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 60,000 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 airfilter 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 to 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 4-2's
but they had long since rusted off. The Z650 silencer made it
run cleaner and let the engine breathe up to 10,000rpm...... fuel
was still stuck at 35mpg. The lack of an airfilter 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, 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