Not All Carbs Are Bad

As it was running so badly it was time to get to the carbs and see what state they were in. I was just planning to see what condition the filter was in and try balancing them. Hopefully that might bring an improvement? First thing to do was to get the tank and then the side panels off, the latter made a lot more awkward by having the luggage rack in place. Annoyingly I'd had to lie the ZX6r down on it's side to get the oil pump off without draining all the oil, and of course I'd stupidly done that right in front of the ramp. That meant that all this work was done stooped over or sat on the floor, having a ramp has spoilt me.

 
There's enough room to get to the airbox screws by lifting the panels thankfully, but once I did that I found that this might be a bigger job than I first thought...

 

Yeah, so that's going to be a problem. I've ridden the bike about three miles, I'm pretty certain that Steven (the previous owner and successful LDU challenger) rode the bike quite a long way with it like this too. The clamps on the rubber between the carbs and the manifold were lose too, but at least it was seated properly. The rubbers on the airbox side are damaged and replacements are not cheap from KHI.

I warmed them up using a hairdryer stolen from an ex, and mounted them onto the carbs for a couple of days. They're looking much better now thankfully so I don't have to bother with soaking them in Wintergreen oil. The carbs themselves are absolutely hanging though.

 

They'll be needing a strip and a soak in an ultrasonic cleaner. If I take them apart then Martin at Cornwall Kawasaki will give them a soak and clean for the price of the fluid. I will probably ask him to rebuild them too, as I've no clue as to what I'm doing with carbs and am starting to get worried about the amount of time left. When I revved the bike, neither slide even attempted to rise despite them being able to move freely when lifting with a finger. Taking the caps off revealed why:

 
Neither diaphragm was seated properly and both have some weird stretch marks in so they're not capable of creating  a vacuum. I've ordered a rebuild kit from China, it should be here in a week or so. New diaphragms from Kawasaki are £167 each so that's not an option and the kit was £23 including carburettor gaskets, float valves, pilot screw sets, float and vacuum diaphragms.

I've made a start on stripping the carbs, but there are some screws that are fighting me. I'm using the correct JIS screwdrivers but the metal that Kawasaki use on some of these screws is like cheese so I'm being very careful not to mash one. They've been given a good squirt of Silkopen and I'll try again when I'm home in a week.