Just something I always wanted to do....6/3/2012

From 12/16/2011 till 4/14/2012 I did something I've dreamed about doing for a darn long time, I restored my 1986 ZL600 Kawasaki Motorcycle.  No, I haven't been dreaming since the age of 23 or 24 (my approximate age when the ZL600 was new) about restoring a ZL600. I have always wanted to start with a less than perfect "anything" and have it roll away from my hands in better shape than when I started.  I once had a dream of repairing small appliances and owning my own business, but I now know that mass production of small appliances has made it impossible to make money on appliance repair. Repair cost will easily outstrip the price of a new like item.

I just like making ANYTHING run.....my lower back no longer enjoys it but my mind is in HEAVEN while repairing something.  (every moment spent repairing something isn't bliss but getting there is half the battle/fun for me). The repair process makes me stretch my mind to figure out how to accomplish the task at hand with the items on hand or items that are in the local area. I hate ordering parts unless I just have to go that route and procure a new part!

I purchased my ZL600 from a person I worked with at Sumter County Government in 2005 or 2006. I WISH I had taken photos of it on the trailer as it rolled up in my yard. It was a sad sack looking piece of its former glory. All the turn signals have a rubber piece in the middle of them so you can bend them and they will snap back without breaking. (Unlike their 70's motorcycle cousins, which have a metal tube in the middle of the turn signals that will bend and stay bent if the motorcycle is dropped). The rubber of the turn signals had rotted away and the wires going to the light held the light to the rest of the motorcycle.  The tires were the factory Dunlap's and they would hold air but were cracked REALLY badly and almost 20 years old.  The wiring to the charging circuit had problems and it really looked very worn.  The one thing that made me keep this motorcycle was the fact it was shaft drive. Shaft drive = NO CHAIN. Chain drive is simpler to work on but you have to ride the motorcycle in a manner that allows for the slack in the chain to be taken up at every gear shift.  Shaft drive, for me, has made for a smoother ride all the way around.

I wish I could say that I started working to improve the 600 at that moment but it was not to be.  I poked at it a time or two when Christopher would come home on leave. We did get it running and rode it up and down the street a few times. It wasn't a perfect but I could tell that a power house of an engine awaited me when it was finally repaired correctly.

It sat in my back yard until April 2009. A weekend day just like any other. Randi had gone outside to do a load of laundry. (our house, at the time, had its laundry connections in a shed built on the carport of our small ranch style house).  Randi came in the bedroom, where I was watching TV and said from clenched teeth "There are two guys out here that want to talk to you....." and she walked off toward the carport.  Ok, now I'm curious. Randi isn't shaken by much. I haven't seen her truly mad about anything except twice since we met and her being mad REALLY got my attention.

I walked outside on the carport and the two guys standing there almost didn't have one good tooth between them. They ask "What do you want for that motorcycle in your back yard?" I told them it wasn't for sale and they couldn't pay me the money I would want for it.... They thanked me and got back in their truck and left.  I then found out they startled Randi as she walked out of the house with a load of clothes and THAT is what made her mad....it had nothing to do with the motorcycle at all. However, Randi being mad got me off my ass and I got to work, and in a month's time, I had the old Kawasaki running, titled and tagged for the first time since 1992.  

The first photograph after being repaired 5/9/2009

The photo makes that old motorcycle look better than it was.  

Bleached out plastic and nasty aluminum oxide 2009 with the new seat.

6/7/2009 old seat

 A running motorcycle was one thing, an improved motorcycle was quite another.  The previous owner had given the old ZL a hard life.  It had been parked with gas in the carburetors, the right hand header was bent into the engine case, the kick stand switch had the head of one of its attachment screws sheered half way off from being scraped along the asphalt. The exhaust mufflers had road rash down each of them.  The rear brake pedal and the gear shift lever were both bent.  In the weeks before being titled, I had to repair a charging system that had burnt the wiring harness in such a way as to make it hard to see how it went back together.

Rust, rust, rust! 12/2011

Ebay and M.I.D.S. motorcycle salvage in Sumter, SC were my friends. I repaired the wiring problem with parts from another motorcycle and black electric tape and purchased a voltage regulator and battery.

I started repairing things from the first moment after I got it running.  I rode the wheels off of it for the rest of the summer of 2009! Life was good!

In 2010 we moved up the road toward Columbia SC and I didn't ride my ZL600 one inch during the summer of 2010! ACK! The spring of 2011 rolled around and I ask Randi if I could spend the money to repair a few things on the Kawasaki to get it running again.  I had it titled and insured in all of 2010 and I wasn't missing another riding season to nagging problems!

One of the first rides of 2011. 5/7/2011

Fast forward a few months and I did a search for a powder coater in the Columbia area. I found one that was on my way to work. The total frame and other parts being powder coated was going to cost about $210...HEY, even I can afford that! My mind was alight with thoughts of delight with finally getting to "do it right" by this motorcycle I love riding! I decided to wait until December 2011 to start the tear down because Christopher, Lindsey and #1 Granddaughter, Alisen were coming to SC for a visit in November 2011. I knew Christopher was looking to buy a motorcycle in the local area  and we might get the chance to ride together a bit. I couldn't pass up the chance to log a few miles with my son!

November came and went. Randi took a trip to Minnesota for about two weeks, 9 - 18 December 2011. A perfect time to start the tear down of my ZL600 while she wasn't at home.

The tank went first.  I had done a rust removal on the tank in fall of 2009 that removed the paint and decals from the tank and I had put a thin coat of gray primer on the tank to keep it from rusting. It took me a day or two to get the tank stripped to bare metal.  I was lucky, it was a good strong tank with lots of thick metal left to restore! 

Stripped tank, 12/17/2011

Repaired Tank 12/27/2011

WOW...what a difference! I will admit, when I picked up the tank after the powder coating, I cried. I got a lump in my throat and was a bit emotional for a few minutes.  It was almost shocking the short transformation that had occurred with just a bit of gloss black coating!

Hanging on the rack after repair 12/27/2011

However, A fuel tank does not a motorcycle make.  I had much more work in front of me than I had behind me.  Work, work, work, work......

The frame was stripped down to nothing and sent for it's beauty treatment......

Frame, Before 12/2011

You really don't realize how bad the frame is until you strip it down to nothing else.  I hated to lose the two original ID tags on the right downpipe and the steering head but the frame really needed help with its rust problem.

Frame, After 1/13/2012

I was lucky, I didn't have to rebuild an engine or get a seat repaired.  Some weeks, the work went well and other weeks the coming spring got me down with sinus so bad that I grumbled about the sunny days that I didn't work toward getting the ZL back together.  I had heard that the quicker you rebuilt the motorcycle, the more you would remember from the tear down. This was VERY true! I would forget how something went together and I would go looking for old photographs or parts manuals of ZL600's to see how things fit together.  I learned a lot along the way

The Engine back in the frame.  Thanks for the help Adam Twitty!

 Putting the engine in was the hardest thing that had to be done after I got all the parts back. I was SUPER careful putting it back together.  It took 3 times longer to get back together than it did to take it apart! The thought of scratching newly repaired parts gave me pause to take my time. 

NO RUST!!! WHOO HOO!

getting there slowly

Ceramic Coated headers and Crash Bars 4/2012

4/8/2012. Almost finished.

Before 5/7/2011

 

After 4/14/2012

After I took the photograph on 4/8/2012, I walked back in the house and sobbed like a relived kid that had just acted in his first school play.  Randi ask me why I was crying and about all I could get out of my mouth between sobs was "I did it, I really did it"....Randi was a bit confused and ask me " You must have thought you could do it or you wouldn't have started doing it, right?" ...well....NO...my life is a wake of unfinished projects......sad to say.

I can honestly say I'm very happy with how it turned out.  It still needs things worked on right at this moment but I can go ride it at any time..... no one owns a 28 year old motorcycle that doesn't need Something done to it!

I'm not sure why it took me so long to write this ACK. It has been rolling around in my head for weeks...I just didn't slow down enough to take the time to write it.......