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Hello darkness my old friend!

Discussion in 'Kawasaki 250cc In-line 4's' started by Bulleyboy91, May 21, 2017.

  1. Bulleyboy91

    Bulleyboy91 Active Member

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    Hello Guys and Gals,

    Last year I bought a ZXR250 for $250 from a mate and spent a solid amount of time getting it to run! What an achievement ai.... until you leave it to go overseas and come home to find that it is dead again.

    So here is what I have done:
    Stripped the panels off the bike,
    Cleaned the CARBS for the 100000 time haha,
    New oils and liquids!

    This was quite fun until once again my nemesis struck with a new oil leak whilst idling.. which will be fun to troubleshoot!

    Other than that I am wondering if I should buy a nice new Pannels off eBay! Im wondering what people would buy?

    Finally if it is worth buying a Carby Vacuum kit to fine tune the carbs? If anyone has bought some, what would you recommend?

    I will bring my bike back to perfect shape... wish me luck!!

    TOM
     
  2. Adam Giles

    Adam Giles Well-Known Member

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    Something like this
    http://www.carbtune.co.uk
    Might be cheaper paying someone to do it unless you plan on balancing other carbs.

    Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
     
  3. jimv50

    jimv50 Well-Known Member

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    +1 to the above, nothing is easier to use, makes a huge difference to your bike.
    But valve clearances, ignition timing, advance checked,float levels etc all to be done first, balancing is the last thing to do.
    It will cost a few dollars, but you can lend or hire them out afterwards
     
  4. kiffsta

    kiffsta Senior Member

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    I have a set of carbtune's , they work a treat
     
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  5. Murdo

    Murdo The Good Doctor Staff Member Contributing Member Ride and Events Crew

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  6. Joker

    Joker See "about me" for contact details. Contributing Member

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    Unless you've completely rebuilt the carbs I think that vacuum syncing is a hassle not worth it... a bench sync will have it running fine. I didn't even bother doing that on my FZR, didn't rebuild the carbies completely and it still ran so there you go. Your issue is likely to be something FUEL, AIR, SPARK or COMPRESSION related (the "big 4") if you will. If you use the troubleshooting method of "what has changed"... then what has? if the bike hasn't been run it won't be compression, probably won't be air, so we already narrow it down to fuel and/or spark.

    My 2c is that I think sometimes people over complicate this process by trying to think through all these complex scenarios as to why it won't run and it's normally something to do with the above. Tinkering with everything will make it even worse, get it running then play around "fine tuning" - you'll save yourself a heap of time & hassle. The hardest part are all those "niggly" fine tuning things once you've got the bike to run.

    An example is the phaser... gee the bike was junky when I started. New rings, valves are OK but are probably close to being out of tolerance... still has vacuum leaks, but starts first time every time. These japanese engines can take a lot of abuse... and will run under some very unbelievable conditions...
     
  7. jimv50

    jimv50 Well-Known Member

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    Joker hits the nail on the head, get the bike running 'well enough' first and as my Dad always said about mechanicals...it's always something simple, don't overthink it.
    Clean fresh petrol, is the tank clean?, drain float bowls of muck or water, fit correct clean new plugs, OEM air filter fitted, good well charged battery, some bikes do not like weak batteries at all.
    Some carb cleaners are very harsh on the O rings and break up old ones easily.
    Unless you have altered something drastically any Japanese bike will run poorly or either try to run at least.
    A bike has been designed, engineered and built by mere men, it will run sometime.
     
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