Ten years is a long time in the life of a Z550. This particular example had been around the clock and then some. But only with one owner and a lot of tender loving care I'd guess. Unfortunately, the bike was in a dealer’s who reckoned it was worth at least £1000. Something along the lines of a nice little classic. These people make you sick! Three months in the showroom was enough to convince him otherwise. £400 changed hands. He reckoned he was taking a loss and I hoped he was, for once, telling the truth.
He had gone to the trouble of fitting a new pair of tyres, pads and sprocket set. I got the bike out of his shop before he had the chance to take them off. I don’t think he’d expected me to pull the money out of my pocket right there and then. The cycle parts weren't 100000 miles old. Sometime, a new tank, guards and seat had been fitted. The forks were off a GPz550 or similar and Hagon shocks held up the back end.
The only real signs of its age were the hand painted frame and engine alloy that was submerged beneath white corrosion. Solvol made no difference to the alloy. I left it like it was, intrigued to see how the motor would run. I changed the oil as it'd gone stagnant sitting in the showroom, and was rewarded with a promising rustle, the engine screaming to nine grand when I hit the throttle.
On the road that added up to a willingness to rev up to 90mph in top gear. After that there wasn't much extra performance but an easy 80mph cruising speed could be maintained. With the various mods, including a Motad 4-1, weight was under 400lbs, the Kawasaki was easy to throw around town and quite reasonable in races with hot cages. It seemed like a good buy.
After the first month I had second thoughts. These motors have a weak spot in the camchain and tensioner. Mine started rattling. The cause was a sticking tensioner which freed up. After another week a lot of rattling came back to the top end. I started to check the valve clearances but got no further than the left cylinder’s exhaust camshaft. The lobe was breaking up, where it rubbed on the valve the hardening had worn away.
Engine out, cylinder head off. Three of the eight valves had worked their way into the head. Perhaps I shouldn't have been using unleaded petrol. The camshaft bearings allowed a little excess movement. The top end was so far gone that it wasn’t worth spending out on all the parts to renovate it. A week of phoning breakers followed until someone turned up a good head. I was lucky, these are not common motorcycles. I grumbled a bit about paying out for a new head gasket but it was necessary if I was to convince the world that we were going to have a serious relationship.
The bores had looked good so I hadn't pulled the barrels. The motor was easy to work on, the camchain being of the split-link variety. The only real difficulty was physically man-handling it in and out of the chassis. Really a two man job but I managed on my own, at the cost of slivers of pain shooting up my back. Luckily, the Kawasaki's non-standard riding position had evolved into BMW-like efficiency that always, however the bike was ridden, gave my back an easy time.
The Z had lost some of its earlier performance, now reluctant to do more than 85mph. For the next three months it didn’t matter because we were into serious winter commuting when the cold was so numbing that I couldn't bring myself to do any open road riding. The only engine problem was one or two cylinders cutting out, but letting loose with a can of WD40 removed this disturbing adventure in back wheel hopping. Of course, the salted roads corroded the calipers, they needing a strip every month. But that could be said of just about any hack of this era.
With the relative heat of the spring I began, once again, to explore the performance envelope. Imagine my surprise, then, to find that top speed was only 75mph! Instead of 55 horses the motor shoved the bike along like it was developing a mere twenty. Even down the steepest of hills it refused to go any faster. 100 miles later smoke started pouring out of the exhaust. What now? After a little exploration with the compression tester it became clear that the rings were not sealing.
Had not the consumables still been in fine fettle I might've have cut my losses by dumping the hack in the nearest canal. Engine out, head and barrels off. The same breaker who sold me the head had barrels and pistons. A new camchain and polished, greased tensioner completed the rebuild, old gaskets deemed more than sufficient when combined with a bit of Hermetite. I then had to run the bike in for fifty miles. I decided that the bits, all having come from the same source, should be already worn into each other. Top speed was a disappointing 82mph down my favourite hill but it'd growl along at 75mph in the motorway slow lane for a couple of hours.
The rest of the bike was in much better nick, the chassis snowing no signs of stress and the front GPz discs throwing the Z into stoppies. The Kawa was stable enough to clown around on, a fact not missed by one pillion who climbed up on the seat and mooned following motorists. One Volvo driver followed us for miles afterwards, presumably hoping for a second viewing. My pillion throwing a can of paint he’d stolen from my pack at the Volvo's windscreen finally got him off our tail. It was unlikely that the Z would ever put out sufficient power to burn him off.
I wanted to do some serious miles in the summer but the bike didn’t seem up to it. My mates all rode newer bikes that, to a machine, were capable of cruising at the ton. I had the choice of selling the bike or going off on my own. As it happens a quite fit bint came along and decided to come with me. As my friends had wholly failed to attract any women it was much better to tour solo with the frail that risk it with my frenzied friends who could barely restrain themselves from frothing at the mouth whenever they saw her.
What a laugh we had. Some 200 miles down the road to Scotland (from Chelmsford) the Kawasaki decided to fall apart. I was taking it easy at the time. There was a sudden huge roar like some great bloody artic was about to knock me off. No, it was the silencer falling off. Pulling over, looking back there was no sign of it until I saw a bit of metal that'd been flattened into the tarmac.
By the time we reached the nearest town the girl was almost crying from the pain of having her eardrums shattered. There wasn't a motorcycle shop in sight but I tracked down a car accessory store that sold those chromed end cans. It was only a third of the length of the proper silencer but went on without an excess of bodging. The noise was tolerable up to 5000 revs. Beyond that the motor wouldn't pull. The pace became even more relaxed!
Just as well because crossing the Scottish border coincided with the rear wheel bearings breaking up. I've never ridden a camel with a red hot poker shoved up its wotsit but I'd imagine it'd be similar to an overloaded Z550 with shot rear wheel bearings! I managed to run the bike on to some soft grass at about 20mph before we were spat off.
The girlfriend rapidly became an ex-girlfriend. Losing her hearing was bad enough but being thrown head first into a stagnant pond was just too much of a shock to her system. She staggered away, mud streaming off her, to the nearest town, clutching her bag and muttering away like she had lost it all. I had to push the dented Z to a nearby house and beg them to look after it whilst I braved public transport. Three days later I returned from Glasgow, the only place in Scotland that stocked Z550 wheel bearings.
After that traumatic experience I had two weeks of spirited if lonely riding in the Scottish highlands. I’d even found a proper can for the exhaust but coming home top speed was back down to 70mph, smoke was pouring out of the exhaust and the camchain rattled like it was trying to turn into a chainsaw. I had visions of it whipping through the barrel, gallons of oil spewing out of the engine whilst it melted into a moderm sculpture. I arrived home in one piece and there was enough life left in the bike to sell it for £275. The new owner reckoned he was going to fit a GPz550 motor. Good luck to him, I'd had enough.
Pete Young