Tag: Repairs

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Maintenance

Servicing Forks Down at OMC

Servicing Forks on FazerYesterday afternoon I was down at Oval Motorcycle Centre (OMC), again, giving my forks a good service. The seals had recently gone and were leaking a lot of oil onto the stanchions and more worryingly down towards the wheel, brake discs and calipers. Not so good.

Stripping the forks down is not a simple job for a newbie, however with the expert guidance of Matt at OMC, I was able to perform the majority of the work and learnt an awful lot along the way. I splashed out on genuine Yamaha oil and dust seals, after being warning away from poor quality pattern parts. New circlips also went on, as the old ones were rather rusty. Oil wise, I opted for standard spec 10w, purely to gauge what the bike is like as standard, before changing things. However many Fazer owners prefer 15w oil to firm up the front end and reduce diving.

The Fazer feels a lot better to ride now,  definitely gives me more confidence in it’s handling. Perhaps some tweaking of preload settings could improve things further, something I’ve not tweaked about with yet. But that’ll be another day, maybe OMC’s Suspension Setup clinic…

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Maintenance

Swapping Fazer Fairing Déjà Vu

I had an industrious afternoon swapping the fairing on my Fazer. Again. It is certainly telling when you can totally swap the fairing over in an hour. Lights, loom, indicators, mirrors, screen etc. I lose track of the number of times I’ve had to strip down the front end now, all instances have been the result of some ‘incident’. 🙁 I just hope I’m not being premature fitting it just before winter turns up…

I also took the opportunity to fit my Stebel Nautilus air horn to the bike. Reasonably straight forward, but some work making a specific bracket was required. A full write up of this and the insane noise it produces will follow shortly.

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Maintenance

Fitted Fazer 1000 ‘Blue Spot’ Rear Brake Calipers

Fazer 1000 Rear Brake BleedingThe stock rear brake caliper on the FZS600 is a bit rubbish. It’s an old design and very commonly seizes up, which is exactly what I recently found when getting some new pads fitted. Rather than going down the route of stripping it down and cleaning it on a regular basis, I opted for the popular upgrade of the Fazer 1000 rear brake caliper. This is a ‘blue spot’ caliper, on par with the excellent front brakes I have and the same as the R6.

Getting hold of a Fazer Thou rear brake caliper isn’t easy, they’re as rare as rocking horse pooh second hand

Getting hold of a Fazer Thou rear brake caliper isn’t easy, they’re as rare as rocking horse pooh second hand, but luckily I managed to find one on ebay.de for a good price, which included mounting bracket, pads, hoses, the master cylinder (from Brembo) and reservoir. For this mod, however, only the caliper and pads were used.

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Maintenance

Tinkering With The ZZR400

KawasakiZZR400-EngineServicing-7Over the last couple of weekends, I have been tinkering with Mary’s ZZR400, trying to diagnose some running issues. I had known for a while the HT leads and spark plug caps were on the way out and last time I had the tank off I had managed to split a fuel line – doh! So with some new fuel hose, fuel filter, NGK leads, caps and spark plugs I set to work.

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Maintenance

Maintenance Day, Fairing Swap, Crash Bars Fitted

Yamaha Fazer Fairing SwapIt’s been a busy and productive afternoon, I managed to grab a few hours and some nice weather to tackle some jobs I’ve been waiting todo for some time. I swapped over my new genuine Yamaha fairing and fitted some genuine Yamaha crash bars.

You may have previously read how I had picked up a Fibreglass fairing copy, which I had been meaning to send to a local spray shop. Time and money delayed that, however in the mean time Yamaha had drastically reduced the prices of their fairings, from £450 to £180, with these supplied fully painted. With a spray shop quote coming in at around £100-120, it was a no brainer.

I still need to source some decals and swap the Yamaha tuning fork badge on the front, but all in all a reasonably straight forward job to swap everything over.

FazerFairingSwap2

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Maintenance

New Fairing For Fazer Arrived

New-Fazer-Fairing-PaintingThe new fairing for my Fazer 600 arrived the other day. I have opted for a pattern part, GRP version from CWC (Cars Wants Change) in Poland. As you can see the fairing arrived unpainted with just the white gel coat finish. So my daughter offered to paint it for me. Not 100% it’ll be a good colour match mind… It was far more cost-effective than a genuine Yamaha part and first impressions are good, nice smooth finish in the main. Just a couple of edges that will need a bit of sanding prior to spraying.

Over the next week or so, I’ll get it painted up properly at a local spray shop and then fitted. I don’t think I’ll be able to do a particularly good job with rattle cans at home. Finally, once I’ve stuck on some decals and the Yamaha badge, it should look indistinguishable from a genuine Yamaha fairing. Of course, at a fraction of the price; £125 compared to £500. At that price, it won’t be such a tragedy if I drop the bike again!

CWC make all kinds of pattern fairing, rear huggers and other body parts for all manner of bikes (and cars). Do check them out

New-Fazer-FairingUpdate: Since writing this it seems CWC are longer trading on eBay. Also, Yamaha reduced the price of their genuine fairings, with a fully painted and colour-matched cowling coming in at around £200. Order directly from your local Yamaha dealer, or Fowlers Parts.

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Hardware Maintenance

Fitting Motad Venom Stainless Steel Downpipes & Exhaust to Fazer 600

Motad Venom Stainless Steel DownpipesRecently I splashed out on a new Motad Venom complete exhaust system for my Fazer. Comprising of stainless steel downpipes, a nice oval end can and all the trinkets for fitting. Motad has their factory located in the heart of the black country up in Walsall, which is nice to know as supporting local trade is always preferable. Motad sells their products directly through their eBay shop or their website, and in either case, you can get a better price than going through a reseller. I ordered their full exhaust system; downpipes, gaskets, link pipe, the end can and necessary clamps/brackets. Motad offered me a good price in exchange for a write-up on this blog. The whole lot arrived quickly in a lot smaller box than I was expecting, but dismantled the system is not as large as you first perceive. Upon opening, I had a box full of shiny goodies. All packed well, everything needed for installation included and a short set of instructions for fitting.

Update 2017: Sadly Motad has shut shop and ceased trading. It’s a real shame to see such a good British brand no longer in business.

This is the first time I’ve tackled the fitting of downpipes, but after consulting my Haynes manual, and some guides on the Fazer Owners Club forums and various other websites, it didn’t seem too difficult. Here are the steps I followed.

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Hardware

Shiny New Pipes

imageTreated myself to a set of nice new stainless steel downpipes and can from Motad. My current stock pipes have turned into a complete rust bucket and full of holes at the bottom by the 4-into-1. Not bad considering they’re over 10 years old now.

Will fit downpipes one upcoming weekend when weather permits. But might stick can on sooner, can’t wait to see how it sounds.

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Maintenance

Haynes Manuals Arrived

Haynes ManualsHaynes manuals have now arrived. Gave up trying to find a cheap second-hand copy, there’s naff all saving by the time you’ve factored in postage compared to Amazon free delivery.

To be honest, I can’t believe I lasted this long without a Haynes manual. I also have a Motad downpipes and exhaust system on order, so should be handy when it comes to fitting that.

Grab a Haynes manual off Amazon

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Maintenance

Fixing Airbox Leaks on ZZR Ram Air

image

Busy morning sorting out the airbox on Mary’s ZZR400. It had a bad seal where the underside marries up to the top of the throttle bodies, a gaping space along the rear edge. This has been causing running issues at high speed, where the ram air setup needs to be pressurised to ensure the floats let the right mix of fuel and air into the engine. Without the necessary pressure the fuel mix has been far too rich.

I picked up a new airbox on the off chance the current one was slightly warped. I also got a new duct seal, as the old seal was very squashed and not doing its job. Swapping the box over was mostly straight forward, with only removing/replacing the tank and getting the ram air ducts at the front lined up into the box being particularly tricky. All went well until a fuel line split – doh! Just at end near the clamp onto the reserve valve, so I was able to shorten it and make good. Phew!