My ZXR 250 - AKA - Oh god my wallet D:

Hey all!

So, my 'daily' rider for the last... year and a half (I think) has been this poor old neglected 1993 Kawasaki ZXR 250 C

When I bought it, the paintwork was rough as guts and was in dire need of a lot of love. As was a lot of the mechanical components.

I almost think that this bike has spent more time at the mechanics (largely for no gain) than I have riding it.

But, lets start at the beginning.
I don't know why I don't have any proper pictures of it when I bought it other than one shot where it sits to the side.



The paint was so badly done, there was over spray was everywhere and what was painted had been chipped and marked. It was truly awful.

I went to have this bike roadworthied right after I bought it, which was a huge pain in and of itself. After nearly a month at the shop (I'm not exaggerating) I got it back with a roadworthy, I had to have the rear shock replaced, fork seals done and the brakes replaced.

Finally got the bike back and for some reason, the right brake rotor rivets was rubbing on the calliper. This confused the mechanic to no end and I was told that it was just the new parts wearing in. I know now what went wrong but at the time I was still learning a lot about bike mechanics at this time.

I rode the bike in its original state for a while before finally giving in and committing to a full respray. I don't have any compressors or spray equipment so all this was done with rattle cans.
The old horrible blue and red which was on EVERYTHING had to go.

I spent nearly a week doing the prep work, sanding back all the pieces and priming all the fairings - I also pulled off the foot pegs, exhaust and repainted the top clamp.



This shows the amount of work I had to do, the tank for some retarded reason had been sprayed with the imprint of a tank sticker so that had to go.



The right of the front cowl, when it was removed snapped - it is made from really poor quality plastic. So I fibre glassed and epoxy welded it back before sanding, seemed to work and hold quite well in the end.



This is the headstock, this is quality of the previous owners paint all over the bike... yeah, it's bad.



Resprayed and cleaned up, it looks a million times better.



All done, one of the best parts of the bike now. You can see the over spray on the frame next to the tank however, I fixed that a bit later on after I noticed it.



My makeshift spray booth, worked a charm for all the pieces.



All done, the bright green wheel is the real wheel of my long-term mistress FZR400 but used the same setup. Couldn't have been happier with the result and I learnt a lot.



Test sprayed the front mudguard first, it was the nicest piece and easiest to do. I am pretty sure it was the only original fairing left as the underside of it held some bright green very hard paint.



A better look at the colour, I have at times loved it and not been so keen. In hind sight I should have done a dual colour theme but hey. I was pressed for time and it was a good learning experience.



And here she is. All done with a small ZX-R sticker and a Tyga carbon muffler with some new grips that I had ordered some time later. And this is how she stood for ages and all was good in life... But this bike had more in store for me.

 

After riding the bike around for a good while I happened upon this forum and read about the issue of the engine bogging down between certain RPM, the bike had also developed the problem not having a speedo. Which was just dandy.
I also noticed that despite the bike having had the fork seals redone there was a definite pool of fork oil on the left fork bottom which I wanted investigated

So into the shop she went, another 4 weeks later I finally got it back. Apparently it was leaking oil badly from the sump and valve covers, so with the carbies rebuilt and the speedo cable and forks 'fixed' I finally got it all back.
So joyously I went for a hoon and bam. Speedo died and the bike was still leaking oil from that same fork.
Cue intense rage.

Vowing to never trust a mechanic to do a job I am sure I could do myself from now on I did some serious digging and came up with the original Kawasaki parts manuals with exact part numbers. trundled into Peter Stevens in Melbourne CBD and ordered a fork rebuild kit from Kawasaki which they promptly ordered and got in for me.



So off to the shed to get the bike stripped down, pulled the front end apart and set to work replacing all the dodgy parts.



After draining the oil from both shocks, this was the level difference.... yeah that's not good.



This is the end of the stanchion tube, wasn't sure if this was supposed to look like that, but it seemed to all work fine.



The new bushes, seals and parts all in and ready to rock and roll, wasn't nearly as fiddly or hard as I had thought.
Again, my faith in mechanics was growing less and less each minute I spend on this bike.



Full reassembled, cleaned and ready for re-installation.



All the old parts, the bushes were worn and nasty - the rubber seals weren't too bad as they were new but being after-market I tossed them in favour of gorgeous factory parts (Mmmm factory parts.... they are so nice!)

I also figured out why the brakes hadn't been lining up, somewhere along the line the mechanics hadn't reattached the forks using the correct procedure, I believe it was Maelstrom who pointed out the wheel needs to be mounted first before the forks are tightened down, thus self aligning everything all at once.
Instantly this solved ALL the issues I had been having with bad alignment, I was furious that a trained and licensed mechanic couldn't have figured that out.

It was at this point I spent a lot of time riding to and from the city for Uni, with my house being in the SE suburbs and Uni being Lygon Street RMIT it was a good way to learn.

But, eventually after 2+ years of riding without an incident, something was always going to happen.

One soggy afternoon, after the sun had cleared I was riding home and as I went to pass some stationary traffic at a set of lights, some F(*@#&g doosh-nozzle cut me off and I grabbed the brakes that bit too hard.



This was the result, lowsided into an intersection. Managed to get the bike up and off the road quickly thanks to the help of a couple of bystanders.
Took a quick assessment of the bike, noticed that the front brake lever and the shifter rod were gone and bent respectively.

****.

Thankfully, two very helpful and kind people stopped to help. One was a rider whose name I forgot, but was in his work ute and with a couple of tools got my shifter straightened enough to ride, the other was a shop owner who gave me some water and told me to sit down and take a break which was damned good advice.

Taking my time I got my head back together, tested the bike - nothing seemed mechanically broken and the engine was happy as.

Not so ****, actually really freaking good.

So off I rode, using the rear brake the whole half hour ride home and very very gingerly keeping out of everyone's way.
Which is actually a lot harder than it looks, if you have ridden in Melbourne you can understand - the people here are speed freak psycho's

But I got home safe, bike parked and I sat down to catalogue the damage.

-Front Fairing shattered
-Front Right Indicator damaged
-Front Brake lever sheared
-Right fairing heavily gouged, some broken parts
-Tyga muffler lightly gouged, aluminium work damaged
-Right footpeg lightly damaged
-Mirrors damaged
-Throttle grip grazed and plastic end broken

Which really, wasn't much at all!
I took a huge sigh of relief nothing really serious was broken.

Then. I noticed that the fork was leaking. Again. This bears more investigation, having pulled the fork out hence I had a play around, turns out that there is a small grub screw at the base of the fork and it was done up too tight. Which was placing pressure on the stanchion tube. Which in turn was compressing it allowing fork oil to leak from the fork lower up and out over the exterior.
W.T.F.
I have adjusted and tightened (very carefully) the screw and fork leg but here is where I am not sure what to do, will it still leak? Probably.
Can I fix it now without a lot more work? Unlikely. Blah.

But! I realised that the body damage was bad enough that the cowl HAD to be replaced and while the right fairing could possibly be fixed it was in bad enough condition I added it to the list of pieces to be replaced.

So. Again, digging into the wallet I ordered
-New Fairings
-New Fairing bolts
-New Indicator
-New Color-coded foldable adjustable levers
-New ZX6R mirrors
-New OEM Rubber grommets and aluminium fairing pieces
-New Paint for a whole lot more jobs!



The new fairings are a Kawasaki Green/Black Monster setup, less original but more desirable.
but they don't come with a tank cover (funnily enough) so I had to get the matched paint to spray the tank. again.
Above is the green and I found a dark metallic grey Kawasaki colour on works computer, so I mixed that into a high-temp can as well.
There as well is 2 cans of smoke-grey paint, destined for the forks - which I decided were in need of some love too, as well as clear and primer required for all the jobs.



In preparation for the new parts, I wanted to get a head start on the other pieces I needed to paint, so out come the forks, fairings and fuel tank. Again.



I took to the fuel tank with my trusty orbital sander, set for KILL THIS DAMNED PAINT.
Turns out there are... wait for it.
9 layers of paint on that tank.
NINE.

I was shocked to say the least, with the damage to the paintwork I had inflicted over time (small chips and marks) most of it needed to come off to get to a stable layer. Most of the top 4 layers just peeled off... Eurgh, PREVIOUS OWNERS. >:E



Here it is, mostly sanded down, I didn't end up doing all of it but I sanded until I found a stable layer and decided to go with that.



Now for the forks, I gave them a really good and in depth clean, I think they lowers need a repaint as well - they seem to have peeling silver paint all over them but I am not sure what to do there just yet... tedious job in the making.

However I DID plan to paint the outer tubes, so masked off up on a convenient hook she goes



Now its all hanging, on go the first few layers of this mad smoke-chrome-grey paint.



Now that's about 3-4 coats, its a semi-clear paint so it takes a LONG time to get depth to it.



Rinse and repeat, add about 6 hours (on and off) and boom. Two new dark smokey grey forks, looks damn good in person too.

Since the bike went down its been about 3 weeks, slowly but surely all the parts have been trickling in.



Levers and bolts arrived just yesterday, OEM parts, mirrors and indicator arrived before that so I am just waiting on the fairings and my paint to be ready.
What to do now?



Sate your desire to FIX things by putting sexy new levers on! They actually looks really mad and feel decent too. Really pleased with them so far.

So, with that done the tinker bug was running strong



Off came the brakes, disassembled and stripped down, only had time for one to get cleaned but damn doesn't it make a difference!!


As of today, I am going away for a week so hopefully by the time I get back I will have the new fairing set at home waiting for me. Which means I need to crack on with repainting the brakes, fork lowers and fuel tank.

Game on I guess, lets see what ELSE this bike can throw at me.

 

So it's been a few weeks - and enough has happened now that I think it warrants a decent update



To start things off, not too long after my last update I got a big box



Full new set of fairings, needless to say I was kinda excited to get things happening now

But, I decided to finish the mechanical restoration first - so off to clean the brakes some more



Now all stripped down and mostly cleaned, they were so horribly filthy :/ it was just nasty.



Aaand this is one of the pistons, filthy huh? Yeah it's pretty bad.

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Now all 4 are cleaned yay! I realised when I was popping out these disgusting pistons I needed a new seal kit which thanks to a quick google (I think it was actually kiffsta's post on here someone was the one I found) I found a kit and ordered that to fix up my issue.



At this point I finally caved, I have spent the last 2 years without an air compressor and I had, had enough. I bought one.
And a mini-sand blaster.
This is the result, much MUCH cleaner.



Front view, not perfect but it is really much better.



Then I gave them both a lick of paint, custom mixed from a Kawasaki metallic grey in a High Temp mix - turns out they don't spray the same as the standard paint cans. No matter, looks 10000% better than before haha



Now with the repainted forks mounted I got onto the job of the fuel tank.

I got the surface as smooth as I could and laid down a couple of layers of primer and let it cure over a week or so while I focused on Uni again.

I came back one afternoon to get cracking on a few coats of paint to find this....



In case it's not really clear, that is a huge dent just at the centre of the tank.
At this point I am furious.



Being a double layered tank, you can't reach that spot from the inside to push it out. But being on a curved surface means you can't get a suction cap on it to pull it out either.

At this point I raged and raged hard, I asked the family and no-one had been into the shed so there was no other culprit other than the huge winds that had been through. The tank had been sitting on a box drying in front of the door.... So yep. That was annoying

Time to do my best to fix it, I can't afford to buy a new one or have a professional spend the time to pull it out so... back yard fix is go!



Now I haven't ever used filler before and that was my first effort ever. Yeah it is awful but I deliberately left it lower than it needed to be so I can fix it.

I don't have any more photo's (strangely) but I have since sanded it smooth and gone over it with blade putty - which is now drying so tomorrow I can give it a final sand and re-prime it before I can finally paint it. Blah. This bike infuriates me on a regular basis.



While the fuel tank issue was being sorted and the brake rebuild kit was in transit, I spent an afternoon detailing the entire bike - including the wheels, frame, swingarm etc. I got everything I could see so when its finally reassembled it will be A1



New vs old fairings, keen to get these on!

More to come, but its now late and I will do the rest of the update tomorrow!

 

Having just re-read my thread I realised that originally it linked an image on my FZR on a trailer instead of this....




There was more damage than this but that is the majority of it. Yep. Fun times.

Onto the more positive side of updates!



Cleaned up the rear mudguard in the process of detailing the frame, looks much nicer now I think



Started at the back fitting the new fairings, instantly I realised this would be a struggle - the holes don't line up perfectly, the shapes a SLIGHTLY wrong but with a bit of love and attention, they can be squeezed on.



Moving up the bike, the pre-drilled holes were too small to accommodate the factory fittings I had ordered through Kawasaki, so I had to go buy a step drill bit. WHICH IS SO FREAKING AWESOME.
But that made mince meat of the holes and widened them to the correct size so I could use the sexy factory fittings to make it all looks that much nicer



However, I couldn't ignore my biggest hold up forever and I spent some more time on the fuel tank, with a bit of sanding and blade putty over the top to create a nicer surface to work on I kept going



Then all sanded and smooth, with a light test coat on one side I prepared to start laying some more primer to help get that awesome finish



Now, all primed up it took some time to dry. I think I left it 2 days before I came back which I then carefully sanded down with 800 grit for a baby bum finish



Paint takes a long time to dry properly before you can do any useful work to it, so I spent the time fitting up the front cowling and bringing the fairings together so see how they all lined up.
Which is much better than I was honestly expecting so happy days!



Then boom! The base coat was done.
Actually it took an entire rattle can (350g) and then another 50ml of paint into the brand new spray gun I bought.
Why I never invested in one before I will never know, because damn it just made everything so much better! The finish was better, I didn't get RSI in my hand anymore.
Yeah. So. Never going back now. Compressors+Spray guns for life.



Here we can see that in a test fit that the lines off the fairings really should be continued into the fuel tank for the best looks.
I thought I would give it a crack.



I spent about half an hour taking measurements and creating reference points so when the masking tape went on, it should all looks professional and mad.



All finished and out to dry, I was really pleased with the result - I had some gloss black in a can but I decided to 'decant' that into my spray gun. Which basically involved jamming the trigger down into a bottle, adding appropriate thinners and loading the gun up to spray it.
Yeah again, total convert - so much better.



Here it is test fitted again to check how it looks, I was really REALLY pleased with how well it lined up, looks so good.



Then onto the clear coat, I found this awesome '2K Technology' clear from Colorspec... apparently its like 2K in a can. Yeah. Go figure, anyway thought i'd give it a whirl and damn does it come out nicely. looks a million times better and that's just one layer!

However in the process of spraying it up, I noticed a lot of dust and debris was settling into the first layer so I left it overnight and came back today to sand them out and apply more layers in a more controlled environment.

The result?



The bike now looks really awesome



Now while I wait for the new clear to fully set before I can buff it to pick up any minor blemishes I would go over the bike and check everything still works.

which, while mostly successful I noticed I couldn't get the headlights going... Like. At all, not a blimp or glimmer.
I disconnected the wiring, the globes and cleaned and reconnected them with spare globes (that definitely work) and still zilch.

I am firmly convinced now that this bike is possessed....

 

So much success was had tonight! I decided it was high time the girl was started, so in went the fuel and the stock exhaust, being about 8pm I thought it might be more appropriate than my Tyga

Anyway, after taking it's sweet time to feed the fuel through I got her cranked over, and boom! On goes the headlights and vroom goes the engine.

A lot of cursing, nearly thrown tools followed by a good laugh. So as of tonight the bike is officially done. Excepting a shakedown ride its going under a cover.

As I am firmly convinced that she is possessed, i have to sell her. The girlfriend hates it and I am sick of fixing it.

Going to use the money to fund my 400 and get some of my savings back haha.

 

Haha oh I know 'saving' is only a temporary term really xD