Continuing - So what did you do to your bike today...?

[KiwiCol]

Phil, once the bike is running the electrical requirements are (should be) supplied by the generator / alternator, the battery at that stage is just a storage device. 
If your bike is using the power in the battery to run, then you have a charging issue, not necessarily a battery issue, although that could be buggered by running it down so far.

See if you can bang some power back into the old battery, put it back in the bike, start it & check the charging. Should be pretty obvious if it's charging or not.

[Phill P]

I see your point and have fully charged the old battery and will see what happens. Although the battery was charged a couple of months ago and was not run after that and was as dead as a dodo this morning

[Hooli]

I have seen properly dead batteries be such a current draw the alternator can't keep up with the demand. Only when properly dead due to a fault rather than flat though.

[Phill P]

I charged the battery last night and its sitting at 12.8 volts but I will get it load tested and take it from there.
However the bikes a star, last minute of the video, Ceasefire cafe Yapton

https://youtu.be/hIbiCRPtEqs?si=O7bk_D9161G489Bh

[Hooli]

My playground years ago when I lived in Worthing.

[Phill P]

My playground years ago when I lived in Worthing.

Nothing much has changed, more houses,traffic and people.

On a separate note......bugger 12.3 volts across the battery terminals tickover to 4000, headlight on took it down to 12.15 v

[Kiwifruit]

First time to the shed in six weeks, she fired up straight away 
Just warmed her up, still a way off riding yet.

[Hooli]

My playground years ago when I lived in Worthing.

Nothing much has changed, more houses,traffic and people.

On a separate note......bugger 12.3 volts across the battery terminals tickover to 4000, headlight on took it down to 12.15 v

Time to test the stator output next then. From memory about 60v AC (when revved) across any pair of yellow wires at the multiplug under the clutch slave cover. If that's ok then check the reg/rec which is a damn pain to get to without taking half the bike apart.

Personally I'm on my 3rd stator with the original reg/rec but others have had reg/rec problems including the multiplug to it burning out. If you go near the reg/rec check it's mounting. On early bikes at least it's riveted to the plastic & I found one rivet gone & the other rotten. I replaced them with a couple of small bolts.

[Phill P]

My playground years ago when I lived in Worthing.

Nothing much has changed, more houses,traffic and people.

On a separate note......bugger 12.3 volts across the battery terminals tickover to 4000, headlight on took it down to 12.15 v

Time to test the stator output next then. From memory about 60v AC (when revved) across any pair of yellow wires at the multiplug under the clutch slave cover. If that's ok then check the reg/rec which is a damn pain to get to without taking half the bike apart.

Personally I'm on my 3rd stator with the original reg/rec but others have had reg/rec problems including the multiplug to it burning out. If you go near the reg/rec check it's mounting. On early bikes at least it's riveted to the plastic & I found one rivet gone & the other rotten. I replaced them with a couple of small bolts.

Aha an update.
Cleaned up battery terminals and earth to engine (unsure where the others are)
Took off sprocket cover, surprisingly clean actually, even the clutch cylinder was silver.
Did the alternator test and the numbers are
Tickover 17-18
5000 revs 76-82
Haynes says should be min 60v AC at 5000 revs.
So alternator seems good thankfully, looks like regulator.
Any thoughts appreciated, electric skills are not the best 😕

[Hooli]

Enjoy getting your hand in, the manual says take half the back of the bike off to get to the reg/rec. I managed to to get it in & out without doing that, but it was difficult.

It's above the swingarm attached to the plastic undertray bit, below the battery box.

[Phill P]

Luckily I don't have big hands......obviously everything else is proportional cough cough 😏
I've seen a vid of a guy going through the underside of the swinging arm,looks a fan but I've had worse 

[Hooli]

I can't remember how I got in, but I hadn't taken anything more than the seat & side panels off as far as I recall.

[Rynglieder]

There was a reasonably tolerable day last week so I decided to give the Z1000 a short run. It was obviously feeling deeply hurt by the lack of attention it had been getting over the winter and proceeded to run like a bag of nails.

Without giving them a fair trial, I accused the spark plugs. Coincidentally I had only been thinking about them the week before - at about 5-6k miles it had misbehaved in this way and the Kawasaki dealer said at the time that these bikes were heavy on plugs. As the bike has now done 13k I had almost been bracing myself for some sort of tantrum.

Being a "poor pensioner" these days I have been doing bits and pieces that would have been shoved in the direction of a workshop and flush with my own success of doing an oil change on the GSX I decided I'd have a go at the Z1000.

What a pig of a job. The tank came off easily enough but it was all downhill from there. The plugs are buried deep in the cylinder head and the socket set I possessed extracted numbers 1 and 4 without any drama. Before I could even see cylinders 2 and 3 the coolant reservoir had to be excommunicated and some heavy-duty hosing dragged through the spaghetti surrounding them.

Whilst I could now see the plugs there was no way my limited armoury of tools was going to get them out. The extension bar I had just about poked out above the cylinder head when seated on the plugs but there was absolutely no room to swing the ratchet down there. And thus, it was hand-in-pocket time again and an order to Amazon for a set of three extension bars of various sizes and a universal joint to suit.

Once everything was to hand, I pressganged the Dear Wife into an apprentice role to hold various bits of wiring loom and hoses out of the way as they were profoundly interfering with the plug's exit strategy, constantly trying to drop them back down into the head. I found myself reminded of those amusement arcade games with the grab that lets go of the coveted cuddly toy just before it gets to the drop chute.

New Iridium plugs were eventually eased in. Luckily, it all seemed to go back together OK in the end and I seem not to have forgotten any vent hoses, ground wire clamps and bits of bodywork that fell victim to the process.

Next up was an oil change. I thought that the filter wrench I had invested in for the GSX was going to come in useful, but no, the Zed needed one 3mm smaller, so that was something else added to the Amazon order. The new tool bill came in at about £20 and whilst I was not expecting to buy anything at all, I suppose it is probably less than the cost a half hour's labour at a dealership so I think I won out on the end. At least the oil change was totally straightforward.

The other morning, I decided to put some air in the tyres (as this is rumoured to improve handling) and took it for a short ride into Warwickshire. It was now running beautifully again and I allowed myself a self-congratulatory coffee in Alcester before the ride home.



My thoughts are now turning to the GTR, but there's an awful lot of plastic around that and an even bigger tank to lift out of the way. Maybe I'll hang on until just before my next European excursion and let someone else tackle that.

[Phill P]

I can't remember how I got in, but I hadn't taken anything more than the seat & side panels off as far as I recall.

It looks fiddly but will be ok

[Hooli]

Kwak plugs

A mate has a Z750 & that doesn't like old plugs either. Her bike was running on two cylinders the other year until thrashed. When I had a look the (original) plugs had double the correct gap after about 16k miles. Oddly enough it ran a lot better once I regapped them. These were an utter nightmare to get to the inner plugs too, bloody frame rails partly over the plug holes!