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Tech Tips

Here's a few tips and stuff you might find useful keeping your KR running properly.  Thanks for the advice sent in already - please get in touch if you can help other KR owners in a similar way :-
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Most owners I know have more than one KR - a main one and another one used as a potential spares source.  Parts are hard to find these days and you never know when you're going to crash it or blow it up, so if you come across a cheap but salvageable bike in a breakers I'd suggest you buy it, just in case.  The same is true if you spot someone selling a few used KR spares - I'll be happy to help you sell them on through this site if you don't need them for yourself.
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The KR has two separate CDI units - one for the front cylinder (mounted on the right side of the bike) and one for the back (mounted on the left).  They have different part numbers and are supposedly not interchangeable - the rear one has an extra brown/white wire and therefore an extra pin in the connector.  However, the extra wire is only used to provide the safety cutout for the sidestand/clutch switches and Fred is running two left units on his KR quite happily.  The coils also have different part-numbers but I think the differences are just in the mounting bolts.
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As with a lot of other performance two-strokes, the cylinder bores are nikasil-plated.  This means that a good old-fashioned rebore to the next size is not possible.  If your bore is badly damaged, the options are a new barrel (if you can find and afford one), a used barrel from a spare engine (see Tip No.1 !) or to get your barrel re-sleeved properly at an engineering shop.  Chris of Netbikes in Australia knows of someone who still has some KR sleeves left.
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A snapped kickstart shaft is a common KR problem.  They're difficult to repair but not impossible.  Fred fixed his by tapering and drilling the broken ends, joining them with a hardened steel pin, then welding the joint using special 'RSP' rods and machining back to size - see Fred's diagram for more details.
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There was an original factory single-seat option that could be ordered with your new KR.  It replaces the pillion seat and is easy to fit.  I got one from a breakers yard in Australia and another from Yahoo Japan but they're not that wasy to find.  However, the more common GPZ400R (and 600R?) uses the exact same part, so that should help your search.

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Another tip from Fred : he found two separate problems with his anti-dive system - first the internal plunger had seized so the anti-dive was permanently 'on', secondly the adjuster knob was slipping and not actually turning the nut underneath.  I later found both of these to be true of my KR too - it's definitely worth checking yours to see if they're working properly.  Strip the units, clean them and set them to '1' (minimum), or just toss them in the bin and fit a blanking plate instead.
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If you're rebuilding the top-end, make sure you fit the pistons with the direction arrow pointing towards the exhaust port, just like on every other bike.  But try and remember that the rear cylinder is backwards on the KR !  This tip is brought to you courtesy of the ex-Kawasaki mechanic who previously owned my bike...
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To remove the rear exhaust, you need to detach the rear subframe.  However, as long as you remove the battery box and loosen the rear mudguard, you can get enough clearance to extract the pipe without disconnecting the oil tank, wiring and all the other bits that the manual tells you to.
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You can't remove the engine from the frame in one piece, it physically won't fit.  You're supposed to remove the entire top-end, though some people apparently leave one of the barrels in place.  You could maybe save yourself the cost of a new head gasket by removing the head and barrels as one unit ?  Luckily, I've not had to try this yet...
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If you remove the rear shock, it's easy to get the damping misaligned.  To reset it, set the damping knob to '1' and then rotate the entire damping adjuster unit and cable until the red line painted on the white plastic cog is visible in the middle of the window on the shock body.  Then refit it making sure not to turn the unit as you're doing it.
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The handlebar clamps on a KR are a bit of a weak point - if you crash the bike, chances are it'll be the bar clamp that snaps.  Bizarrely, the left one is still listed as being available new from Kawasaki but the right one isn't !  Apart from trawling the breakers yard what can you do ?  Well, other Kawasaki's of the same era had similar bar clamps, maybe they fit ?  Some secondhand GPz900R clamps and bars came up on Ebay so I bought them to investigate - sure enough, they look the same but the mounting holes are fractionally out and of course the KR forks are 35mm and those on the 900 are 38mm.  But if you slot the mounting holes slightly and get them sleeved to fit your forks, you should be able to get your crashed KR back on the road.  And GPZ600R ones (37mm) look like they'd fit too.  Let me know if you've actually done this or have found another model that fits too.
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Why does only one of the fork tops have an air valve ?  The manual recommends pressurising the forks to anywhere between 8.5 and 11psi.  You should do this carefully using a hand pump, not a garage air-line.  The forks are connected - that strange bracket above the bottom yoke actually conceals a 3mm hole drilled in the fork leg, and equalises the pressure between the two - see the photo below (but ignore the bent stanchions !).  Needless to say, this bracket needs to maintain a good seal on the fork legs and you should take care when removing or refitting it.  The GPZ600 has a similar set-up with the air-valve actually part of the bracket itself - they're not interchangeable with the KR though because of the wider diameter fork legs.

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It's very difficult to find new pistons/rings for the KR these days.  I've been looking into alternatives and the best tip so far is to use parts from the KMX125 (but +2.00mm oversize - standard KMX bore is only 54mm).  I've not tried them myself but I've measured some and they appear to be the same in all dimensions.  If you try them or you know of a better match, please let me know.
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The exhausts on my bike were in a bad state.  The lower pipe had crash damage and the upper one had some rust holes from water thrown up by the rear wheel.  I attacked them with a wire brush and then used Chemical Metal to cover the holes and smooth out the scrapes.  I sprayed them with a PlastiKote BBQ aerosol which gives a nice satin black heatproof finish, and of course fitted new end-can sleeves from  Milan Racing.  The heatshield on the upper pipe was sprayed with an ordinary silver aerosol.  I'm very pleased with how they turned out, and so far the finish is proving durable.

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Being a tandem-twin design, the two cranks need gearing together.  Each crank has a primary gear on the right-hand end containing a damping mechanism.  These engage with a large central clutch gear.  Obviously the relative alignment of these is critical to ensure the correct timing and there are a couple of scans from the workshop manual below to show how to achieve this.  But there is a secondary factor too - the dampers in the primary gears must also be checked and adjusted if necessary by shimming.  The common complaint of poor engine starting when warm is apparently caused by these dampers being out of adjustment - I don't understand this myself but it's commonly believed amongst the Japanese KR community and I'm happy to go along with it if it fixes the problem !  Again, the scans below give the required measurements, and the part-numbers for the two washers necessary to do the job.  Once I've investigated this on my own bike, I'll let you know the results.

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