Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

Looks like I picked a good weekend to undertake some additional mods to the Pirate... Rained both days, so I spent both of em in the garage..
The kids don't know who I am anymore, I think they just know me by the smell of oil & petrol...
Anyway, the latest round of mods were,
1. I changed the fork oil to a 5 wt as the previous 10 wt was too heavy and I wasn't getting much dive under compression. Hopefully this will help, as it already feels a lot lighter... Its a pain in the ass on these things without a spring compressor but some skillful work with a couple of allen keys and the misses screwing the caps on when I compressed the spring got us through.
2. Joe (Greenblood) had this very nice looking carbon fibre battery box that didn't fit his 7 due to the piggy back shock, so as mine has a remote reservoir he handed it over to let me have a shot at fitting it. My thoughts were this would be a 2 or 3 beer job as it should be as simple as taking the massive rusty box out of mine and fitting this one. Unfortunately, like most things on this bike, it wasn't. I spent the whole day fitting it up, modding it, re-wiring, re-routing, and moving everything anywhere nearby. I had to completely change the fuel lines and reposition the igniter, starter switch and numerous other bits. I finally finished that this morning and it looks so much better and has hidden all the wiring and battery that was previously exposed.. Its also saved me few ounces in weight as I have a lot of bits now not needed.
3. The next mod was to fit an ignition advancer I picked up on ebay for $40.. That was pretty straight forward and was so easy I did it twice, to make sure..
4. Picked up a 15 tooth front sprocket from MAW for $14 so that went on today as well. A supposed 5 minute job (have a rattle gun) turned into another problem as the cluth housing has to be removed to get the sprocket out. Anyway that was all sorted and I changed the rear back to the std 41 tooth size while I was at it.
5. On top of that I changed the oil, remade a throttle housing and fixed a stripped thread.. So all in all it was very busy weekend..
The misses isn't talking to me atm, but I guess that will pass... I do like the quiet though..

Oh, and as usual many beers were consumed over the weekend to assist with motivation... That much that I've now had to move onto Bourban...

that cf box looks really tidy...

good work!

Neat as

looks like a good home for the compression can too, I have a remote can tied to the subframe on the side but that looks a better idea.

Fark Dave ya won a good one there......and I see the universal hase clamp came into play again

Thought you may have considered giving me a call for assistance, I'm usually quite good at calming heated situations between you and Jus

Looks good mate, theres gonna be no stoppin ya now, specially when yav shed some kgs on that home gym/ clothes dryer

Damon ZX9R wrote:Fark Dave ya won a good one there......and I see the universal hase clamp came into play again

Thought you may have considered giving me a call for assistance, I'm usually quite good at calming heated situations between you and Jus

Looks good mate, theres gonna be no stoppin ya now, specially when yav shed some kgs on that home gym/ clothes dryer

Nah its all good, she's given up telling me off and gives me the silent treatment... as if thats supposed to change anything, its more like a reward..

Only kidding, she's ok with it... now...

and yep the multi use universal clamp is clamping the igniter (CDI) to the front of the battery box.. it was either that or a battery holder clamp..
I see them as structural zip ties..

Looks good. A quick tip with the sub frame bolts though. If you turn the top ones around so the nut is on the outside, it won't scratch the tank, and makes fitting easier. It took me ten years to notice that in the manual.

MadKaw wrote:Nah its all good, she's given up telling me off and gives me the silent treatment... as if thats supposed to change anything, its more like a reward..

Jus doesn't log in here any more huh?

jpbikeboy wrote:Looks good. A quick tip with the sub frame bolts though. If you turn the top ones around so the nut is on the outside, it won't scratch the tank, and makes fitting easier. It took me ten years to notice that in the manual.

Great idea... I was looking at them think something was wrong..

It was also suggested to me (by Brian - greenman43) to put a thread insert into the frame to save weight.. those nuts weigh a lot..

and Glen, no she doesn't log in at all...

MadKaw wrote:

jpbikeboy wrote:Looks good. A quick tip with the sub frame bolts though. If you turn the top ones around so the nut is on the outside, it won't scratch the tank, and makes fitting easier. It took me ten years to notice that in the manual.

Great idea... I was looking at them think something was wrong..

It was also suggested to me (by Brian - greenman43) to put a thread insert into the frame to save weight.. those nuts weigh a lot..

and Glen, no she doesn't log in at all...

I just handed back a friends thread insert gun, I had to replace the ones in the frame that hold down the front of the tank.

Looks good Dave, wish i could have fitted it
It's good to see that it fitted, even with the consumption of burbon.
Have you got the swingarm offsets in or is the garage off limits?
BTW i got a roller starter orderd & hopefully will have it going
within the next week or 2. So it will be running

The battery box looks trick mate. Nice fit by the looks of it. The ignition advance is a nice easy mod(regardless of how many beers are consumed before hand ).