Last Updated on Saturday, 23 October 2010 16:19 Written by Mik Tuesday, 06 April 2010 15:08

Starting Problems

If you find you are having problems starting and the bike

has been running just fine previously, check your battery.

it gets quite warm in that pocket and the fluid/acid can

evaporate quite quickly especially if you live somewhere

like Australia. top up you batteries with sulphuric acid, sometimes

de-ionised water will do. otherwise just replace your battery.

I went to a Kawasaki dealer and was told a 2-3 week wait for

a battery, then went to Supacheap auto, they had one on the shelf.

 

If your bikes starts fine then later after the bike warming up you find

that you cannot start the bike then all odds is that you have set the

tappets too tight. you can confirm this by trying to restart after the bike

has cooled down. Another thing you could try is to re balance your Carbs.

 

Electrical faults.

These models all have a permanent magnet battery charging system, consisting of a stator with three output wires, which feed into a regulator/rectifier. This unit rectifies the AC into DC and regulates this DC to 14.5V to ensure proper battery charging. The output from the regulator/rectifier connects to the battery. Common faults in this system: 1) Bad Connections in the system. We recommend checking all electrical connections in these bikes. The connectors are not that great, and the bikes are fairly old by now. Clean the connectors one by one with some contact cleaner and make sure the bullet style connectors are tight. 2) Regulator/rectifier failure. The OEM regulator/rectifier is a commonly failing part. 3) Stator failure. Causes are age, heat and vibration. Test and replace when it tests bad. We recommend using the fault finding chart in case of suspected charging problems: Fault Finding Guide This guide will help you diagnose the charging system quickly.

 

 

Carburettors

An engine needs all these elements to run: enough compression, a spark, and correct air-fuel mixture.

Spark is the first test to do, (I am lazy and its the easiest to do) then Fuel followed by compression. Each test has a routine order to follow, so you are not guessing.

Vacuum Leaks:
A vac leak is un-metered air allowed in error to get by the intake. This affects carbs and fuel injection equally. You do not want a vacuum leak on any engine ever, but they are very common. Sometimes you might not know it if the leak is small, and other times an engine won't start at all. So symptoms run a broad range of what a vac leak can do.

Some symptoms are a sudden lean condition, which can result in loss of power instantly and a matching increase in fuel consumption.
This might be found to be true if heat cracked a vac line to the petcocks while you were riding, or the line just lifted off. Other types of symptoms cause what is known as "Hunting" which is idle RPM that will not stay correct. The idle goes up to a given range maybe even to 2,200 rpm, and then will drop to 600 RPM and go right back up as if a demon has the grips. The bike might go to 2,200 RPM and stall forcing you to restart. Lesser leaks might effect idle, and what was correct yesterday suddenly is high today. Turning down the over all Throttle linkage screw will work to lower idle sometimes but is a misadjusting when you should not do that. If the leak becomes worse, the idle will do whatever the leak demands. Another symptom is engine starts, idles and runs well when cold, but stalls when warmed.

The leak leans out the correct mix of around 15% fuel to air and makes the mix undeterminable,  On bikes each carb can have leaks, and manifold mount for any carb can have vac leaks. Any throttle plate shaft can leak on either end. Any vac lines can leak on either end. And any test port can have a bad cap, and also leak.

A vac operated petcocks will say, PRI = prime, ON/Run, AND RES = reserve. There is NO OFF setting. Also the petcock will have 2 lines each. One line is for fuel and the other is a vacuum line telling the petcock the engine is making vacuum, and to turn on the petcock diaphragm to pull open the on/off valve with in the petcock. The way an internal combustion engine works creates vacuum. In general vacuum lines do not deal with heat, age  or weather well. They crack, split, and become brittle, and should be replaced once a year. Same goes for gravity feed fuel lines.

To locate a vac leak you need a can of WD-40. You can use WD-40 to test whether or not idle mix is right. This chemical beats ether hands down for use as an engine starter as well, and will not cause engine damage in moderate amounts. WD-40 makes what you can't see and probably what you can't hear findable.
You need to listen to know. SO to tell if idle mix is right, spritz a shot right at the intake with a running engine, and listen. Does the idle go up? Or, does the idle go down? If things are correct the engine has all the fuel it wants and the idle will drop, as the engine wants no more.

 

If the idle goes up you are lean.

"lean conditions will overheat a motor.  It might take a few seconds,  but an overheated motor will become harder to ride, lose power, and hesitate on acceleration.  If you're lucky and smart, you'll recognise this before you seize it.  A motor jetted too rich (in any one area) will suffer loss of acceleration and responsiveness, may smoke, and may foul plugs.  It is possible to have one jet/carby too rich and one too lean.  The bike could display both lean and rich characteristics depending upon where you hold the throttle."

 

Out of the 4 carbs, all go down but one, then that one is lean. Why it is lean is what we need to find out. Maybe the setting is wrong, and the fuel screw is out too far. A book setting may say 2, or 2 1/2 turns out. This is okay for a  a fresh built engine should run  and isn't always the best mix for any given cylinder. Maybe you have a vac leak...and so adding fuel in the form of WD-40 causes the idle to jump to who knows what, and that depends on the unmetered air. It is possible for a bike to run on 2 cylinderss out of 4, and have the two dead cylinders fire up above idle speeds as the engine approaches mid range RPM. (You may come across this if you are using the carbtune to balance the carbs)

Finding leaks can become a bit of hit and miss, as you WD40 the carbs after an initial shot into the carbs. Each time you spray you must listen,  Places to spray are the manifolds looking for loose clamps, throttle shaft ends, and any vac line ends and components vacuum operated. Also spray any vac operated components as you find them. Often  vacuum leaks are misdiagnosed as clogged carbs, and bad plugs, or wires.

The 600r Carbs are 32mm versions of the aluminium semi-flat sliders found on the 900R. This gives you another avenue to research. In fact quite a lot of parts are interchangeable and I even think that the the crabs can also be used on the GPZ550. research, research,research before committing yourself as I have not tested this fact out personally.

Conditions:
Air Temperature  High = (less air so you have lean out the mixture)
Air Temperature  Low = (more air so you have to richen the mixture)

Altitude High = (lean the mixture)
Altitude Low = (Richen the mixture)

Humidity High = (Lean out the mixture)
Humidity Low = (Richen the mixture)

How can I temporarily richen or lean my mix without fiddling the carbs
Colder Glow plug to Lean it
Hotter Glow plug to Richen it

 

What are the symptoms of rich/lean running:

###  Typical lean conditions:

Poor acceleration - feels flat

• Poor acceleration - feels flat
  Engine doesn't respond when throttle is snapped open - picks up speed as throttle is closed
  Engine runs hot, knocks, pings and overheats (end result- hole in piston)
  Engine surges or "hunts" when cruising at part throttle
  Popping/ spitting through carb when throttle is opened, or popping and spitting through pipe on acceleration with a closed throttle (classic lean pilot circuit symptoms)
  Engine runs better in warm weather, worse in cool
  Performance gets worse when the air filter is removed

###  Typical Rich Conditions

• Acceleration is flat, uneven
  Engine will "8 stroke" as it loads up and skips combustion cycles
  Throttle needs to be opened continuously to maintain acceleration
  Engine works better when cold
  Black smoke from the tail pipe
  Poor fuel economy
  Engine performance improves when air cleaner is removed
  If the pilot screw is overly rich, idle is rough and the engine won't return to idle without blipping the throttle
  Black sooty plugs, sooty exhaust pipe

 

Clutch Problems

To determine if noise you're hearing is from the clutch basket, start your bike, hold the brakes tight, put it in gear, and with the brakes still applied, let out the clutch until the motor starts to slow (known as 'slipping the clutch'). If your clutch basket has some slop, the drag will pull the bumpers solidly to one side and the noise will temporarily go away.

This issue isn't really a problem unless it gets excessive.

 

Wheel Bearing

Depending on how you ride, your wheel bearing will need cleaning or even renewing every 2 years, I renew mine as a matter of course, If I dont know the size of the bearing, I will take them along with me to a bearing specialist shop (or buy them from the manufacturer, they cost more.) this way an exact match can be made. I also get the sealed bearing as this reduces the need to grease them.

First you need to support the bike and lift the front wheel off the ground. I made a lift using a normal car jack, the way I made this was to weld 2 large steel plates either end of the car jack so to give the jack greater load spread. (See picture coming...)

remove the wheel, once removed I clean around the bearing,

to start off the removal of the bearing I didnt use anything special (just tools from my tool box) no bearing pullers/removers. I took off the circlips using some circlip pliers, you can also use needle nose pliers and grind down the edge with a angle grinder. also remove seals and other hardware.

once this is done pick a socket size that closely matches the size of the bearings outside dia.

Put a socket extension on the end of the socket and give it a good hammer, The idea being to push the bearing inside so to get some movement happening, this breaks the seal/tightness.

Turn over the wheel and do the same to the other bearing, do this a couple of time and have a look at the bearing and you should see them in different positions.

In between the bearings there is a steel spacer/tube, the idea is to make this tube loose. when you have done this you should be able move the spacer partially towards the centre of the bearing,

Take off your socket from the extension and position your extension onto the spacer and give it a good hammering, the bearing should now drop out, turn over your wheel and do the same to the other bearing.

You may end up damaging your socket extension/sockets, but these are cheap enough to replace. (Keep the damaged ones for next time)

Replace bearing again using a socket that basically matches the size of the bearing. and gently hammer them into position, replace seals, circlips and covers.

Pictures to come.

 

Center Stand

If you need to take off your center stand (If you have one) it can be fairly easily removed, BUT a bugger to put back on, the spring part of the stand that is.

I have a rear wheel stand that I sat the bike on but I am sure that using the side stand would have sufficed.

What I did to enable me to get the spring back on was to lift the stand up off the floor (as if you were going for a ride) and because the spring is detached it will fall back down, I used a car jack to lift the stand up into position and keep it there, you could basically use anything. You will notice that the spring shortens dramatically.

I first used some locking pliers (Vice grip pliers) and gripped/locked the spring to the lower stand lug, then I got a phillips head screwdriver and hooked it over the upper frame lug and then pushed the screwdriver towards the front of the bike, I got a second flathead screwdriver and pushed the spring over and onto the lug. It took me 3 goes to do this.

Note: the fat end of the spring goes towards the bottom lug.

To replace your centre stand spring

Stretch the spring by flexing it left and right and inserting washers or 5
cent pieces between the turns until you reach the correct length,
then install the spring and remove the coins/washers one by one. Easy.