8,000 Mile Service on ZX-9R

Due to the recent awful weather conditions Helen and I haven’t been able to go out on the bikes at all, which has really annoyed us both.

Due to this I decided that it would be an ideal time to take the ZX-9R to bits and carry out some of the maintenance tasks required. The main thing that needed doing was the 8,000 mile valve check. To get to the top of the engine you need to remove various things including 2 of the ram-air pipes. To access these and remove them from the frame I had to take of all the side panels and the front nose cone assembly including windscreen off the bike.

Once I had removed them and the fuel tank I was able to start removing all of the other things in the way. I removed the air filter box and then I removed the carbs, once I had removed some more pipes and wiring it was then possible to access the top of the engine. I removed the head and then performed the valve check on the engine. Possibly because this was the first time this has ever been done, I found that 11 out of the 16 were out of spec (all tight). I was able to sort out 3 of them via swapping out with some of the other valves shims, but had to order the rest in. I got them off Ebay for around £2 each rather than the £8 that Kawasaki wanted for them.

After I had put the bike back together I installed 2 more carb take offs for cylinders 2 and 3, which then enabled me to synchronise the carbs. They were a little bit out but with a little bit of fiddling I was able to pretty much get them back in sync.

While I had all the bodywork off I also installed some blue Hel braided brake lines. I used the 2 full length race line kit for the front and the standard single line for the rear. It was a complete nightmare bleeding the brakes and took what seemed like forever to complete. But once complete it, I was very happy with the feel of the brake lever and pedal. The old brake fluid probably couldn’t have helped as I guess it was probably the original stuff from the factory.