You don't see too many Kawasaki Z250Ltd's on the road and many a cynic might dismiss them as a last ditch effort to sell remaining stocks of the OHC Z250 single cylinder engine. I'd bought mine from a misguided commuter who thought it an ideal way to come back to motorcycling but found the handling and the dense London traffic incompatible with his aged reflexes. It had been properly run-in, dedicatedly polished and serviced, and was in extremely good condition. He had fitted a huge windscreen to keep the worst of the weather off.
Being little over five foot tall, I was thankful for the extremely low seat height and minimal mass. The electric starter was a useful bonus on a bike that was so basic it had a drum front brake, not too elegantly fitted inside the cast wheel. The bike was a curious mix of the practical and the flash which appealed to my sense of eccentricity.
This went for the running as well. One of the things that had annoyed the first owner was cutting out at low revs in traffic. I experienced this problem several times myself. It usually fired up rapidly on the starter but occasionally refused to start for a few minutes. It felt like a minor breakdown of the ignition or fuel starvation. Raising the tickover eliminated the effect, but left the whole bike thrumming at about 2000rpm.
The Z250's engine goes back to the elemental Z200, shares most of its basic design. There are lots of virtues derived from straightforward engineering, of which I am generally in favour, but smoothness was never one of them. As someone who has actually ridden a Tiger Cub, I can say with some authority that the Ltd's level of vibration was never really destructive. Coming from a straight four, though, it'd probably make you throw up! After a couple of weeks in the saddle, the vibes ceased to be much of an irritant as my body became used to the level of abuse. By the definition of real motorcyclists that meant the Z250Ltd didn't vibrate!
Real motorcyclists were not too impressed with the pseudo chopper looks but it was really only the huge if comfortable seat and ape-hangers that were part of the custom shape. Those handlebars were a bit of a pain as they left my arms too high and too widely splayed, although the windscreen took care of the air blast. The footrests were well placed in relation to the bars, the seat plushly padded and the suspension capable of absorbing most bumps. I found the bike easy to ride in town and capable of cruising at up to 70mph. The naked bike might've been capable of 80 or 85mph but with the windscreen giving the machine the aerodynamics of a tank there was no way I could extract more than 75mph.
Putting a pillion on the back took the edge off performance and left them towering over me in a most disconcerting manner, due to the combination of my lack of stature and the stepped seat. Handling also became rather imprecise with a heavy pillion ruining weight distribution. Solo, despite the custom style and OE Jap tyres, the low centre of gravity made it both stable and easy to throw about. The tyres hardly seemed to wear at all, figure 20,000 miles!
The rest of the consumables were pretty good, too. With 19000 miles on the clock the original brake shoes are still there and it's on the second chain. Fuel was reasonable, ranging from 75 to 93mpg. It was worst being run along at 70mph and best at a steady 50mph. Town commuting gave dead on 80mpg. With low cost road tax and insurance (I'm over forty years old) there were few cheaper ways of getting around or commuting.
The exhaust was one of those quick rot jobs that I spent many an unpleasant weekend patching up. It rotted where the silencer met the downpipe initially but the corrosion quickly spread to the whole of the downpipe and then patches of rust appeared on the silencer. One of the craziest things in the world is making pipes out of mild steel. I really think that the government should make all new bikes wear stainless steel pipes and fine anyone who changes them a couple of grand. That would solve the noise problem overnight. Most noisy bikes are that way because the owners can't afford to pay the silly prices for new exhaust systems, either leaving them to rot or putting on a universal mega. I chose the latter. Luckily, the Z250 ran fine with the new shiny silencer. A sure sign of its very lowly tuned status.
What the motor didn't like was a clogged up air filter, it sulked at low revs and didn't want to run above 6000rpm. I tried running it without the filter but the engine wouldn't even start. A couple of holes in the old filter sorted it but there was a slight glitch in the taller gears around 5000 revs but I could live with that as the alternative was spending my money!
Something I couldn't avoid was a new spark plug every 2500 miles. The engine wouldn't start if this was ignored but at least there was only one plug and it was easily accessible. Even so, I nearly cross-threaded the plug once when my attention was distracted by next door's dog head butting the wooden fence. Ever since I fitted the mega the dog had gone berserk every time he saw me. I always used a little bit of grease on the plug thread after that.
The only other starting problem I had was with the electric motor not working properly. It sounded like the battery was dying but turned out to be the relay sticking - a few taps with my trusty hammer freed it up. I later put some Vaseline on the outer surface and contacts to keep the water out.
The relay problem occurred after a day flinging the Kawasaki through the Cotswolds, accompanied by typical English summer weather - a howling gale and rain so heavy I could hardly see through it. The Japanese tyres had trouble keeping their grip every time I leaned over, feeling very skittish but there was no point riding rapidly as visibility was minimal. The screen kept most of the water off my upper body but the water whipped around the edges, concentrating on my thighs and groin.
Heavy sidewinds flapped the front end about quite wildly at times, the whole bike being thrown across the road until I grappled with the bars and banked over into the wind. Every time an obstruction cut off the wind, the Kawasaki wobbled as it went out of equilibrium. These were extreme circumstances. More normally, the Z250 was reasonably stable, only being thrown about by the larger bumps. It was, after all, so light that it could easily be pulled back on line.
That reasonable stability did the usual disappearing act when the swinging arm bearings started to go. I always had to adjust the chain every 250 to 300 miles and took that opportunity to check the back end. No great problem changing the swinging arm bearings, but when the fault turns up 500 miles from home the ride back turns out rather annoying. I was down to 20mph by the time I finally wobbled up to the house. The rear wheel bearings didn't have a bit of grease in them, were pitted and cracked, so a new set was knocked in as well.
The seven spoke cast wheels were easy to keep clean, the black finish not flaking off and the alloy bits responding to a polish. Indeed, the whole bike responded well to a cleaning session once every two weeks. I'd taken off the exhaust downpipe and rubbed down the rust, spraying on some hi-tech teflon type paint my brother had borrowed from work (it's used in the aerospace industry) which actually bonded better the hotter the exhaust became rather than falling off, which was the norm with most heat resistant paints. With the new silencer, even the exhaust system looked the business.
Because it looked so shiny I had quite a few people come up to me to see if I wanted to sell the bike. I didn't but pretended to be open to offers - the best I had was £950! That put me in a good mood as it was more than I paid for the Kawasaki a few years before. It made a pleasant change from buying bikes that seemed to lose a third of their value overnight. I like the Z250Ltd a lot, think it's a neat motorcycle within the limits of its size and type.
Martin Boroughs