KWAKLIFE

[dan]

Last year after the FXRRC season I decided it was probably time to play around with something different. Figured I'd give the old Suzie a lick of paint, try flog her off then after my o/s trip with the girlfriend in June this year - that I leave for in a week - I'd look at getting another bike and becoming a regular at the track again. Due to the old foes time and money, in 2015 I only did race days and it really wasn't enough to ever be comfortable on the bike and everything always felt rushed. I hadn't really been out much since my big crash in 2013 so that didn't really help either.

Was chatting to Kanga about my idea and how I was leaning towards going green. Kawasakis run in my family - my old man bought a Z1 new in 1972 and also had a S2 and an H1,- so we've always had a soft spot for them. In the shed, in various states of completeness, we have two H1s, a Z1, a ZX9r, ZR1100 and a 2008 ZX6R so you can probably pick up on a theme here.

Despite at this point (December 2015) not wanting a bike, having no interest in buying a bike, having no time to do anything with a bike, Mick said that a mate of a mate was selling a ZX6RR. I always really liked the undertail exhaust Kwakas and although I was never going to buy it but there's no harm in knowing what's out there, right?

Next minute...



I think I must have blacked out or something because when came to someone had loaded this onto the ute and stolen my wallet. Quite a bizarre set of circumstances, at least that's how I described it to my girlfriend.

So there I was 2 days before Christmas, with yet another bike in the shed that I wasn't in a position to use. Awesome. DB strikes again.




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[Turbo]

Hahaha, amazing!! Love the timing of it too. No cash, no time... better buy a bike!!

What are the plans for the track crossgrade?
Any issues with it as above?

[dan]

What can I say? I have terrible impulse control. Since then I've also bought a NSR150 because it was a good deal. I have a... well, problem is a pretty loaded word. I prefer 'enthusiasm'.

There are a couple of things that need work but I'll get to that later after I give a little history on the bike.

It was purchased new in 2005 (obviously), ridden for a bit and turned in a track bike by the original owner. I have all the purchase paperwork and original manual. The bloke I bought it off picked it up because he was doing days on his MV Brutale and decided he didn't want to drop it. He punted around in yellow group before coming off at T5 and parking it up. It has about 9500km on it and still had the OEM foam bits under the fairings. At one stage it looked like this:



Unfortunately, by the time I got to it the aesthetics had changed a little.





Nothing terminal but obviously a little work to do. The other issue was that it wouldn't actually start. The starter relay emitted a clicking noise that I'll demonstrate in a later post. After some mucking around we still couldn't get it to start so I was looking at a non runner that I was pretty sure had an answer but couldn't solve on the spot.

The owner had a spare set of fairings and a spare set of wheels plus some other bits so doing some math in my head as to what the sum of its parts would be valued at in the worst case scenario the thing was rooted we came to a price and I was the delusional new owner of a 2005 Kawasaki ZX6RR.





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[Mr.Ed]

The RR really was that bit more special...

[dan]

The RR really was that bit more special...

I feel like there's more to the story here. Do tell.


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[Marshy]

Great story!! And I approve of this one, despite being earlier than '08. Looks like a good'un. Subscribed to this thread

[Mr.Ed]

I feel like there's more to the story here. Do tell.


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Adjustable swing arm pivot and slipper clutch as well as reinforced engine parts to name a few... Not many of those around!

[dan]

Adjustable swing arm pivot and slipper clutch as well as reinforced engine parts to name a few... Not many of those around!

When I originally read the post I thought you may have been inferring you knew the bike, or previously owned it. I was tired yesterday. This morning I realised what you meant so my post was rather redundant.

I wasn't aware of the adjustable swingarm pivot that's pretty cool (he says as he sets and forgets...)!


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[dan]

I swore I wasn't going to touch this bike till the GSXR was gone and, to my credit, I almost stuck to that. The overlap was only about 24hrs which I figure is within the margin of error for these things. With the Suzie pushed to the side the RR took its rightful place on the 'things are getting serious' bench rather than the 'moderately interested in fucking around with it occasionally' concrete floor that a few of my other bikes tend to occupy.

Once she was sitting pretty, I cracked a beer, lit a smoke and indulged in a little light reading...



Those trying to follow chronologically will notice there is no fuel tank on the bike in the above photo so here's a couple more with her clothes off.



And who doesn't love a classic rear-three-quarter shot?



With the sheets pulled back I was able to have a closer look. All in all it doesn't look too bad. No suspect marks on the frame, no multiple years of dirt and grime and shit hiding in the dark - really just this bent piece below that I assume is used to support a pillion passenger. Will likely just cut that off as I certainly won't be needing it.

[Turbo]

took its rightful place on the 'things are getting serious' bench

Ohhhh, shit!! gloves are off!
This is looking great, Dan! Is the tank ding terminal or do you reckon you can beat it out?

[dan]

You may recall that many posts ago in this build thread (or, yesterday) I mentioned that I bought the bike as a non-runner. If you were really paying attention, and not just brushing over these posts while on the bog or trying to avoid doing any actual work at your places of employment / track token generator, you may also recall I spoke of a 'clicking' noise that I couldn't quote diagnose the cause of.

Thanks to combined efforts of my phone and the features of this forum, you can see (and hear!) below exactly what I was referring to.



My initial thought prior to purchase was that perhaps the battery didn't have enough charge in it but I shot this straight after the battery came off the charger and was showing 13.7v or something close to that which I figure should be enough to at least get her cranking.

Anyone have any thoughts? What's rooted and needs replacing?


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[dan]

Ohhhh, shit!! gloves are off!
This is looking great, Dan! Is the tank ding terminal or do you reckon you can beat it out?

Look, it's pretty fucked. Probably (definitely) beyond on my pay grade. After my trip I'll do a bit of research and see what is the best way of getting it slightly resembling the general silhouette of the original tank. I picked up another damaged green tank with the bike and I also bought a slightly dinged blue one complete with fuel pump for $50. They'll all need some love. Ideally I'll find a straight green one for cheap and not have to bother messing around with the other ones.

[Marshy]

Bog works wonders on filling up tank digs. Time consuming though.

Jeez that bike sounds musical with all the whirring and clicking. No idea what the problem is though. Starter motor? Tried (carefully) putting 12v direct to the starter motor?

[dan]

Bog works wonders on filling up tank digs. Time consuming though.

Jeez that bike sounds musical with all the whirring and clicking. No idea what the problem is though. Starter motor? Tried (carefully) putting 12v direct to the starter motor?

If I can pull the filler back into the right position I dare say I'd just bog it all up. Might start with the blue one first it's the least damaged.

The clicking is coming from the starter relay. The noise from the injectors I have no idea if that is just them priming or if it's something else. You aren't wrong though, there seems to be a lot going on it's hard to work out where to start!

[BoB]

Check the leads from the battery . ie have good earth connections to engine/frame and starter connection .Sounds like the starter solenoid . As nick mentioned 12v direct to starter to see if it turns .

[dan]

Good advice, thanks guys. I'll give it a good going over this week see if there are any obvious issues.

[Mr.Ed]

Is there a video of it? Injectors noise is prob priming as they're quite loud on the Kawi for some reason...

[dan]

Is there a video of it? Injectors noise is prob priming as they're quite loud on the Kawi for some reason...

Video a few posts above not working for you?


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[Negrogrande]

it sounds like a battery, but weird you a]getting 13.7V my car would make that noise when the battery went flat.

have you tried to bump start it? failing that I would say it is the immobiliser, on the suzy the immobilizer shit it self and I had to flash the ECU to get it to work

[Marshy]

It's a good point actually. The battery might temporarily hold a reasonable voltage, but have fuck-all amperage to crank the motor. Change the battery for a known good one. Or jumper it from a running car or bike whilst cranking.

[Mr.Ed]

Video a few posts above not working for you?


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Hmmm can't see anything on my phone... will have a look on the PC at home

[Mr.Ed]

Ok, just saw the video... half the noise is the exhaust servo and the rest is injectors and yes, flat battery. Like Nick said, not enough amps. It prob wont even bump start. Mine didnt when one of those tiny batteries was almost dead but still showed nearly 14v...

[Phat3R]

Look, it's pretty fucked. Probably (definitely) beyond on my pay grade. After my trip I'll do a bit of research and see what is the best way of getting it slightly resembling the general silhouette of the original tank. I picked up another damaged green tank with the bike and I also bought a slightly dinged blue one complete with fuel pump for $50. They'll all need some love. Ideally I'll find a straight green one for cheap and not have to bother messing around with the other ones.

Regarding dented tanks, after multiple crashes on the Gixxer tank I've had to put so much bog in there to fill it that it's becoming stupid how much is required.

I've been wondering if one of these STUD WELDER GUN / SLIDE HAMMER NAIL & WASHER PANEL REPAIR KIT FOR DENTS would be worth acquiring. (About $500 on eBay, but how much for a new tank. Hey. maybe a Tarmac Talk hire tool?). The repaired tanks I have seen for the R6 had been cut open to remove the major part of the dent, but the seal up was less than fuel tight.

The way this guy uses the tool, it does the heavy lifting and it appears minimal bog is necessary. Plus for track bikes, no need to repair to this street bike higher level.

[dan]

Regarding dented tanks, after multiple crashes on the Gixxer tank I've had to put so much bog in there to fill it that it's becoming stupid how much is required.

I've been wondering if one of these STUD WELDER GUN / SLIDE HAMMER NAIL & WASHER PANEL REPAIR KIT FOR DENTS would be worth acquiring. (About $500 on eBay, but how much for a new tank. Hey. maybe a Tarmac Talk hire tool?). The repaired tanks I have seen for the R6 had been cut open to remove the major part of the dent, but the seal up was less than fuel tight.

The way this guy uses the tool, it does the heavy lifting and it appears minimal bog is necessary. Plus for track bikes, no need to repair to this street bike higher level.

Don't have 30mins to watch the video but i think I'm familiar with that process. Now, what's the 'cost effective' way of doing it haha

[dan]

The other day I set about trying to strip some the excess materials from the rear of the bike and start thinking about relocation of some of the electrical parts to move everything 'on board' and be less likely to be damaged in the event of a crash.

First I removed the heat shield from between the exhaust and the tail section. It looked clumsy and dumb, and I can't remember anyone else running one on one of these. With this off I set about fabbing some new brackets to carry the weight of the exhaust.

Pulled out some aluminium strip and started mocking up



Seemed to work so did the same on the other side then rounded the edges off.





This is more a workshop experiment at this stage rather than a final product. I figure at the very least I should rubber mount these to give them a little room to move and prevent them snapping. Is that likely to happen? Should I perhaps just replace with some springs?

Was good fun being back in the shed scratching my head. Oh how I missed it!


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[dan]

Once I took all the body work off and had a look over the bike, a few things stuck out as probably not located in the best position for a race bike. Almost all the electrical 'boxes', bar the ECU and the exhaust servo, are positioned on the outside of the subframe on the LHS. I was looking at this thinking that if the bike went for a slide there is a good chance one, or two, or all of these things are going to get damaged. It's going to take a bit of time to work out where to put that stuff though as the bike still has the exhaust servo inboard and the wires really aren't long enough to simple move things much further than 30mm.

Once thing I could do however was relocate the rectifier. On these models it hangs underneath the side stand. For my money that was a little too exposed so after seeing all the lads with their trick KIT harnesses and the rectifier mounted just above the rear shock I got out my aluminium strip again and set about knocking up a bracket.





After a bit of trial and error, mostly to do with the battery being in the way - you can see two holes I drilled that ended up being in the wrong spot in the top photo, I got this mounted in the right spot. It bolts through the plastic undertray. Ordered a rear hugger last night to keep the dirt and shit from flicking directly onto it. Once I get some time I'll clean up the edges and paint it black so it isn't noticeable. The plug still reaches that harness so thankfully didn't balls that up haha

[Phat3R]

Noice Dan ... nothing like some 'dry shed time'.

[Marshy]

Awesome thread!! Love build threads. Nice exhaust hangers. In theory, the rubber around the inside of the muffler bracket is enough. I've certainly had side-mounted exhausts with only that allowance for vibration, with no problems. It'd depend on the bike, I guess, but it'd probably be fine.

[dan]

Awesome thread!! Love build threads. Nice exhaust hangers. In theory, the rubber around the inside of the muffler bracket is enough. I've certainly had side-mounted exhausts with only that allowance for vibration, with no problems. It'd depend on the bike, I guess, but it'd probably be fine.

I'm thinking the aluminium will flex a little as well. Might put a few mm of rubber between each bolt to give it some breathing space and see how that goes.


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[dan]

Hello all! I have an update for you.

Picking up where I left off pre-holiday (was amanzing, thanks) I got this as a non runner. Had been running, but wouldn’t start when i went to check it out.

Every time I tried to start it the starter relay solenoid would click, and the dash lights would blink.

Decided a few weeks ago that enough was enough and I was going to completely exhaust my options or just take it to someone to get fixed.

I started with the solenoid. Swapped it out with one from eBay but had the same problem. I had power going into it, and out, but it wouldn’t spin the starter motor. So I started thinking about the starter motor. Pulled that out and tested it on the battery but it wouldn’t spin. Pulled it apart and discovered that 2 of the 4 magnets inside weren’t getting power. Found a new starter motor on eBay. Put that in. Same problem.

Every time I’ve looked this issue up everyone points to the battery as the problem. So, got a new battery. Same problem. At this point I’m ready to kick the thing over. I decided to go through and test everything again. I pull the starter motor out, give it power while earthed to the battery and it spins. Put it back in, and the problem happens. Started thinking maybe it’s not earthing correctly on the engine so I clean up the mounts but doesn’t solve the issue.

At this point I decided it’s time to start pulling the case covers off. The starter gear fell out when i pulled the cover but i’m not sure if that was because the outside of the cover keeps it in place. I put it back in place then with the stator cover off hit the start button. It fires for the first time.

I put the cover back on and try to fire it up again. Problem returns.

I decide to take the stator out completely, put the cover back on, and then we have this.



Bit of a strange one…

Anyway, I can start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and hope to be out on track with this one (relatively) soon.

Can anyone see any issues with running this without a stator? I'm not really sure how total loss systems work and whether it's just a matter of unplugging or if I need to get something else in there to keep things working properly. I've no problem charging the battery between sessions would just rather not spend a couple hundred bucks on a new stator as IT STILL MIGHT NOT EVEN BE THE PROBLEM!

[Mr.Ed]

I didn't run a rectifier for like a year and it was fine... well, let me rephrase that. I did run a rectifier but it was just there doing nothing as it didn't charge sh#t so I had to charge the battery twice every track day, usually 3rd and 5th session. I did it whilst running one of those tiny LiPo batteries and it handled it like a champ (still have the battery and it still works like new!) not sure if the stock battery would have taken it so well.

Ps: Congrats on sorting that out!

[Marshy]

Sounds great!!!

Shouldn't have any issues. I ran a total loss system for a year or two when I first started racing. No alternator or starter. It was fine.

[Marshy]

Have you swapped out the reg/rec? They fail, and it might be the problem when it's getting power in from the stator.

[Turbo]

Good progress, albeit slow!!
Are there any other parts you can borrow to eliminate as a failure point before shelling out?

[dan]

Have you swapped out the reg/rec? They fail, and it might be the problem when it's getting power in from the stator.

I got a spare with a bunch of bits I picked up mid year and did try that with no success.

I was looking at it again today and noticed this:



You see the scrunched up bit at about 8-9 o'clock on the inside of the flywheel? Is it possible that was touching the stator and shorting it resulting in no start? There was the same folded metal but on the opposite side that fell out.

Swapped the tank over with one in better condition today so it's looking a bit better now. Got a few parts I'll order when some invoices come in and it should be pretty close then. Change all the fluids up, chuck some decent pads in, do all the usual checks and will have to start looking at track time.




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[dan]

Will be pinching the Nissin's off my 08 for this one. Need more shed time!

[Mr.Ed]

Hmmm that does not look good at all... then again, if you go total loss it becomes a non issue and you also drop weight and gain some hp. All free other than having to recharge the battery

[dan]

I feel like total loss is the way to go at this stage. Any thoughts on what could have caused that on the flywheel?


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[Marshy]

Yep, that'd be your problem right there. Never seen that before! How much for a replacement flywheel?


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[dan]

Just found a second hand one on eBay for about $80 delivered. Until I know what caused it I'm loathe to chuck another one in though.

I'll do a Google for flywheel damage and see if I can get any hints.


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[Linden]

Some random thoughts

Something rubbed and as it not normal for that to happen something had to be wrong

1) any chance the stator is out of round (a small short may have over heated one part and caused a high spot
2) scary idea is there is any crank freeplay
3) When you get the replacement see if there is some attachment / seem on that inner part which may have caused an issue

[Mr.Ed]

I can answer #3... nope!

[dan]

Some random thoughts

Something rubbed and as it not normal for that to happen something had to be wrong

1) any chance the stator is out of round (a small short may have over heated one part and caused a high spot
2) scary idea is there is any crank freeplay
3) When you get the replacement see if there is some attachment / seem on that inner part which may have caused an issue

I didnt initially see any damage on the stator that even looks like it's rubbed. I'll have another really good look.

I was considering crank free play but that would have to have pulled the cases apart slightly, right?

The strange thing is the damage is quite limited. You'd think the inside would be destroyed if it was touching the stator while spinning.

Maybe that lining became loose somehow and centrifugal force bunched it up?


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[Mr.Ed]

You did say the stator gear fell out... so it's not unlikely it was touching it. Whether it was causing enough heat to do that or not, I wouldn't know. And by looking at the stator cover, you can see it's been at least knocked a bit. Then again, I have the same cover and have had it on just about every bike I've owned and they're mega solid... the bolts that hold the stator gear have all to be red loctited and etc. It's pretty strange that it came loose at all.

[dan]

Sorry, the starter gear fell out - between the starter motor and the gear on the crank. Stator was bolted in tight. Starter gear - for lack of a better description - isn't bolted in merely located between two points inside the cover.


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[Marshy]

Starter gear - for lack of a better description

It's the starter clutch


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[Mr.Ed]

Oh... that makes sense then!

Also, how do you plan on removing the flywheel? I'm guessing it won't be a 2min job at the best of times...

[dan]

Oh... that makes sense then!

Also, how do you plan on removing the flywheel? I'm guessing it won't be a 2min job at the best of times...

12 beers
Pack of darts
Jukebox Saturday night on 2WS
Plenty of swearing

Haha

Actually I'm not sure. Need a flywheel puller I guess? Will removing it disrupt the balance of the crank or as it only rotates will it just reduce the force needed to spin the crank?


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[dan]

Found the out-of-round part on the stator...


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[dan]

Somewhat surprisingly my KIT ECU plugged straight into the stock harness. From everything I've read I should need an adapter when using this without the KIT harness.

I'm thinking perhaps the adapter has some pins not used on the stock plug and using some kind of electrical sorcery between the ECU and the stock harness makes things go vroom vroom in the way only KIT parts do?

EDIT: does the adapter have the plug for the USB on it for adjustments?


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