It was one of the coldest nights in February, almost exactly a year after I'd bought the bike. Even then, it’d done 38000 miles, with another 9000 added under my tenure. The Kawasaki had proved itself a worthy machine in that time, one that impressed with its ruggedness rather than the amount of excitement it’d generated. We'd become fast friends and I hoped that would get us home.
I was shaking with the cold. What was supposed to have been a thirty minute run had now turned into a two hour trial by ordeal. The outskirts of my village were sighted as the engine's note deepened and the shudders increased, not that the Z200 could ever be described as vibration free even when all the engine internals were in good shape. I sang louder, hope rising in my heart as lighted windows emerged out of the haze. Five more minutes and I'd be home.
The engine ground to a halt a hundred yards from the house. Smoke and steam hissed off the dead but hot motor. I left it in the gutter to cool down and trudged up to the house. Half an hour in the warmth and four cups of tea later I had the bike in the house ready for an engine strip.
The Z200 has a very simple OHC engine but it was also eleven years old. That meant that screws and bolts were likely to be corroded in solid. Changing the clutch plates, for instance, had taken nearly a week because some of the screws refused to budge. There's nothing worse than an old screw-head that’s too blurred even to take an impact driver. This time around I soon found that the fault lay in the cylinder head where bits of camshaft lobe had worn away, damaging the rockers in the process. The bore looked clean so I left the cylinder where it was and flushed the mill out a few times.
Z200's are not too common in breakers - new camshaft and rockers cost more than the bike was worth. My second bike, a rat CG125, was used for a month until a whole head turned up for thirty notes. This was a private sale from a bike that'd been crashed but one that sported 58000 miles. I tore the head apart, polished everything up and ground in the valves. The lobes had a few small marks but the hardening hadn't been broken through.
I'd always done 1000 mile oil changes and carefully warmed the motor up without going wild on the throttle to make sure that plenty of oil reached the top end - anyone who'd ever owned an old Honda soon learnt the necessity for such tender loving care! Perhaps the previous owner wasn’t so kind hearted. I went to the great expense of buying a new cylinder head gasket as the old had always allowed oil to seep out.
The only trouble I had fitting the head was when I almost stripped a couple of head bolts - gently, gently. The motor came to life after half a dozen kicks. There's always the chance when disturbing Jap engines that they will never run well again. The bike felt quite reluctant to rev, as if the timing was slightly out. There was also some coughing on the overrun, traced to the downpipe not sitting correctly in the cylinder head. Once that was sorted performance improved but didn't equal the bike’s previous verve.
Anything over 70mph was hard going, with more vibes than I'd experienced before at 75 to 80mph. 60mph was the maximum comfortable cruising speed whereas, in the past, it was happy thrumming along at 70mph or more. Acceleration was reduced as well but it was still significantly fleeter of foot than the CG125, which above 50mph wandered all over the road like a drunken sailor.
The Z had always been competent even when flat out, having a stability that belied its low mass of 275lbs but which didn’t stop me throwing it through the curves with gay abandon. Had I been larger then the Kawasaki would've been rather cramped but it wasn’t and its dimensions suited me almost perfectly. I can forgive a bike a lot if I can get both feet on the ground and pick it up when it falls over!
The front disc was always a nasty piece of work, though it'd probably been OK when new. There wasn’t any more power than a good TLS drum, a lot less feel and the kind of delay in the wet that led to premature baldness. The engine braking helped, as did the rear drum but when I needed to stop in a hurry the front disc never impressed. I became so fed up that I ended up fitting a TLS drum brake wheel from (I think) a CB250K4 Honda. That's where the breaker reckoned it’d originated and I| wasn’t going to complain because it possessed scads of power and feedback. Brilliant in the wet, the shoes haven't worn out yet, and there were no nasty caliper seizures or leaking brake fluid to worry about. The best fifteen quid I ever spent!
Other improvements to the chassis were minimal. A pair of phosphor bronze swinging arm bearings were made up to replace the crap stock items, which were renown for both wearing out fast and letting the swinging arm move around. The latter rusted at an incredible rate until I stripped it down to bare metal, put on a coat of rust proofer and seven layers of red paint. All the cables were replaced with nylon coated ones, having bought a kit to make up a front brake cable.
Oh, and a large seven inch front light was fitted to aid night riding, which is fine for an hour but then starts to drain the battery - on long journeys a fully charged car battery is put in the top box. The standard light is a waste of time if more than moped speeds are contemplated.
I had carefully contrived my own rubber mounting system for the front light, but even this was insufficient when afflicted with the new level of vibration coming from the reassembled engine. Each and every night ride resulted in a blown bulb unless I kept the engine steady at between 3500 and 4000rpm, which wasn’t that much fun as it was the one spot in the rev range where there was a hole in the otherwise linear power output even if it was also the only spot that was free of vibration. I'm fairly easy going but having a bike that couldn't be ridden at night was a huge inconvenience, especially in February when it was dark early.
I reverted to the CG for a while whilst I pondered the inequities of life and avidly read MCN in search of a second engine. Eventually, a crashed Z200 turned up for £150 but I could have the 29000 mile motor for £100. As I could sell the Z200 with a good motor for £500 this seemed like a good deal.
This engine turned out to be the best of the bunch, giving the old girl startling acceleration and an 82mph top speed. Economy also improved from 85 to 95mpg with as much as 120mpg available if I was in the mood to ride in a manner befitting my age. The staid appearance of the Z200, rather like the MZ 250, hid an unusual degree of competence (with the couple of previously mentioned chassis mods) that allowed distances to be covered in quite spectacular times (about twice as fast as the CG125 and no slower than much bigger bikes due to a better range and reasonable comfort ref. the tortoise and the hare).
I never used the bike for really long distances, never did more than 250 miles in a day, but this was more personal preference than any limitation imposed by the Kawasaki. The seat had been rebuilt to better than new after it'd fallen apart and the riding position was perfect for me. The vibes, from a good engine, faded into the background and didn’t do any damage to my extremities. Overall, then, pretty impressive.
I could’ve done without the chassis rot, though. Anything made of steel liked to rust through. The petrol tank goes eventually but there's plenty of warning because rust clogs up the fuel line and makes the motor stutter like a stroker with oiled up plugs. When it’s gone that far it’s just not worth trying to weld in some extra metal as the whole thing will melt if not explode on the back of the petrol’s fumes. I spent a lot of time searching for a decent petrol tank before mine had a chance to rust right through.
Kawasakis don’t have the best chassis build quality in the world, but forewarned is forearmed and it’s a lot easier to keep the chassis in one piece than have to rebuild the engine every other month. For the money, the Z200 is very useful and very worthy, all that’s needed for serious motorcycling once outright speed is eliminated from the equation. I'd buy a low mileage example without a moment's hesitation!
David Trench