Oil Pan cracked at oil plug

[Steve Northrop]

Don't buy a new oil pan. Any oil pan from a '94 and later ZZR1100 (ZX11 here 
in the States) will fit. There's plenty of them out there. As for the crack, 
I would try and pack it with something, a quick set epoxy or some RTV 
temporarily. The hard part is going to be getting the crack clean enough for 
something to stick to it while there's oil in the pan. Then I would probably 
afix some sort of absorbent material (like a "diaper" or maybe one of the 
wife's MaxiPads 8^O) over that part of the oil pan and change it every so 
often to keep the oil off the underside of the bike and the rear tire.

Steve in Western NY
'96 GPZ1100
'02 Daytona 955i
"You Can't Fix Stupid", Ron White

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ped" <pedmail at dbmail.dk>
To: "Kawasaki GPZ1100 discussion" <gpzlist at micapeak.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2007 12:52 PM
Subject: Oil Pan cracked at oil plug


>I got myself a huge problem today: While doing the oil change I (probably) 
>over tightened the lower oil plug,
>
> http://www.pedmail.dk/olieprop.jpg
>
> (the most left one of the two marked A)
>
> - resulting in a crack in the metal where the bolt is mounted. The crack 
> is tiny and barely visible, but big enough to leak oil. It has the length 
> of the bolt thread.
>
> Of course the right solution is to go and get another oil pan. Although 
> there is a considerable amount of dismantling to do it can actually be 
> replaced without taking the engine out of the frame, according to the 
> manual. However, it is highly unlikely that a new oil pan should be in 
> stock here in DK, and in the week ahead I simply don't have the time to do 
> a repair of this magnitude. So it's going to be a winter project. Now, on 
> next Sunday I'm going on an 860 km (460 miles) trip to Luxembourg, and a 
> week later I'm going to attend the 2. Alpentreffen (a GPZ 1100 meeting) in 
> Bavaria, Germany, also some 400 miles away. Is there a temporary fix to 
> this crack/oil leak that I can rely on with a fair amount of confidence? I 
> am not going to set off on a trip of that length to foreign countries 
> without a strong belief that the fix is going to hold. Could the crack be 
> welded? Or could something as simple as Loctite do the trick? Any tip, 
> trick or comment highly appreciated - thanks in advance!
>
> Ped
> '96 "Black Stealth" GPZ
> Denmark