (by itself) up to about 3.5k-4k rpms and just sat their revving. Not sure how to fix this, as there is definitely an idle screw that controls both carbs at once.

- Oil injection: The guy was running premix. He said he had no idea if the oil injection system worked. I put oil in it. And premix. It smoked a lot. The oil went down. I think that means it works. What I'm concerned about is the carbs with the oil pump. If the carbs 'hang' open a bit, that's lots of fuel.. but if there's no throttle, that means not much oil, which means lean which means death which means NO. So how do I go about fixing this?

 

[GregB]

3/5/14: Maiden voyage! Woah. This thing is easily as fast as my old wildcat... probably because it actually has traction. However, I noticed the alignment is off. That needs to get fixed, because it's kind of annoying to drive. Anyway, the big issues:

- IDLES EXTREMELY HIGH: this thing has flat slide mikuni carbs, but it hangs at high idle. Once I got it to settle down, somehow, and it was idling nicely at around 1000rpms, but as soon as I gave it a little gas, it slowly climbed (by itself) up to about 3.5k-4k rpms and just sat their revving. Not sure how to fix this, as there is definitely an idle screw that controls both carbs at once.

- Oil injection: The guy was running premix. He said he had no idea if the oil injection system worked. I put oil in it. And premix. It smoked a lot. The oil went down. I think that means it works. What I'm concerned about is the carbs with the oil pump. If the carbs 'hang' open a bit, that's lots of fuel.. but if there's no throttle, that means not much oil, which means lean which means death which means NO. So how do I go about fixing this?

air and fuel screws on the side of the carbs. Also check the boots for leaks. That big screw on the top is more of a throttle stop. screw that out of the way until you get the idle to quit hanging then use the big screw on the top to fine tine the idle rpms.

 

[cash68]

3/6/14 The boot had some tears, so I fixed it with some electrical tape. Here are the carbs:

As far as I can tell, they don't have an air screw at all. They only have a fuel screw, located on the bottom/rear of the carbs (looking down the intakes). The fuel screws were 1.5 turns from bottoming out, I turned them to 2 turns but nothing really changed. Unsure of how to proceed.

 

[cash68]

Also, the alignment is really bad. The sled tracks straight, as long as you have the handlebars turned to the right about 10-15 degrees. I read up on aligning the skis, but the problem is I don't have any more room for adjustment. Can I simply take off the tie rod ends, and shorten the threaded control arm? It seems like that would solve the problem.

 

[FrozenTows]

There is a drag link adjustment attached to the steering post.

However, if it's that far out, something may be bent. Will need to drop belly pan, and remove the pipes, to access this adjustment.

I would not consider trimming the tie rods.

 

[axlr8]

if there are tears in the boots between the motor and the carbs, electrical tape will NOT fix that... Sounds like you have an air leak somewhere. I would make sure you dont before you keep riding it!!

 

[GregB]

also check to make sure your throttle cable is not too tight. that will cause the idle to hang

 

[cash68]

Well, it turns out the handlebar/steering shaft was bent. After I had the sled tied down I just really wrenched on the handlebars and bent them back straight. Works fine now. >shrug<

Anyway, can anybody ID these flat slide carbs? I'm new to flat slides, but I'm pretty sure one of them just got a stuck float. Gas was puking out the vents like crazy of the right side carb. Turned it off and going to try to rebuild this week. Cheers!

 

[109jb]

What was bent was the weld on the steering arm. I had it happen on my zr. It will go back to where the bars are crooked the first time yo hit something with the skis. It is right where frozen tows showed in his picture. I had to get mine out. It had a broken weld but friction made it work somewhat. Finally got it out an rewelded it.