For the past five years I have been using a 1985 Kawasaki GPz550 to tour around the UK. Whenever I have the chance for a long weekend or a couple of weeks holiday I load up the bike and set off on my travels. I always travel alone and most nights are spent under canvas. I dislike pillions on principle and don't like to have my travel plans dictated by stupid landladies. I can pitch my two man tent just about anywhere for the night and will have moved on before some enraged landowner has a chance to set his dogs on me the next morning. It's also a lot cheaper.
The Kawasaki, being revvy in nature, might not seem the first choice as a touring mount. But it is very light for an across the frame four and, also, very economical. An important factor when you're doing a couple of thousand miles. I rarely rush everywhere at maximum revs and the bike purrs along at 70mph as if it's just ticking over. Admittedly, for fast acceleration I have to drop down two gears and wrap open the throttle, but the clutch is light and the gearbox still precise, so this is no great problem.
Restrained riding returns around 65mpg. I have, once or twice, gone down to 45mpg but usually manage to achieve the right side of 60mpg. A pair of cheapo Michelins last 12000 miles out back and 18 thou on the front. An O-ring chain and a Scottoiler have made chain adjustment infrequent and longevity so good I find it impossible to name a figure.
The disc calipers, all three of them, seize up before the pads wear out, one annoying aspect of consumable demise I have been unable to solve. Another possible problem is Unitrack linkage wear, but being a wise old man I solved this one with a strip down and grease up - it's not surprising that they wear for there was no grease present on the shafts. The same applied to wheel and swinging arm spindles. Lack of greased up spindles on new Kawasakis is a common problem, so be forewarned.
The bike now has 78000 miles on the clock and is still on all the original components, save for numerous bulbs, speedo cables and various consumables. The engine has the usual regular oil and filter changes, the occasional carb balance and a very infrequent shim change to the valvegear. The camchain tensioner is automatic and the ignition trouble free electronic.
This remarkable durability I put down to two things. The bike is always used on long runs, never for short shopping trips, the latter a real killer of exhaust systems as it allows condensation to build up in the silencers - mine are still original although they have become quite rusty and rather noisy. Second, as mentioned, I never thrash the engine. It has had quite an easy life judging by the antics of some riders I see on the road and read about in the UMG. I was brought up on British bikes and am of an age when I do not have to prove myself by riding like a juvenile delinquent.
The longest run I've done in one go is 650 miles in a day. The ergonomics of the GPz550 are good, flat handlebars together with nicely located footrests means you're left leaning into what wind the half fairing allows past, most of your mass taken off the none too sumptuous dual seat. However, after about 250 miles the seat turns to a plank and I find it necessary to move about a lot, even to the extent of standing up on the footpegs to relieve tension. A petrol stop and a quick walk around is enough to get you ready for the next bout. After a days riding some muscles do feel tired and the occasional bit of leg cramp shows up my age if not the Kawasaki's lack of comfort.
My worst experience was coming down south from Manchester, a delightful city, by the way, in a torrential downpour. Eight hours in the saddle did nothing for the waterproofing of my elderly Barbours and I was left a damp mess upon my arrival. It did feel wonderful to soak in a hot bath, almost made the discomfort worth it. This garish modern plastic clothing does not appeal to my taste at all, even if it works better than waxed cotton. The fairing provides a bit of protection to the upper body, but both hands and neck seem to come off even worse, in heavy rain, than on an unfaired machine.
One problem I had with the bike in the first year was that it would cut out in heavy rain. The motor would become first a triple and then a twin, coming back on to all four cylinders in a most sudden and frightening manner. I replaced the spark plug caps and sprayed the coils with silicone sealant sold in hardware stores for plugging up gaps in roofs, drain pipes and the like. Anyway, it worked well enough and, much to my relief, the problem disappeared.
One thing that was never a problem for the rider was vibration. After a Triumph Bonneville the GPz felt exceptionally smooth at all speeds. I have ridden bigger fours and found the secondary vibes intrusive, but this appears not to be a problem for a 550cc four. However, I had a spate of blowing rear and main bulbs. This got to be so regular an occurrence that I dug out an old inner tube and added some extra insulation for the lights. This worked okay but then the indicator bulbs started to blow, a much simpler problem to solve, they were torn off and thrown into the pile of miscellaneous junk that's collected at the back of my garage.
I have even done some winter touring on the bike, so it is by no means just a summer time toy. A 500 mile December bash left me shivering in two layers of sleeping bags in a tent that had been difficult to pitch on the frozen ground, the painful recirculation of blood to frozen extremities reminding me that I was still alive. At various stops for food and petrol, people looked at me, from the warmth and comfort of their cars, as if I was mad. The journey home was enlivened by a snow storm for thirty miles. I have always found the handling of the Kawasaki reassuring in the wet and it proved stable enough as we cut through the slush.
In the dry the bike is better than my last machine, a Bonnie, more stable and just as flickable. Now that the suspension has had time to wear out it does wallow a little in fast bends but even with worn tyres it never threatens to become dangerous. Gaiters to the front forks have ensured seal longevity and the rear shock is still original! As I have known some really wicked handling British bikes in my time, I have no real complaints against this Japanese middleweight.
The brakes, when the calipers are not seized up, are more than powerful enough for the speeds I use. I don't like them in the wet very much, even with Ferodo pads they don't work instantly and I have had a few front wheel lock-ups in my time with the machine. Goodridge hose was fitted in a bid to improve feel, but I would happily lose some of the power in exchange for increased feedback.
I have to take the calipers apart every 5000 miles to stop them seizing up. I have modified their construction so that they are easier to pull apart. Depending on the make fitted, pads have lasted anywhere between 6000 and 11000 miles. Disc brakes on older bikes are always giving problems, I hope those fitted to the latest machines are better designed.
The GPz is kept in the garage for most of year, allowed into the hallway when the weather turns really nasty. I have taken a lot of care to keep the bike clean, to the extent that old toothbrushes are employed to clean up the wheels and between cylinder fins. Any sign of rust on frame or cycle parts is treated instantly. I am a great fan of Solvol and Gunk. I see many Kawasakis of a similar age which resemble rolling wrecks, my bike still looks good and I have been offered some remarkable trade-in prices when I've enquired about newer machines.
I am tempted by the new Kawasaki 750 Zephyr as it has lots of grunt as well as all the usual air cooled Kawasaki attributes. Even with a good trade-in it is a very expensive proposition. I am aware that the GPz should start to give me problems at its mileage but it still runs as reliably as ever, so the greater temptation is to keep it for another year.
William Knight
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I bought this 1985 Kawasaki GPz550 off the biggest dealer in town. That was when my troubles began. The bike had done just over 45000 miles, which I'd assumed was nothing to a tough mill like a GPz550. Wrong! A week after purchase, the motor started smoking like a stroker, all kinds of hellish noises coming up from engine. Right, back to the dealer, claim on the three month guarantee. Wrong! The lying bastard had made me sign a bit of paper with Sold As Seen in very small print hidden at the bottom. Luckily, I had a mate who was a witness to Mr Smarm's assurance that the bike had a guarantee.
The dealer didn't want to know, even when threatened with massive publicity, a demo outside his showroom and a boot in the balls! Right then, take the bike to a small workshop to get them to do the work, then make a claim in court. Wrong! The engine was comprehensively knackered. The mechanic reckoned that the rings or pistons had started to wear, leading to high oil consumption.
Some jerk hadn't checked the oil level, running it right down, leading to even more rapid wear. This vicious circle repeated until the plain bearing crank was only fit for the scrap yard. Ouch. The only option left was to fit a motor from a crashed bike into my chassis. I eventually found a 1986 example with 18000 miles on the clock in a private sale. It wasn't possible to hear the engine running, so handing over £300 for something that might be in as bad a state as my old motor could have just been throwing good money after bad. I got lucky for once, the new mill was splendidly quiet and in tip top shape.
It had taken about four months to get to the stage where I had a working motor. Despite solicitor's letters, angry meetings and all my friends phoning him up to tell him what a rotter he was, Mr Smarm carried on as if I did not exist. I never did get any compensation out of the dealers, but he must have lost hundreds of customers as word about his manoeuvres rapidly spread throughout the motorcycle community.
By the time I could let the good times roll, winter had started to descend. I was still able to enjoy some short blasts on the 65hp, 410lb four. It was a revvy beast in nature, encouraging me to ride on throttle, blasting up and down on the gearbox just like in the days when I was learning on a Yam TZR125. Handling felt on the heavy side but basically sound. I found I could blast down the motorway with 120mph on the clock, safely tucked down behind the half fairing, with unerring stability. The bike was just heavy enough not to be thrown all over the road.
Then all hell broke loose. It happened on the first day of November. I had hastily backed off from 110mph when spotting a jam sandwich in a side turning. The road surface suddenly turned rough, causing the back end to shake, rattle and roll. When the forks decided to join in with enough force to wrench my shoulder muscles I wished fervently that I was safely at home in front of the TV. My first speed wobble. I jammed on all the brakes, by the time we hit 60mph the jumping Kawasaki had quietened down.
The police officer had a big grin on his face. It had something to do with the way I was throwing up my dinner after slewing to a halt. Notebook in hand, he proceeded to caution me for riding in a manner likely to endanger other road users and for breaking the speed limit by at least 50mph. He then checked the machine over, seeming disappointed when he found nothing loose or defective. I gave him a false name and address, scurried off before he decided to check my details on the computer.
The ride home was full of horror, the back end felt terrible, tossing all over the place. I kicked the tyre and swinging arm but could find nothing amiss. Further examination, once in the garage, revealed that the horrendously complex Unitrack linkage was full of loose bearings. It was covered in gunge and probably hadn't seen grease for years. It took a long weekend to persuade all the linkages off and a bust piggy bank to replace the bearings and spindles. Ouch.
I was full of fear that the bike was going to be horrendously expensive to keep repairing, but once this problem was overcome things settled down for the next 22000 miles, nothing major going wrong. That took me two and a half years to do, the GPz mainly being employed for fast weekend riding with a pack of mates on a variety of machines. The 550 had little trouble keeping up with 600cc machines on A roads. I was always in pretty good shape after a 250 mile run, unlike many of the guys on the race replicas who would stagger around like arthritic pensioners. Fuel was also way ahead of the pack at about 60mpg.
All this joy was seriously impaired on the run home on one of these outings. Seven of us were strung out over half a mile, the pace hotting up as we neared home and the skies threatened to open in a massive rainstorm. I was feeling pretty elated, having enticed a 16 yearold nubile on to the pillion and the Kawa was feeling as taut as a new bike, having pumped a dangerously large amount of air into the suspension (dangerous in that the seals could blow and ruin the whole show).
Edging past a car as we entered a bit of dual carriageway, a lovely growl out of the Motad as we hit 80mph in fifth, I was suddenly presented with the auto veering into my lane as if we did not exist. Having done physics at school I was only too well aware that two objects can't co-exist at the same point in space. I hit the horn at the same time as I veered the bike off towards the central crash barrier and slammed on the brakes in total panic.
The upshot was that the bike slid off the road, bounced into the crash barrier, fell over and threw both of us off. By then the car driver had woken up, violently swerved back on to the left side of the road, taking out the bike behind in the process. Both passenger and I were wearing leather jacket, boots and gloves. Falling clear of the bike, the worst we received was a dose of gravel rash to our legs and some bruised bones. We were extremely lucky, as the girl who's now my wife keeps telling me. (This was perhaps our first bonding ritual - we made crazy love that night, as if we might never see another).
The rider on the bike behind ended up crashing into the back of the car, being thrown forward, viciously twisting his neck as he glanced off the boot of the auto. He was screaming in agony until he passed out. He spent eight months in hospital, luckily making a full recovery; he could just as easily ended up a vegetable. The police and ambulance crew arrived just in time to stop my mates from stomping the car driver to death....he was subsequently fined a pitiful amount for dangerous driving.
The GPz was dented and battered, but the forks and frame were still straight. The cracked front wheel was the most expensive item that needed replacement. I did another 5000 miles on the bike until it started smoking and drinking oil at a voracious rate. I knew the cycle it was about to enter, so traded it in at a dealer's for a new CBR600. He was so desperate to shift stock that he gave me rather more than I'd originally paid for the bike off the discounted price of the Honda. The CBR is a whole new world of motorcycling, but I occasionally miss the old Kawasaki, it was a rather more raw edged machine than the Honda, which for all its speed and nimbleness, often comes across as rather bland. There are some nice GPz's around and also a lot of dogs, buyer's should be very careful that they don't get caught out.
Oz
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A strange thing was happening to my Kawasaki GPz550. I'd go out on a run and it'd start stuttering above 9000 revs. Below that, fine, no problem. Sounded like fuel starvation or maybe ignition breakdown. The only thing was that it'd suddenly clear up after about 150 miles. Coming home it'd fly into the red, transformed into a 130mph missile. The next couple of days would be okay then it'd come back again.
Various mechanics were approached. Various solutions were offered - from a new ignition pack to a complete top end overhaul. Piss artists. For a couple of weeks it went away completely, as I toured around the country on my holidays. Was the bike suffering from angst or something? Then it came back again when I was back in town.
I thought about it some more. The GPz's highly tuned, likes high octane petrol. I always bought my petrol from the supermarket because it's a lot cheaper. Could it be a bit naff? I went back to Shell. No problem! I tried the supermarket stuff again. The stutters came back. Bastards! Think about how much money I could've wasted having the motor fixed.
I looked into this as I couldn't believe it. What happens is that the supermarket's buy on the spot market, the fuel hanging around for a while, the petrol losing some of its punch due to evaporation. Most of the time it doesn't matter, especially for cages which don't have the high state of tune of some bikes. Worth checking out if your motorcycle isn't running very well and you use supermarket petrol.
The other thing I noted was that on Shell petrol it turned in 55 to 60mpg on average, whilst the supermarket stuff was 50 to 55mpg. The extra expense not so great! The GPz550 was one of the longer lived Jap's, and one of the first to evolve over the years - they somehow got faster, more frugal and better handling as the years went by. I had one of the last ones, a low miler, too. Great stuff, after I'd cleared up the petrol problem, which had buggered me up for a couple of months. I changed my supermarket as well; sods!
The GPz was very versatile. Town riding was easy going due to good comfort and plenty of torque below seven grand. It was also light handling and precise, although the bigger pot-holes had to be avoided. The Uni-track back end was excellent and there was plenty of feedback from the tyres. The triple discs were a bit jerky at low speeds but nothing I couldn't get used to. The anti-dive on the front forks probably didn't help. The rubber mounted motor was very smooth at all revs.
Back roads were even better. The bike was light, had good suspension and plenty of ground clearance. The tyres were old-fashioned in their size and slimness but didn't really limit the angle of lean. Down the tighter stuff the bike was fleeter of foot than my mate's early CBR600, much to his annoyance. The only limitation was the braking muscle from the front end, which was a touch inadequate. At times I went into corners too fast on the front brake, the anti-dive causing it to suddenly pogo-stick. No fun, that, but I soon adapted to it.
Motorway cruising was basically whatever you could get away with. The half fairing didn't look much but (with a higher screen) it took care of most of the air blast. I would have preferred it a couple of inches wider to protect my hands from the cold and wet, but that would've ruined the looks. The bike felt best in the 90 to 100mph range when fuel was 60mpg! It'd go faster, quite happy cruising at 120mph (on the optimistic clock) but only turned in 45mpg.
When the engine was caned at such speeds the oil disappeared from the sump at an incredible rate. Had to be filled up between fuelling sessions. Some GPz550 engines went down in as little as 20,000 miles and I reckon it was because their owners ran them on an empty sump without realising it until it was too late. They are easily recognised by their knocking bearings.
High speed handling wasn't perfect. Sometimes it'd run on rails, other times there'd be a bit of a weave. Tyre pressures were critical and it wasn't the kind of bike to run on balding tyres. Under 2mm of tread meant some thrilling wobbles above 80mph and front wheel slides in the wet will have you saying hello to the tarmac in a blur of bouncing metal and tearing flesh. Metz's suited the bike best and lasted for over 10,000 miles at both ends.
A year's riding added up to 17000 miles, a record for me. Couldn't keep off the bike, was the truth. Kept it clean and tidy, the worst wear coming out in the rear caliper. Covered in crud it had a penchant for seizing up even in the summer. The winter was a right horror story. A monthly strip and rebuild, even using Copaslip didn't help. The only good thing about it was the easy way it came apart, a great relief after my time with a 400 Superdream.
The anti-dive was another horrible bit of engineering, coupled up to the brake hydraulics it seemed to give the worst of both worlds. It stopped violent brake dive but at times bit back with a fit of the stutters. I never managed to get all the air out of the hydraulics. This unpredictability leant an air of adventure to every hard ride but it was something I could've done without, all things considered. I never did manage to work out how to disconnect the anti-dive, a common mod.
The engine was stock, right down to the rusty OE exhaust system. Carbs needed balancing every 2500 miles, which was when I changed the oil and filter. The valves were never done but the new owner checked them and told me they were still within tolerances. A quite common piece of neglect on the GPz series. I found it a good idea to change the spark plugs every 5000 miles, for easy starting and steady running in the wet.
Engine-wise, the camchain can go down anywhere between 25000 and 50,000 miles, about £120 to pay someone to replace it without splitting the cases. Don't try it yourself, though, it's dead easy to drop bits in the crankcase or get the valve timing a tooth out. Either of which will reduce the engine to an interesting paperweight! Other than that it's a pretty tough unit that can run to as much as a 100,000 miles!
Prices are basically whatever the market will bear. £2000 should buy a low mileage, excellent example. Half that will turn up a 50,000 mile example with tatty cycle parts and a reasonable engine. £500 will buy a dog. I bought mine privately for £1500, which I thought a bargain. Sold it for £1750 after a year.
Why sell such a useful device? Well, it was the matter of a nearly new GSXR1100 going for £4950. A modern motorcycle with immense grunt and rather frightening handling. Not as useful as the GPz in town, at least not until I get used to it. It's interesting that Kawasaki come up with all kinds of modern middleweights - GPZ500, Zephyr, etc - but none of them offer the sheer, all round versatility of the GPz550. Someone needs to give them a kick up their corporate backside, but then people might stop buying their overpriced replicas.
Andy Coulson