Kawasaki, for feck sakes!

[inlinefour]

Doing some "regular maintiance" on a friend's GPX600F, I think it was a 1994 model. At the same time I'm quickly doing the same maintiance to the super four, that was the easy part. We hit the woes when it came time to oil the throttle cables on the Kawasaki, I could not believe my eyes! What a farkin blardy stupid throttle assembly. Now I know I could be called nieve, by some peoples' standards, having mostly only owned Honda and never a Kawasaki. But, are all Kawasakis this bloody dense??? In saying this I mean, the Honda was easy, off with the top of the plastic thingamagigee after taking the two bolts out and there is the the cables, nothing else needs to be removed, nothing falls apart and the cables are easily accessable for a wee bit of oiling . Now the kawasaki, thats a bit different. This bit for one cable clips onto another bit for the other cable and when the top plastic thingamagigee (you know the bit with the kill switch on it- same as both bikes) is removed and then the whole throttle assembly falls apart on the Kawasaki! OK, so we lube the cables and look at putting the throttle assembly back together and fark me, nothing will fit in place! Now my mate is starting to get really pissed after a good half a hour and I'm still standing there stunned, due to the relative stupidity of the whole set up. Some how we managed to get it back together and my mate rides off home and consults his workshop manual. It turns out that every time the throttle assembly is disconnected, the carb end works loose and moves, hence making it almost impossible to reconnect at the throttle end. Whats more the workshop manual makes it clear that the fairing and the tank have to come off when you want to reconnect the cables at the carb end! All this pissing about, for what is regular maintiance??? Then I take it for a ride, feck thats another story, the antiwhatthefuck, braking: frount brakes! Don't get me started on that, does anyone know how to disconnect it? Its some sort of stupid electrical thingee that was binned after a couple of years when they realised who stupid it was! All this just left me stunned and thinking, feck I'm glad I like Honda!

[inlinefour]

Are all Kawasakis this bad, or have they improved over time?

[Quasievil]

Are all Kawasakis this bad, or have they improved over time?

get fucked and come to the Rally

[inlinefour]

get fucked and come to the Rally

Will you have something intelligent to say there? (PT)

[GSVR]

Maybee you should consider getting a Harley. Solidly engineered and based on sound agricultural practise that even a monkey could understand.

[inlinefour]

Maybee you should consider getting a Harley. Solidly engineered and based on sound agricultural practise that even a monkey could understand.

...perhaps its only because of the monkey engineering(PT). Nope I'm quite happy with Honda and have plenty of practice rebuilding/maintianing them. I alike your thoughts on the Harley though

[Quasievil]

Will you have something intelligent to say there? (PT)

Good come back, I like it.
Nah I dont no what to say about the cable mate, wouldnt have a clue, but I have always been reluctant to get to involved with them for fear of not getting assembless back together, I leave it up to service time at the dealers.

Re the Rally I doubt i would have much to say intelligently, I may do for the first 1/2 hour that will be about it

You should come though

[N4CR]

I think honda made bikes to easy... real bikes like kawasakis are too complex for the dumbed down honda people
(hides in a small unventillated box)

[TonyB]

Try having an exhuast manifold nut come off on one of the rear cylinders of an early VFR and then tell me how wonderful Honda's designs are. And that was one of the outside studs. I made up a special nut to put on- it was the only hope of every getting one on. Then the bloody thing wouldn't seal up. It was impossible to get at the inside stud to try and even things up, so my only option was to try tightening it just a liiiiiittle more...

Then try having a exhaust stud break on one of the rear cylinders of an early VFR and then tell me how wonderful Honda's designs are. The engine had to come out from memory.

[speedpro]

simple things for simple folk.
Kawasakis are for those that can handle that sort of thing.
That's my completely unbiased non-one-eyed view of the situation.

[inlinefour]

Try having an exhuast manifold nut come off on one of the rear cylinders of an early VFR and then tell me how wonderful Honda's designs are. And that was one of the outside studs. I made up a special nut to put on- it was the only hope of every getting one on. Then the bloody thing wouldn't seal up. It was impossible to get at the inside stud to try and even things up, so my only option was to try tightening it just a liiiiiittle more...

Then try having a exhaust stud break on one of the rear cylinders of an early VFR and then tell me how wonderful Honda's designs are. The engine had to come out from memory.

Why did it come off is more to the point????
Metal shrinks/expands when hot/cold. So hence it need to cool down...

[inlinefour]

simple things for simple folk.
Kawasakis are for those that can handle that sort of thing.
That's my completely unbiased non-one-eyed view of the situation.

So you take your bike back to the shop then when its needing servicing???

[TonyB]

Why did it come off is more to the point????

Age and viabration I guess. Even if you did discover it was loose before it fell off, it would be impossible to tighten with any tools that I own

[Coyote]

Hondas can be utter shite

(told this a dozen times already) When my Dad accidentally unscrewed the idle adjuster off, we had to take the tank and air filter off to try screw it back in, even then we didn't have enough access to it, and we were comtemplating on the idea of taking the carbs off to where we had to screw the bloody thing back on to. Luckily, we brought some long nose pliars with a 90 degree bend on them, managed to screw it back in, even then that was lucky and I don't think I could screw it back in again

Otherwise, our kawasakis have been ok. Finally got to ride the 125 today. Bloody awesome

[Wonko]

Same type of thing with the GPZ600, '85 vintage. Seemed to fit back together easily enough for me. I learnt a long time ago(the hard way) that you take your time pulling things apart that you haven't pulled apart before.