I never intended to become hooked on Kawasakis. The motorcycle fixation of my younger self was always Hondas, but when I finally got into motorcycling it was Kawasakis that kept appearing in the right place at the right time, and they've generally been good to me. To date I've owned three Kawasakis, two Yamahas and a Triumph; not a Honda in sight. After selling the Yamaha XS1100 custom project bike last summer I decided to double down on the wounded Concours which, in spite of a lot of work and money spent, wasn't sellable. When I can ride I ride but when the snow flies I tend to get busy in the garage, and this winter is no different.
The winter garage is a busy garage. The Tiger's having a rest while I work on the Concours custom. Before the spring season begins the Tiger'll have new fork oil, spark plugs and a coolant flush.
The Concours is in an unprecedented state of undress. With the rear end removed and the plastics off it looks like a completely different machine. Yesterday I removed the coolant reservoir located under the oil cooler behind the front wheel. It's going to get relocated to the back of the battery box so it's out of the way of rocks being kicked up from the road. There are a lot of after market options for a coolant reservoir, so finding an alternative that fits well in the new location shouldn't be hard. The 7 inch round headlight with built in LED indicators showed up from Amazon but I'm still waiting on the tail light. I'd initially thought of doing some kind of front fairing but now I'm going bare bones with only metal framing to mount the light and minimal instruments. I purchased some stainless steel framing and I've been cutting it into muffler mounts and the rear light fairing bracket. That rear fairing piece is going to be as minimal as possible as well. Perhaps even a box for the rear light in bare frame. Visible girder frame pieces are going to become a part of what this will look like when it's finished.
I took the instrument cluster apart to see if any of it was salvageable (it wasn't), but the insides look like something out of the DaVinci Code!
Some 90° brackets on the upper fork clamps has me ready to try some headlight mounting ideas.
After a long wait the o-rings finally came in to the dealer. I then ended up getting the wrong o-rings (it turns out Kawasaki has like half a dozen different o-rings in this carburetor). Don't expect to show detailed pictures and get any help from the parts experts either. With the o-rings and t-fittings in I was able to put the carb back together again (again). But before doing that I checked the floats one more time (they were all good), and reset the pilot screws to factory specs. As I was doing that I noticed that the needles were moving when I flipped the carbs. A quick check of the diagram showed that the spring seat goes above the pin, not below it, which I'd done (quite embarrassing really - I was tempted not to mention it, but my mistake might prevent someone else's in the future, so humility - and humiliation - first). With the pins and seats the right way around I put the carbs back together yet again. Installing it is as big a pain in the ass as it ever was, with the fitting of airbox boots being a dark art.
With everything reconnected and double checked, the carburetors were ready to go. I set the petcock to prime to put a lot of fuel in the empty bowls, hit the choke and turned it over.... and it started and idled properly! As I used to do, I eased off the idle as the bike ran higher and higher as it warmed up. After a minute I turned the choke off and it was idling at about 1800rpm. I dialed back the idle speed to 1000rpm and it was running steady.
So far so good, but the issue was applying throttle - the carbs kept flooding, backfiring rich and then killing the motor, would that happen this time? No! It's alive, ALIVE!!! This video below may be the most satisfying thing I've ever filmed.
I now have two working bikes in the garage. This has been a long and frustrating process, but I've gotten the rust off some long unused skills. I'm taking better organization, attention to detail and theoretical understanding with me as I move onto other mechanical projects. http://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.ca/search?q=concours+carburetor
If it hasn't been replaced, it's been thoroughly gone over. One carb is complicated,
four carbs is a universe of complications!
The never ending tale of Concours carburetors continues. My most recent attempt was to check the fuel amounts in each bowl and then reinstall and test (I'm getting very quick at this). Once again the old Connie coughs and backfires and dies on throttle application. The removals and re-installations have upset the old connectors between the carbs, which have developed a gas leak, so the whole thing came off (again) and is now apart on the work bench (again).
I contacted the local Kawasaki dealer for
The plastic bits that connect the carbs have become brittle and leaky.
parts last weekend, but they've been radio silent. The parts I need were easy enough to find, but maybe 22 year old carb bits aren't sexy enough to warrant a timely reply. Maybe I should have ordered them online, in spite of a number of magazines lamenting people's lack of support for local motorcycle dealers. Had I ordered them online they'd probably have been here by now. Instead I'm left wondering if I can even get these parts. The goal now is to take each carb apart, double check float depths and ensure all the internal jets and such are properly installed, then it'll all go back together again with new connecting pieces and go back on the bike (again). With any luck I'll get some sort of clue that I'm moving in the right direction. That's been the most frustrating part of this process. I make changes and there is no change when I fire it up. Whatever the problem is, I haven't come close to touching it yet. At least a fuel leak is an obvious and easy fix.
Back in August of 2014 I wanted to take a more active role in my motorcycle maintenance. At that point I'd been riding for just over a year on my first bike, a very dependable 2007 Kawasaki Ninja 650r. I learned a lot on that bike, but it was a turn-key experience, the bike needed very little in the way of maintenance. The Ninja went from flat black to metallic blue and orange. It was the last bike I rode that people commented on (I'd often get a thumbs up or have someone stop and chat in a parking lot about how nice the bike looked, which was satisfying as I'd been instrumental in restoring it from angry-young-man flat black). The Ninja was, without a doubt, a good introduction to motorcycling, and was the king of the roost for my first two seasons.
As a first bike, the Ninja led the way both on the road and at the top of the blog.
I wanted my next bike to be one that ran because of my mechanical skills rather than one that didn't need them. I found a 1994 Kawasaki Concours sitting in some long grass about twenty minutes away. I quickly discovered that sense of satisfaction I was looking for. The Concours was an eager patient who rewarded a winter of mechanical work with a rock solid five thousand miles of riding the next summer. The Concours has offered some memorable rides, especially looping Georgian Bay and riding on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. For a bike that looked like it was being permanently parked with only 25k on it, suddenly it was back in the game, going places other bikes only dream of. That busy season of long rides took its toll on the Concours though. It isn't a spring chicken and after having spent the better part of two years parked before I got to it many of the soft parts on the bike were getting brittle. I parked the Concours early and began winter maintenance knowing that the bearings and brakes both needed attention only to miss out on a late season warm spell at the end of November and into December. I took that one on the nose figuring that's what happens when you ride an old bike as your daily rider.
The header on this blog for the past eighteen months, but running a twenty-two year old bike as your daily rider makes for frustrations. Time to be less sentimental and more rational in how I manage my stable.
That summer we were touring on the Concours I picked up a KLX250 to experience off road riding, but doubling insurance costs for a bike that I only managed to get out on a handful of times didn't feel very efficient. That I struggled to keep up with traffic on it didn't support the way I like to ride. Motorcycles are open and unprotected, but they are also agile and powerful enough to get out of a tight squeeze - except when they aren't. The Concours was always there and the preferred ride, owning the road when I was on it. When I went out with my co-rider he also loved the big red Connie, not so much the rock hard, under-powered KLX (he only ever rode on it once for less than five minutes). Over the winter I put some money into the Concours, doing up the rims and getting new tires. With the rims off I also did the bearings and brakes. As everything came back together again, suddenly the carburetors weren't cooperating. They're since being rebuilt and the bike should be back together again this weekend, but instead of always being there, suddenly the Concours wasn't. As winter receded I could hear other bikes growling down the road, but I was grounded (again), even though I was paying insurance on two machines and longing to get back out on the road after an always too long Canadian winter. The KLX was the first to go. I'd never really bonded with it and, even though I always figured I'd run this blog with my most recent bike in the graphic at the top, the KLX never made it there; it never felt like the main focus of my motorcycling. In the same week my son's never-ridden PW-80 got sold, and suddenly I had some money aside.
Ready to go with a new header, but it never took.
As days of potential riding keep ticking by and the carburetor work drags on, the Concours started to feel like an expensive anchor rather than the wings of freedom. I had a long talk with my wife about it. She asked why I don't unload it and get something dependable. Keep the old XS1100 for that sense of mechanical satisfaction, but have a bike that's ready to ride. I think sentiment was paralyzing me. Hearing a rational point of view with some perspective really helped.
Many moons ago, a pre-digital Triumph
With cash in an envelope I began looking around. Before Easter we weathered an ice storm, but only two days later it was suddenly in the teens Celsius and bikes could be heard thundering down the road. Meanwhile I was waiting for yet more parts for the Concours. Online I was looking at sensible all purpose bikes that would fit a big guy. Vstroms and Versys (Versi?) came and went, but they felt like a generic (they are quite common) compromise, I wasn't excited about buying one. Since I started riding I've been on Triumph Canada's email list even though I've never come close to owning one (out of my league price-wise, no one else I know had one, no local dealer... pick your reason). As a misguided teenager I purchased an utterly useless Triumph Spitfire, and in spite of that misery I've always had a soft spot for the brand (your adolescent brain makes your teenage experiences sparkle with emotion even when you're older, that's why we all still listen to the music from our teens).
A Tiger? On Kijiji? Must have
escaped from a zoo!
While trawling around on Kijiji looking at hordes of generic, look-a-like adventure bikes I came across an actual Tiger. It was (as are all Triumphs I've mooned over) too expensive for me, but that Lucifer Orange (!) paint haunted me. Another rare warm afternoon wafted by with the sounds of motorcycles on the road so I thought, what the hell, and emailed the owner. He'd been sitting on the bike for the better part of two months with no calls. He was going down to the Triumph dealer on Thursday to trade it in on a new Street Triple and knew he was going to get caned by them on the trade in price. He emailed me back and said if I had three quarters of what he'd been asking, he'd rather sell it to me than give the dealer the satisfaction. Suddenly this fantastic looking machine was plausible.
The garage is 100% more functional than it was last week, 100% more glamorous too!
A trip up to Ontario's West Coast and I got to meet a nice young man who was a recent UK immigrant and a nuclear operator at the Bruce Plant. The bike was as advertised (well looked after, second owner, some minor cosmetic imperfections), and suddenly I owned a freaking 2003 Triumph Tiger 955i! Most used bikes offer up some surprises when you first get them, and they usually aren't nice surprises. The Ninja arrived with wonky handlebars the previous owner told me nothing about. The XS1100 arrived with no valid ownership, something the previous owner failed to mention during the sale. So far the Tiger has had nice surprises. It arrived with a Triumph branded tank bag specific to the bike. Oh, by the way, the previous owner said, the first owner put a Powercommander on it, and then he handed me the USB cable and software for it. It had also been safetied in October, less than two hundred kilometres ago (paperwork included), so while I didn't buy it safetied, it shouldn't be difficult to do. The bike has fifty thousand kilometres on it, but I then discovered that the first owner did two extended trips to Calgary and back (10k+ kms each time) - so even though it's got some miles on it, many of them are from long trips that produce minimal engine wear. After giving it a clean the bike has no wonky bits under the seats or anywhere else. I cannot wait to get riding it.
So, here I am at the beginning of a new era with my first European bike. I've finally picked up a Triumph from the other side of the family tree (the bike and automobile manufacturing components of Triumph split in 1936), and I've got a bike I'm emotionally engaged with. It might even be love! Like the BMW I rented in Victoria, the controls seem to fit my hands and feet without feeling cramped and the riding position is wonderfully neutral. When I'm in the saddle my feet are flat on the ground - just. Best of all, I don't look like a circus bear on a tricycle on it. With the Concours officially decommissioned and awaiting (what are hopefully) the last parts it needs before being road worthy again, it's time to update the blog header:
What's next? The Concours will be sold with only a modicum of sentiment, the Tiger will be safetied and on the road (it cost $90 a year more than the Concours to insure), and I'll enjoy having an operational, trustworthy machine made in the same place I was with lots of life left in it. The fact that it was getting me thumbs up and one guy stopping to say what a nice bike it was when it was on the trailer on the way home doesn't hurt either. Riding a tiger has a certain magic to it. When I want to turn a wrench I'll work on the XS, getting it rolling again for the first time in years. I'll get the ownership sorted on it (affidavits are required!) and eventually sell it without losing a penny, and then I'll go looking for my next project bike. Maybe a scrambler Versys, maybe an old Interceptor, maybe something I haven't thought of yet.
Time for some unbridled Tiger enthusiasm!
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Without warm weather beckoning (we've been in the middle of an ice-storm here) I'm in less of a panic about not having a bike to ride. With an extended long weekend thanks to power failures and such, I've been hammering through four carb rebuilds. The K&L kit I got came with a new bowl gasket, new pilot jet, washer and o-ring, and a new float jet. Breaking down each carburetor one at a time (so I don't mix up parts), I cleaned out the carbs and blew them out with compressed air and then put them back together with the new parts.
Those little rubber bits get crusty after 22 years on a bike...
Adjustment wise I reset the float height (17mms with the float unweighted - held sideways). I also reset the pilot jets to two turns out from snug. The pilot jets varied from almost five turns out to under three turns out. I'm curious to see how this affects fueling. The manual suggested resetting them to what they were, and I did record them, but the factory setting is 2 turns from snug, so that's what I reset them to. I'm not sure why I'd reset them to what they were when they weren't working well.
The carb rebuilds weren't particularly difficult, but they were a bit tedious (you're basically doing the same thing four times). Things have ground to a halt again as I've found that I need o-rings to replace the old, broken ones that sealed the fuel lines between carbs. With some new o-rings I should be good to put them all back together again and re-vacuum tube them with new tubing.
Rebuilding the first carb - it took a bit longer as it was more exploratory
The second videos hows the final two carbs and then discovering the need for o-rings -both videos are based on photos taken every 10 seconds compressed into a video running at one photo every 1/10th of second.
As an aside, I thought it would be a good idea to go through Motorcyclesuperstore.ca, but they seem to have pulled back from offering Canadian customers a clear view of their prices. You used to be able to buy in Canadian dollars and there were no surprises. When you buy now they charge in U$D, so you've got to do some math to figure out how they compare to Canadian retailers. It looked like they came out about twenty bucks ahead of an equivalent Canadian order, until I got the COD message with border taxes. Suddenly that twenty bucks turned into paying an extra ten. I liked motorcyclesuperstore.com, their customer service went above and beyond, but their lack of clarity around pricing of orders to Canada puts them in the same category as any other US distributor. I'm not happy with canadasmotorcycle.ca's 'easy' returns (they charge you for shipping), but I'm not playing roulette with customs costs again. I'm afraid that's the last time I'll use motorcyclesuperstore. I need to start looking into other Canadian based motorcycle retailers.
Two down, two to go...
The pilot jet (centre) - has a spring, washer and o-ring underneath.
The float bowl off and being cleaned out - the floats are held in a pin at the bottom - the float jet hooks on a tab in the middle
The old bike is coming back together again. I've learned a couple of valuable lessons in the process:
a $30 toolbox should prevent $50 in lost parts, every time
1) Don't take your parts to high school to get them worked on, they lose parts, don't do the work anyway and it causes confusion and headaches when you're trying to reassemble the thing.
2) I tried taking photos as I took the bike apart, which works well when you're putting it back together, but with so many small fasteners and other odds and ends it pays to have a parts tray set up and labelled. I've since purchased a cheap sectioned toolbox that will serve as a parts holder. I'll use an erasable marker to label the parts as they go into each section of the toolbox. That should resolve future finding-the-right-fastener headaches. In the meantime, after multiple trips to dealer to pick up bits and pieces, I think I'm putting this all down as lessons learned and moving on. The geometry of the bike is coming back together, but I've still got some work to do. The rear brake went back on well, bled well and works perfectly. It even has good pedal feel. A concern in the rear is that the rotor suddenly seems out of round (it was fine before). I'm going to get it back on the road and see if it needs reseating - it's a 20+ year old bike, so maybe I put the rotor back on the hub in a different way and it's not happy. The front end all went back together without problems, but the front brakes don't seem to want to bleed to a tight lever. Fortunately CoG has a solution. After leaving the lever tied closed for the night the brakes are starting to come back. Another round of bleeding and I should have some sharp feeling front brakes again. The bike is running rough, and I can't tell if this is because it's been sitting over the winter or it needs the carbs tickled. I'm going to have to look into it in more detail. A short run yesterday in double digit temperatures showed that the back end is back together perfectly. The beads are doing a wonderful job of keeping the wheels balanced and the new bearings and tires make for very smooth and quiet operation. If I can get the front brakes finished up and the fueling sorted, I should be ready to go just in time for the roads to get rained clear of the sand and salt of winter.
So, the rims are back from Fireball Coatings. They look fantastic, but I'm a bit baffled by the process. Mark, the owner, suggested getting candy coated gold, though I'd initially said I'd just go for the plain gold. After being convinced of the upgrade the process took longer than expected (about 20 days instead of a week) because he was out of the product needed to do it. Communication wasn't a strong point during this wait. I was worried about tolerances changing on the inside of the rims, but I was assured that they would be masked off. The end result has a fair bit of over-spray, which isn't easy to clean up (which I guess bodes well for the rims themselves in regular wear and tear use). With a Dremel I've been able to clean up the over-spray and I've begun to rebuild the rims for re-installation. The final bafflement came when Mark said that black bits dropped into the process and there are minor imperfections as a result. They are barely visible, but his explanation was that no one does gold candy coat on rims. This begs the question, why up-sell me on them then? All the strangeness aside, they do look fantastic, and I'm looking forward to seeing them back on the bike again. The final cost to coat two rims was just over $300 Canadian taxes in (or about a dollar fifty US).
I'm not sure what I'd do differently next time as I don't have much experience with industrial coatings. I think I'll give Fireball another go in the future though, just not if I'm on a tight timeline. I imagine less finicky (ie: rims without a shaft drive hub on them) parts would be less of a headache. They had a coated motorcycle frame on the floor at the shop that looked spectacular. Mark figures he can coat all the basic parts of a bike (frame, swing arm, exposed bits and pieces) for about $1000.
Buy 'em online and you're looking at a lot of money for tires unseen and possible long on the rack.
The tire portion of the process was handled by Two Wheel Motorsport just north of Guelph on Highway 6. It's my first time doing motorcycle tires (everything previous was well rubbered when I got it and sold safetied as is). What I've learned is that motorcycle tires are expensive! And evidently wear out much sooner than car tires (odd considering how they are supporting much less weight on lower mileage). The tires from the dealer were about forty bucks more per tire than online, but you're buying them on the internet sight unseen, and they might be cheap because they're stale. I got the benefit of very experienced Concours owners in the parts department helping with tire choices rather than depending on the generic tire size finder online. No one seems to support the OEM Dunlops that originally came with the bike twenty two years ago, so selecting ZG1000 tires is about preferences rather than manufacturer's recommendations.
The tire pricelist from the Toronto Motorcycle Show - 2 Wheel was cheaper, and could get the weird size for my Concourse.
I was going to go with Bridgestones, but when a guy with over a million miles ridden (!) suggests the Michelins if you want good handling and amazing mileage, I didn't ignore him. All was well until I got the $600 bill... for two tires! I think my last car change was 4 Yokohamas for the Mazda2, and it cost $650 and included balancing and installation. Like I said, bike tires are expensive! It was $35 to install each tire - ninety nine and change for the work. I think I got charged for tire disposal even though the rims were bare, and even though I asked for a 90° valve stem on the back I didn't get one (though I don't think I was charged for it). I thought maybe buying tires at the Bike Show would save money, but the prices listed weren't as good as the sale prices offered over the desk at Two Wheel, and they didn't have the weird sizes I need for the Concours anyway, so that isn't a way out. I used to be a tire guy at Canadian Tire when I'd just gotten out of high school. I know my way around the tools involved. In the future I think I'm going to try and get tires and bits and pieces online and then do the install myself. I'm going to install balancing beads on my current tires. If they work as well as advertised, balancing (the only part that requires expensive machinery) won't be necessary. When I do the tires on the XS1100 I'll do them in-house and see how it goes. Speaking of in-house, the last frustration was removing the bearings. I took them in to school figuring that the autoshop had a press and could take them out easily. They sat there for a week before I finally took them home and knocked out the bearings in ten minutes. While there for the week they managed to lose my bearing retaining clips and the front bearing spacer as well, so I'm having to spend another $20 at the dealer replacing parts they lost. The moral of this story? Do the work yourself. You learn more by doing it, and you're less likely to lose parts you need to put the thing back together again. The missing bits and pieces should be in this week, I should have the bike back on its feet by this weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks with its new kicks on. Parts Costing TIRES Online Dealership Difference Michelin Commander II 150/80/16 $174.45 $213.79 $39.34 Michelin Commander II 130/70/18 $208.00 $244.54 $36.54 -------- money saved buying online $75.88 + gas & time going to and from the dealer (online delivery is free) Dealer parts total: $458.33+$4 (shop supplies) = $462.33 (don't see any charge for the valves) Online order total: $442.61 (including a 90° rear valve & a front valve) Labour Costing Dealership installation of two tires (with new valve stems, no balancing, no disposal - though they charged me for that anyway): $99 How to change your own tires.
The Concours is in an unprecedented state of undress. With the rear end removed and the plastics off it looks like a completely different machine. Yesterday I removed the coolant reservoir located under the oil cooler behind the front wheel. It's going to get relocated to the back of the battery box so it's out of the way of rocks being kicked up from the road. There are a lot of after market options for a coolant reservoir, so finding an alternative that fits well in the new location shouldn't be hard.
The 7 inch round headlight with built in LED indicators showed up from Amazon but I'm still waiting on the tail light. I'd initially thought of doing some kind of front fairing but now I'm going bare bones with only metal framing to mount the light and minimal instruments. 
