the Kawasaki Ninja ZX6E 600 ZZR supersport

Sep 4th, 2014 Struggling to find parts for the Fox Twin Clicker

Many hours of research sunk into this.

The clevis – lower mount – has 10mm bolt hole openings. Stock E shock bolt to pivot is 12mm so I either need to sleeve E pivot hole down to 10mm or enlarge the Fox clevis end to 12mm

Here’s some more pics. The clevis has a lot of material around it. I’d be willing to bet width was made all the same at factory and holes were bored out depending on final application. I doubt a 12mm hole factory clevis has more width than this. But a guess without confirmation. Shallowest clevis depth as seen is 9mm or 3/8″.
The measurement of clevis material north – south looking in this pic (ruler measuring other way) way is 1.25″ or 32mm.

Wondering if more sensible to just enlarge hole 1mm all around, so the shallowest end would go to 8mm of material.

The fox twin clicker eyelet seems to be 1″ size or 25.4mm. But it could also be 25mm size. It’s hard to know with micrometer gauge on hand.

Sep 3rd, 2014 Accessory 12V / cig lighter / USB connection sorted GPS

For first time verified my 12V spare leads work, and rigged up wiring disconnect extension with bullet connectors on bike side and spade type connectors for the cigarette lighter access that came mounted in battery tray. Had to remove metal screws as they were oversized and dangerously close to battery negative post.
Also tossed in a spare cig lighter to USB converter I hand on hand.
Immediately lit up LED even without key in ignition! I guess it will pull 12V without key so that’s handy but have to keep eye on that to not drain battery when bike off.
Mocked up the cable routing and GPS mount spot, settled right on the speedo! As my TomTom unit has a built in accurate speedo anyway. Should be an excellent addition for longer road trips and fun on shorter ones too.
I know a new Nikon kit will have cig battery charger cable which is excellent, and I can borrow the gf iphone cig charger cable as the std. USB plug in to cig lighter USB port won’t work on my phone. Argh, annoying Apple!!

Aug 29th, 2014 Got the Fox Twin Clicker shock just now!

Just got the shock! And here’s some pics. I was so excited…

The original Fox box was inside. A little time capsule.

Fox box

It came with the original receipt, Warranty Registration Card, and the instructions!
Receipt dated: 4/28/85 sold for $328.88 which included $2.88 for shipping.

Aug 24th, 2014 Bought Fox Twin Clicker!!!

Will be getting this delivered next week.
1985 time capsule!

Here’s the ad:

Jul 27th, 2014 GoPro mount fabricated from DIY luggage rack

Finally got my GoPro working. Rigged up a quick little mount off my hand built rear luggage rack. I put a longer bolt in the rear mount, and flipped it over, used one nut as a base, and a 2nd nut to clamp down a small 90 degree corner bracket. Works really well, a lot better than I thought. The viewing angle is pretty cool overall, and the rigid mount keeps the video from being annoying bouncy and no stupid rolling jello shutter errors like I saw before with a crappy suction mount.

Also of note! I finally got a new(er) laptop that can actually playback all my HD 720 60P and 1080P GoPro and new Nikon D5200 video footage. I am psyched!

Jun 13th, 2014 How much stuff can you fit onto a ZX6E motorcycle? “Anti-Tour” baggage lugged

About to start loading up bike to its most laden down ever test. It’s not a test actually, I have to get all this stuff there!
The “anti tour” I thought of calling it because I’m riding the bike and will be gone 4 days and 4 night, however, I’m going only about 100 miles of most of it bland riding to one location and staying there whole time.
I will be mounting back up my experimental V2 rear DIY rack for this one, my tank bag, saddlebags, rear seat loaded with gear too.
Have to carry:
Tent, sleeping bag, therma rest, tarp, pillows.
Clothes
Spare hiking boots, running shoes, flips
Tripod yes a damn tripod
Rental large camera
Wireless mic set
17″ full size heavy old laptop for media transfers
Etc etc…

Well try to post a shot of bike loaded before I leave today. Is there some “easy” way to mount saddle bags I’m missing? Sheesh.
I think I’m going to need a rudder to steer this barge…

And loaded almost and about to leave.

Yup it ridiculous!

The trip was great, I got be in the mayhem of crazy custom trucks racing through the mountains and obstacles for four days.
I also thought it might be a good idea to add even more cargo for the trip home:
18 beers (now in black duffle bag)
3 event t shirts
Large sunblock, two bags of coffee, extra food, 3 waters, fruit and Brie cheese.

Returning, Friday with rush hour looming and getting worse at 3pm, I took a longer fantastic back way route through Niles Canyon, Palomares Canyon, and Pinehurst – all regular riding spots for me. About 80+ turns. Can’t say I “hammered” turns with all this stuff on it, more like sloppy joed my way through the turns.
I bottomed the shock out twice, once hard, so I guess I am getting a feel for what being well over two hundred pounds on the stock shock must be like for others – crap. This trip it really wallowed in corners etc…

But the E was great other than that.

On the way there I rode 80 miles straight with the new bar risers and didn’t have any real wrist pain. Tried to go quickly to escape rush hour traffic and drove out of area a little to escape the awful 880 but went inland over a pass and hit 100 degrees in Pleasanton area. Yuck. I could only sort of try to not roast over 50-55 mph or more. I opened up my visor there to cool and at speed felt like a hair drier in my face set on medium. Was actually cooler to close visor.
One stop and then the rest of the 35 miles or so to get to camp area before dark and hoped to make dinner.
Free beer every night after work, campfires and worked with a buddy from a few years before, so fun trip.

Have a lot more confidence to solo camp now since i can cut my gear probably in half and know i can easily haul it with the setup I have.

Campsite was very dusty. Tried to keep fine dust out of ram tubes with tarp parked for 4 days. Large area but shared with 12 truck teams, their mechanics, entourage and welding at night. One team broke their transmission and had a new one in by next morning. Both country and western seemed to dominate the airwaves.
Many trucks flipped some 2x in same spot, a few engine fires, hydro locked motors in window high water holes, drive shaft fell off one truck in pits, broken parts, etc etc…

That black duffle kept creeping into my back on way down, very annoying. Cramming into tank isn’t usually fun but when 80 lb lump is doing it even worse.

Jun 1st, 2014 Port Costa trip and installed bar risers!

Installed Mileage 47,662. Shorter trip with the cafe 78 CB400 and Hayabusa up to Port Costa and warehouse Cafe for second visit. My arms in a lot of pain still but that’s a short fun destination.
I was wanting badly to install new 1″ bar risers but wanted to do it in the middle of a trip for most direct comparison so now was the chance.

I wanted to see if these would fit with stock cables – especially the brake line – would clear windscreen and maybe avoid tank ding finally, and be all I was hoping for better riding position as some forum peeps say they’re great.

We got to the biker bar, and two of us split a beer. I like that place. I brought the right sized Allen key and using my bike tool kit cheater extension was able to swap out the stock bolts, raise the bars and bolt in the new risers in just minutes!

Well… they are fantastic!! It’s almost like transforming it into a new bike! I can’t really over state how amazing the change is!! It’s taking a ton of pressure of my wrists. And, as a totally unexpected bonus and one that seems almost counter intuitive, it also changes my seat to knee to footpeg geometry. It makes my legs more spaced out as I’m more upright. It doesn’t seem possible but it really is. I guess it is the fact I’m more upright which puts my hip in a different position which crunches my legs up less.
All I can say is wow!!
It’s putting this seating a lot closer to the feel of a new Ducati Multistrada. And that’s great.

My body was pained from yesterday so it was hard to fully appreciate them, but it’s a whole lot better and I hope transformed my bike from a 100 miler to a 200-250 miler machine for me.