the Kawasaki Ninja ZX6E 600 ZZR supersport

Apr 27th, 2015 Still wrenching… Shock thoughts

Can’t get the rear tire bead to seat. what a shock. Was a major p.i.t.a. last year. Just a little bit left on one side won’t set at 55+ psi, in the sun for hours, in a hot car, and bouncing the sh&t out of it.
Also, mt regulator / rectifier wiring hook ups I happened to check yesterday… and 2 of 3 yellow stator wires were fried again. Smoked, charred, blistered insulation, and oxidized green gunk all over the connector. ugh, again, after two years – I’ve seen this movie before. Also this time, the thicker white wire was crisped too and cracked insulation.
I chopped the 3 yellow wires back another 1.5 inches or so and put on new connectors – I’m at the very limit of the wiring loom length now, so next time this happens I’m going to have to install 3 brand new (heavier – yay!) gauge wires directly to the stator outputs and run them all the way to the R/R and wrap them and tie them off. A future project I can probably put off for a little while…

My Fox Twin Clicker shock is a no go. I knew it wouldn’t go in this time. I pulled the stock shock out for the first time, and boy were those lower dogbone bolts near impossible to break free. It was an ‘event’ when I cracked them with a long cheater bar on my ratchet on the nut and my huge torque wrench on the bolt head.
Anyway, pulled the stock shock for the first time yesterday – in fact my first time pulling any shock out of a vehicle. So had I a spare shock this would be like replacing one with a new one.
But I wanted to just size up the Fox and see what bits I need to buy / mod. All the internets research in the world won’t answer these questions and I knew it.
So, I was completely surprised to see the clevis lower end will in no way shape or form ever fit this bike. That was a ‘shock’. Hadn’t though of that as an issue. And that’s going to make this so much more complicated to make work, i can pretty much forget about finding a 25-30 year old clevis end for this Fox – they stopped supporting their racing shocks ten years ago… and they are so rare now.
So I don’t know if I have to chop off the stock one and have someone weld it to a thread so I can screw it into the Fox?? I don’t know if this would even be strong enough! that spot takes all the weight and bumps.
Also, the remote reservoir must have a 90 degree offset on those hose installed – it cannot fit the way it is now. Which means pulling off the hose. Which means releasing the 200 psi nitrogen charge. Which means releasing the oil. Which means – at this point the shock has sat since 1986 – a full re-build of the shock is demanded. So a full rebuild kit, building a specialty tool to pull one thingeee out etc etc… and learning how to do that procedure from all my accumulated internets data.
At least a new proper clevis will solve clearance issues there, solve the 10mm Fox clevis hole vs. 12mm ZX6e hole problem there, and the clevis was too wide and was going to use spacers, new clevis will solve that too.
The spring on the Fox is noticeably wider, so I may have to file down part of the swing arm ‘shelf’ cutout thingee to allow clearance. It will fit up there now but I don’t know if it can move or compress and not hit. I also have a free ZX6R spring of about the same length that is slightly narrower – although still a little bit wider than stock spring.
So I will research the stock ZX6R spring and ideal rider weight setup for this stock spring, and maybe when I rebuild the Fox I will install this spring for a little more clearance.
Now I also have to solve the top mount issue. The Fox (Honda VFR purposed) shock used a 10mm bolt there, and my bike has a 12mm mount hole, and the widths of the bearing / bushings are different. So I probably need to press out the old heim bearing and install a wider opening bearing and then get the correct spacer / bushing width parts too.

So it’s going to be a lot of effort to adapt this shock to fit, and more money too… Not sure about this all. We will have to see. I know the stock shock is junk and bounces me all over and can’t handle imperfections on turns.

Apr 25th, 2015 1st Burnout! & swapped tire

Took 5 tries, but I finally got a good smoking burnout on my 1st set of Dunlop Q3 tires I had installed April 2014. These tires have about 8200 miles on them and are shot. Last year I wanted to try a burnout but instead did a chickenout. The burnout was scary fun! The best kind of fun. My heart was beating pretty fast there. It was many kinds of awesome. I’ve always wanted to do one, but been afraid…

I started the tire swap at 5:45pm. And was done by about 8:15pm. Now that ALSO included removing the new tire and re-mounting it the correct direction – I forgot to check the direction again this year, and with a 50-50 chance of being right, of course, both last year and this year I was wrong. I was irate. It was all going so well too…

Anyway, the new tire is on. Now tomorrow just have to go air it up and set the new bead – something I dread a bit.
But hey, at least this time breaking the beads was no sweat thanks to the huge wood clamps I used on loan from the Oakland Public library. Hooray!

No duct tape on hand this year, so I resorted to packing tape which was not ideal. A p.i.t.a. which instigated much swearage.

Here’s the tools I used to break the bead which was a piece of cake this year thanks to these burly clamps.

You can exploit the weakness of the bead with insane angles with the two adjusters and keep the angle force tons of pressure on the bead and it’s blam! done!

Apr 23rd, 2015 Made it through 4 day commute bad tires

Got in a little bonus ride: After work up to Pacifica and then down to Half Moon Bay, a favorite spot of mine.
I also made my first confirmed kill, as in road kill today. I ran right over the back of a poor squirrel today on Redwood coming back. I did not jam the brakes or swerve and risk a crash on my horrible tires.

That said, I got behind 3 other motos turning up Skyline off 92 to go pee, and I could not resist the temptation. I let them go, and then got on the gas and started hanging off to catch the KTM sport bike with the under tail exhaust. Was an easy job catching this guy, and after about 6-7 turns I had to say to myself “what are you doing, you have bald tires and metal showing on the rear?” “You slid the front the other day up Redwood, what are you doing?” “Stop!” I had to pull over and stop or I’d just keep going. That coulda ended in tears.

Traffic wasn’t horrible as I got out of the job at 2:41pm.
Planning my first burnout on the last remnants of my rear Q3 tomorrow!

Apr 19th, 2015 Last night the carbs poured out fuel

Last night the carbs poured out fuel when I started bike. It took awhile to start too. This is the 2nd time this has happened after I “fixed” the leak problem by replacing the last 2 old worn float bowl gaskets.
Obviously the O rings in the float needle seats are shot, or the float needles are sticking but I say, no, they are not sticking and have not been the problem.
I also have my floats set at 13mm which might be quite high, so next time in there, will lower that height to 10-11mm range.
I have to change the tires pronto too, (ugh), since they are very worn at 8100 and bald on the rear with some metal in a spot showing.