Let's see those bikes

This last weekend I added a new bike to the fleet. I found a garage queen.. A 2019 Kawasaki Z900rs Cafe, with only 154 miles on it. Price was right, so I rented a U-Haul motorcycle trailer and made the 12 and a half hour round trip to pick it up.





I was about 15 minutes from home and it was getting close to sunset. I was on a county road and there were a couple of cars stopped in the road in front of me. Not that unusual. I thought maybe some one hit a deer. It turned out to be that they were just watching a local elk herd feed on the grass on the shoulder... The picture wont to it justice but they are huge compared to a deer!!

 

She looks like a real cherry!! Love the wheels.

Yesterday I flushed all brake and clutch fluids. Inverted calipers are a pain. Gotta get the bleed nipple above the res.


Might not have to, but I get excellent, air free results.

 

Todays ride.

 

Great bike! Like new and ya didn't pay all those dealer fees.

 

Todays ride.

 

Northern, Ca

 

A nice Friday morning ride in the eastern Sierra's.

 

350ish miles today. Our friend with the Aprilia surprised us as he rolls up with his new ‘18 Multi.


One stop I noticed something shiny in my rear tire. It stayed aired up all day.

 

I took the carburetors off my bike to give them a thorough cleaning. When I took the float bowl off the second one I found a jet inside, just floating around. I checked the number on it compared to the one actually seated inside and it was richer. Then I checked the other carburetor. That one matched the floater! People do funny things. I ended up swapping it out so I at least had a matched set. I raised the needle clip one groove on both carburetors, slapped it all back together, adjusted the throttle cables to match each other and went for a spin. It’s running MUCH better now.

 

If it is still not as smooth as it could be at idle/just off idle, the carbs could need sycronized...you would need to put a vacuum gauge on each cyl (one at a time is OK) and adjust so that they are both pulling the exact same vacuum at idle...there is a screw with a spring on it in between the 2 carbs on the linkage that adjusts their relationship to each other...IIRC it is a flathead screw and has a 10MM locknut on it.


Pretty crazy someone left a "spare" idle jet in there...and didn't have them matched! (Vtwins sometimes will be jetted slightly different between the front and rear cyls...never seen it on a parallel twin though!)

 

I guess there were a couple different carburetor configurations in those years. On mine the carbs are "stand alone" without a linkage between them. As it is it idles pretty smooth at about 1200 RPM and I only did minor tweaking to the idle air screws to get it there. I did end up borrowing a vacuum gauge from a coworker, so when I have some more time to mess with it I definitely want to sync them as best I can. This is the first twin cylinder I've messed with.

 

OK, in that case you use the individual idle speed screws to sync them...and the cable adjustment for adjusting the "off idle" sync...but if idles good at 1200, and the throttle response is clean, then it must be pretty close.

 

Yeah it is running pretty clean since fiddling with it. Not perfect but fairly close. Moving the clip position on the needle made a world of difference. The last guy had synthetic oil in it which made the clutch slip, so I changed that out yesterday. It's still slipping a little bit if I really lay into it. I need to take the cover off and check the plates.... Par for the course with a 50 year old bike.

 

Run it a bit and change it again...often times over time and a few oil changes, the clutch will settle down again after having a bath in the wrong oil (and its not fried in the meantime) and just FYI, you can run synthetic oil, but it has to be spec'd for bikes with a wet clutch.

 

Cool, thanks. That's what I was really hoping for, that a couple more oil changes would get that residual crap out of the motor and straighten out the clutch. Being that the bike only has 7k on it I find it hard to believe the clutch could already be smoked. Then again, if you ride a bike wrong enough I suppose it's possible...

 

Or if you ride with all the slack taken out of the cable (in the clutch fully engaged position) that can take 'em out prematurely too...

 

Strange to find a pilot jet randomly left in a bowl? I have seen main jets more often that had been left untightened and rattled loose. Hard to say what transpired there! Raising your clips effectively leaned your mixture. Are you clipped in the stock location now? Center notch by chance?

I run Rotella non-syn in most of my bikes. The BMW used the syn version. The BMW left the nest for the last time 2 days ago. Sold.

Ride safe everyone.

 

No you didn’t!
So diesel truck oil then? Does this oil see the transmission gears? That stuff has no shear package.

 

Separate on most of the Beemers...