My Ramblings

I took the bike for a quick test ride round the block and it was fine. it actually cornered now that I had sorted out the tyre pressures. and the brakes all work. I gave the bike a quick look over and noticed that I hadn't marked the rear caliper bolts. (I mark each bolt when I tighten it up to the specified torque so that I can see if it loosens up. so if you look at my bikes you'll see white dots on a lot of the bolts.). As I hadn't marked it, I hadn't tightened it up fully, so I torqued it up and marked it. The bike shop I use managed to fit my in for an MOT before they went off to the Isle of Man Classic TT, so that morning, I got my gear on, wheeled the bike out of the garage, said a quick prayer (I'm not religious, but it can't hurt), and I then put my life in my own hands. I mean that even though I ride every day, I had never before done this much work on a bike. I'd changed braked pads, but never replaced the brake seals, and although I had tor...

So, I've swapped the CB750 and Z750 as the CB750 was up on the bench, but it is going to the bike shop to have a few things looked at. so now that the Z750 is up on the bench I will change the oil (as the engine has now run I want to make sure I remove any gunk that the oil has flushed out of the engine) and I'll change the coolant. The oil change went smoothly (so really, I should have been expecting trouble with the cooling system). Reading through the haynes manual, Kawasaki seem to have put a lot of thought into building the Z750 to make it difficult for the home mechanic to do a coolant change. The first instruction in the haynes manual is : Remove the fuel tank. What? why do I need to remove the fuel tank just to change the coolant? well, it's because instead of making the pressure cap (which is also used for topping up the coolant) easily accessible. it's underneath the fuel tank. right in the middle. So fuel tank off (at least I'm getting used to r...

So, I asked a friend at work about the problems changing gears, and he told me to be gentle and not to try to force the gear lever as it could bend the gear selector arms inside the gearbox. wow, my first thought was to try brute force, so I'm glad I asked before steaming ahead. So, the idea is to gently work all of the gear selector arm and gears until they are all free. How hard can it be ? So, I put the Z750 up on a paddock stand with its exhausts pointing out of the garage door. Fire up the engine and let it warm up for a bit. Now to try the gears. First is no problem. Second was okay too, so next if third, the gear I couldn't get into during my test ride. At this point I would have crossed my fingers, but my right hand was holding the front brake on, and the left was holding the clutch. maybe I should have crossed my eyes instead. Anyway here goes, foot under gear lever and lift. There was a clunk and the bike was in third gear. I must be dreaming, but if I am, I...

Okay, so we have brakes, we have lights, we have forks. Next up is a quick test ride round the block. so I put my helmet on, wheeled the bike out of the garage and fired it up. I put it into first and pulled gently away. okay so far. I tried the brakes just to make sure they wouldn't explode when I first used them (or at least for them to explode at slow speed). The brakes work. woohoo !! okay corner coming up, oh. steering is a bit of a challenge, but I made it around the corner. Okay now to try second gear, clutch in, gear lever up.... and second gear (that shocked me, but I'm getting a bit of a pessimist with this bike now) okay, trundle down the road and another corner coming up. I have to fight the bike round the corners, and I'm not sure if that's something I've done when changing the forks. Or it could just be the tyre pressure (which I should've checked before taking the bike onto the road!). okay, next gear. Clutch in, gear lever... oh, the ge...

Okay, the new vacuum brake bleed kit has arrived. Time to try it out. The kit is quite easy to put together. there is a diagram of how to attach the vacuum pump to the collection jar, and all of the pipes go on easily enough (but not so easy that they'll pop off in use). okay, so vacuum connected to one side, other side connected to bleed nipple. pump up the vacuum pressure, then open the bleed nipple. lots of bubbles and some fluid coming through, great. I had to keep an eye on the master reservoir to make sure it had enough fluid in it, but that's not too bad to do. so I keep pumping to keep the vacuum pressure, open the bleed nipple to let some air and fluid out, and keep an eye on the reservoir, topping up as necessary. After a while fluid stopped coming through to the jar. it seemed as though it was just air coming through. A closer look at the bleed nipple and I could see that there was air getting into the kit's tube even when the nipple was closed, so it...

Right, new braided brake hoses have arrived, so all I have to do is drain the brake fluid, replace the hoses and bleed new fluid through again. The new hoses went on without a hitch. the kit I ordered (from HEL) had everything it needed; new banjo bolts and crush washers as well as the hoses. It made everything simple. So I put it all back together, fill up the master reservoir. brake bleed hose onto the nearest calipers bleed nipple and start slowly pumping the brake lever. As I pump the brake lever, lots and lots of bubble appear in the reservoir. After about an hour of pumping the brake lever (and opening and closing the bleed nipple) I'm getting nowhere. Either this is going to take days, or I'm doing something wrong. My vote; I'm doing something wrong. So "To the Internet". very few people drain the brake system and then fill up from scratch. Or at least very few post about it. There are some people who use a syringe and push the fluid up from the bl...

Whilst waiting for the new brake hoses I thought that I would try to see what was wrong with the front brake light switch, so I took the switch off the bike, put a multi-meter to it (set to measure resistance) and viola, no change when I press the switch, so it's dead. New switch ordered from eBay. I then decided to take the rear wheel off and have a look at the swing-arm. And boy did it need looking at (and some work too, but I'll get to that in a bit). Once I had access to the swing-arm it looked really bad. it was basically all brown (and no the bikes colour is supposed to be black not brown). I got out some 80 grit wet and dry and started cleaning the rust off, and to my relief, it was only on the surface, so I got into every nook I could without taking the swing-arm off the bike, and cleaned it up. Of course there are places I couldn't get to so I will have to re-visit the swing-arm at a later date and finish it off. Once the rust was gone, I cleaned it up and ...