1994 Kawasaki Concours

Work log on my Concours

Log last updated May 6 2011

Just so I can get the Concours back on the road—having no time for a full-on rebuild of the body work and paint—I decide to strip her down and scrounge my other bikes for parts and fab some brackets to hold things still.

I found a headlight and shell from the Virago. Got a parts bike and the headlight just plugs right in so, I guess Connie is gonna have a square eye.

Also grabbed the turnsignals from the DR350S (the blue one) that has been broken down for parts. Their mount brackets go under the top forkbrace bolts.

	What she looks like stripped with the gauge cluster mounted to 'make-do' brackets. Has to be low like that because the speedo-cable is so short.
If I were going to stay naked, I would either do some capping or get different gauges. Also, just behind the gauge connectors you can see a dent in the tank. So it did actually get dinged. But this will be under plastic when redone so I'm not gonna sweat it.
	Ehh. It'll work. I don't use the fuel gauge all that much and she runs cold with the fairings so neither of those are that important. In fact I may have to pull the thermostat to get her running warm enough to turn off the choke.
This is my cheezy gauge bracket.
	These are actually bolted into the backside of the handlebars using the pinchbolt through hole. The actual pinchbolt goes in the other side.
How do you get a feel for how something might look? Why, tape my friend, plenty of tape.
	Bit of cleaning up and a touch of black paint and I'll be trying to figure out where to stuff some wiring.
Wires pulled tight—won't really reach the headlight shell for tucking.
	Not too shabby.
Profile looks like a standard naked bike…maybe the headlight is just a bit high…ah, I'll play with it later.
	From the front it looks a lot like a naked GPz900 now…that square headlight bringing it back to its roots.
Here are the turnsignals I'm using. The left one is as it comes off the DR350. The bracket is turned to pull its body over the forks but this bumps right into my quick & dirty fab job. The right one is how it will fit on the front of Connie. And because of the offset it can go either up or down from the mount point. It looks better in the lower position because it almost lines up with the middle of the headlight.
	And they're on. They do hang out quite a bit.
Closeup of one of one side with all the mounts there.
	Then steal the mirrors from the Nighthawk (that really came from the Mini-ceptor).
Hmmm…those mirrors to stick up some, don't they?
	It'll have to do for now.

The test ride to work didn't go so well. Had to turn back after about 10 miles when I heard grinding during a downshift. Being oversensitive at that point I heard it on downshifts, hard braking, and anything more than a mild bump.

Of course on the way back I'm thinking shifter fork damage or possibly a chipped transmission gear. Maybe the transverse gear going from transmission to shaft. One of the best possibilities would be a broken clutch star spring. Hmmm. Concours' break these things all the time with a lot less damage than the highside she took…especially since that is the side she hammered down on.

And all wasted skull sweat. Once I got back I took a quick peek under the bike (in the dark since I work at night) and saw the centerstand was hanging low. No time to work on it but I know where to start. And that would definately be an issue if the spring broke or something was bent.

	Yup, the centerstand is damaged but it is not a broken spring. Looks like the lever-arm got pushed in and up. It hits the underside of the muffler instead of going up next to it leaving a 3 inch space between the gear and its landing bumper. This halves the clearance between the center stand while up—in this pic it is full up. On my bike the centerstand bottoming distance is normally 6 inches—same as the shock linkage—it is now down to 3.
So the idea was just to simply pull the centerstand and leave off—I have plenty of parts bikes to pull from. But from the amount of work required to pull it, I just went ahead and replaced it. As you can see, I had to pull the left muffler to get to the kickstand switch. Have to pull the kickstand switch to get the left centerstand bolt out. And I ain't doin this twice if I don't have to.

I guess my riding habits—soft ride setting for the rear, speed shifting, downshifting and hard braking—were pulling the rearend down causing the centerstand to grind. It just sounded, and felt, a lot worse than it was.

Of course, when I did my last check on all bolts—standard maintenance wind-down procedure, I found a broken upper motor mount bolt—the left one. No fun there either because to get to the backside of them to hold the nut still you essentially have to pull the radiator. So drained it, pulled it forward, jacked the motor up to remove weight, removed both bolts, shimmed them to have no leftover clearance, and put in fresh bolts torqued to 40 ft/lb.

Sorry, I have no pics of that joyous stretch of wrenching.

The biggest problem with all of this was I was going on a TWT Pie Run to Alba, TX Saturday morning and all the above extra work—fighting the centerstand and digging down to the motor mounts—plus giving the bike a wash and wax—had me finishing late Friday night.

	So here she is back from the Pie Run. 500 miles more on the odometer means a pretty good test ride. Even had a sprinkling of rain. This is how she is dressed for the road when the sidebags are off. Yes, I know, a smaller tankbag would work better but this is what I have.
Here she is standing naked. I like it. And she rides a lot like she looks…quick. I put the gorrilla tape between headlight and cluster because I knew there was a possibility of rain…well, and I didn't really like that white plastic peeking out over all the black hardware. I have a piece of sheetmetal I think I can whack into something better though. That and move the overflow behind the battery.
	Yup, she'll do. From this angle she doesn't scream "CONCOURS" anymore, just something with a Ninja or GPz flavor. That is also what she rides like. More sport, less tour. She is a lot lighter on her feet and quicker off the mark.

Now I just need to pull a good set of plastics together out of all the bits and pieces, do the touchups needed to fix minor dings, and get a regular paint job—not rattlecan. It will almost certainly be the original wineberry red without the lower gray. Considering I have so many extra parts, I might even straighten one of the tanks and just do a whole set while the bike is setup like this. That way I can keep her on two feet while I'm doing this stuff.

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