Hey there guys, yesterday I went for my first long (1hr+) ride on my recently acquired Kawasaki ZR250. The trip was Hamilton to Auckland and after checking oil (was a little low but nothing drastic) and water I set out. I was doing 100 - 110 on the way up with no troubles, bike was going well, when all of a sudden I noticed that it was responding slowly and erratically when I gave it gas for overtaking etc, about 30 seconds later it stopped responding at all and the revs died off, I managed to get across the lanes and onto the verge before it died completely (while I was still rolling, and in gear). This was about 5 KM south of the Greenlane east exit, so was after about 1 hour 30 mins of riding.
My first thought was that it had overheated, but the light (no temp gauge, just light to signal overheating) was not on. I had a looksee at the oil (glass window thing, not a dipstick), and while it wasn't high, there was some there. Checked the reservoir water tank, still full. I let it sit for awhile, then tried to start it again, it spluttered a bit but wouldn't catch, so after another 10 minutes I tried again, this time it started alright, had to use a bit of choke to keep it going but after 30 seconds of that she was idling fine. I jumped onto a nearby offramp to find a gas station, pulled in and topped up the oil. Let her idle for awhile, nothing seemed to be wrong so I completed my journey (was headed to a friends house for a visit).
The next morning I get up to head home, about 10 KM's north of Pokeno the same thing happens, bike stops responding to throttle and revs die, before cutting out altogether. So I pulled over, checked spark plugs, oil and water again. She doesn't seem too hot, and after 15 minutes she started again. I thought that maybe I was flooding it somehow, but geenrally after flooding don't you get a big could of nasty smelling smoke coming out of the exhaust? I had nothing like that happen.
After I got her started again I headed down to the nearest petrol station and let her sit for a half hour while I got a coffee, jumped back on and she was running fine. I took it easy sticking to around 90 and didnt have any trouble, but when I got past huntly I decided to open it up a bit and see if she died again, sure enough after about 5 mins of 100 - 120 she started to play up again, as soon as I felt it I chucked her down into fourth to see what would happen if I kept the revs high while decelerating. Ended up cruising at 60 in 3rd and while she still didn't want to accelerate much she wasn't stalling.
I pulled over and let her sit for awhile, then jumped back on and headed back into Hamilton, didn't have any trouble until I was 200m from my house, then she started to do it again, managed to get into my driveway before she died though.
This problem has left me very bloody confused, I am rather new to motorcycles, have very basic mechanical knowledge, and would really appreciate it if anyone could give me a clue as to what is going on with my bike. It's an intermittent fault so is going to be hard to reproduce in a workshop unless they go for an hours ride to make it happen which may make diagnosing it rather difficult.
Bike is a 1991 Kawasaki Balius (ZR250) which has an inline 4 very similar to the ZXR250's of the same era.
Cheers,
Vin
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Originally Posted by Crasherfromwayback
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