There are few bikes that are so frightful that they make me roll off the road, rip my helmet off and throw up my lunch. My Kawasaki SR650 was one such. So, it was 60000 miles old, on shot suspension, worn tyres and dodgy bearings but even that didn’t seem to excuse the bike. I'd only had the SR for a week, been trying to get used to its high bars, on-off engine power delivery and immoderate handling.
An ugly bike when new, years of neglect had done nothing for its appearance. A rusty 4-1 screamed out noise, the back disc was gummed up solid and the engine wouldn't run below 5000rpm. If you were wondering why I bought the rat, the answer’s simple - it only cost £200.
I should've stripped it right down but I wanted some highway kicks. The power seemed heart burning when it flowed in from 7000 revs on, maxing out at 11k. Just about every part of the chassis blurred with the vibes when such revs were reached. That wasn't my main concern, though. I was trying to work out if the front forks shuddering or the back wheel weaving was the most cause for fear. I forgot all that when the bars tried to tear themselves out of my hands and the back wheel felt like it was breaking up. Reaching for the front brake, my vision seemed to be going, everything going dark away from a focal point that seemed to be narrowing down into a case of terminal tunnel vision.
The front end felt like it was falling apart as the twin discs hit home. My shoulders were viciously wrenched as I held on to the brake and the bars. Coming down from 95mph to 60mph things relaxed a little, just back to the weaves. I shook my head trying to clear my vision, feeling fear settle in the pit of my stomach and the need to let loose at both ends.
I rode home very slowly, about a stone lighter in weight. At that stage, despite the heavy dose of fear, I was willing to give the SR the benefit of the doubt. After all, it was in such a poor state that it would neither pass an MOT nor a police check. Coming up to a junction the engine cut out. Much whirring of the starter but no working engine, the battery dying away. Half an hour on the kickstart did not improve matters.
A rather sullen looking youth in a police uniform took that moment to appear out of thin air. He reckoned I'd better move on fast as I was holding up the traffic. I looked down the deserted road, decided the guy was obviously on some narcotic and I'd better get out of there fast before he turned nasty. Fast, as in pushing the 500lb lump of shit the half mile to my house.
Later that week, I had torn the wheels, forks and swinging arm off. Hammering out the swinging arm spindle was only made possible by application of a sledgehammer borrowed from the builder next door. I made damn sure my fingers were out of the way. I chiselled out the old bearings and hammered in some new ones, mostly sourced from a bearing factor. Stiffened forks, less knackered shocks and a flat set of handlebars were bolted on. That just left a set of Avon tyres and cleaning up all three calipers, which in turn revealed the need for replacement pads all round (slightly used from the breakers, though they needed a bit of filing to fit).
I put it all back together, found it impossible to line up the wheels but at least all the looseness had been removed. The engine ran poorly at low revs because some urchin had thrown away the air filter and the silencer bore more a resemblance to a drainpipe that a means of absorbing noise. A two yard long MZ silencer seemed totally inappropriate but was propped up in the corner of the garage, hence free and therefore impossible to resist. Its end needed cutting back to fit on the downpipe collector but secured with a couple of jubilee clips it seemed up to the job.
No, it didn’t sound like a bloody MZ, but the muted howl was music to my ears and the foot of silencer that projected beyond the bike would surely discourage tail-gating cagers! It ticked over reliably, ran to 5000 revs, then stuttered a bit until 7000 when it took off until dying a death at 9500 revs. Even in first down a hill the engine wouldn't rev beyond that point.
I wasn't too worried as the handling was still poor and I had absolutely no inclination to go beyond 90mph. Apart from anything else, a hard thrash would stall the motor once back down to town speeds. Refusing to start again until the bike had a chance to cool down. This seemed a classic case of ignition coils breaking down but when I went to the trouble of replacing them with some car units the problem persisted. My ever friendly breaker reckoned I should use Kawasaki originals, a set of which he just happened to have to hand. That did the trick but within 2000 miles the same thing happened again and this time there were none available secondhand and I had 10 pay Kawasaki prices for a new set.
The Kawasaki had proved an expensive bike to run, even though it was so unsafe that I very rarely rode it above 75mph. Even then the back wheel weaved and wobbled, and every time I went into a corner I had the feeling that it was going to be my last moment on earth. It felt like the fat rear tyre was squirming all over the tarmac and the narrow front tyre had the same kind of contact patch as the rubber on a bicycle. It sort of wobbled around in the general direction I wanted to go, but really preferred me to lean off the side, keeping the Kawa as upright as possible. I think it was both too heavy for the double cradle tubular frame and the fork geometry was too steep.
Because the handling was so poor, I tore through secondhand brake pads in about 1500 miles, even though the back brake only had marginal power. Tyres wore at an incredible rate, too, something I couldn't understand as the power output was derisory most of the time but a set of new tyres in 3500 miles had me scratching my head in total gobsmacked wonder.
I thought it might be because the wheels were out of line. My expert mechanic friend tried to line them up, after an hour giving up. The different tyre sections didn't help any. He reckoned that the frame was bent, but there were no signs of that under the tank. In fact, the frame was the one item that was free of corrosion, so it could have had a respray after being straightened. It's unfair to complain about the handling when there was something dodgy about the chassis, but it was how the bike came to me and I had to suffer the consequences.
The MZ silencer, similarly, might've had an effect on the fuel, which at 30 to 35mpg was almost as bad as a fearsome old stroker with none of the wild power kicks. In a flush of enthusiasm I fitted a Z650 silencer, the engines being almost identical apart from some internal gearing differences. The SR actually came new with a snazzy set of crossover 4-2s but they had long since rusted off. The Z650 silencer made it run cleaner and let the engine breathe up to 10000rpm...
fuel was still stuck at 35mpg. The lack of an air filter should’ve made it leaner runner and more economical but it sure didn't work out that way in reality.
Another bit of reality was the level of discomfort, mainly caused by a seat that was more base than foam. Even half an hour in town was enough to have me screaming in pain. I could've done something about the saddle, I suppose, but I was so uninspired by the SR that I didn't really want to blow any money or effort on it.
By 66000 miles, the engine had become so rattly that I didn’t trust it for any great distances, so the lack of comfort was no great loss. I had trouble staying with a mate on a GS500E who could lean over so far that I had no hope of overtaking him. If I'd tried such angles of lean on the Kawasaki it'd thrown me off in retribution. Given that I'd neither done any engine maintenance nor even changed the oil (it consumed it so fast that it didn’t seem to be worth the effort) I guess it was quite good going to do 6000 miles without blowing up.
The end came when I was distracted with another wrestling match with the bars. Even at moderate speeds the chassis could be caught out by large bumps or ruts in the road, especially if they ran at an angle to the road. It's surprising how quickly I'd become used to fighting the chassis, which this time involved jamming the front brake on whilst sitting as relaxed as possible as speed disappeared and the wobbles calmed down.
The engine decided to take that moment, just as the bike was starting to go stable again and there was only 40mph on the clock to seize up solid. A locked up back wheel threw the bike into another frenzy which seemed to get more intense when I finally grabbed the clutch. At least it helped knock off more speed, we finally went off the road at about 20mph. I stepped rather than fell of the bike, and went into another vomit session.
The chassis wasn't really damaged and for some strange reason I pushed it home. I had no interest in rebuilding the motor or even finding out what had caused it to seize. Fitting another motor in the dubious chassis was a waste of time. I sold it off for spares for £200!
Ben Mitchel