GSX600f Suzuki Katana (rebuild a bike)
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13th October 2004, It was time...
So I got rid of my 600 project bike. Now it has gone to a friend, who I hope will get it running, and then ride it :)
Now it's out of my hair and I have room again in my garage, I am gonna try to find a nice dual sport to ride. It will be quite different to my race bike, as anyone who has ridden both knows full well. We shall see what I end up with, but I am in no hurry till it's time for me Dad to come over eh :)
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11th April 2004, Decided to get something done on the 600 today. i have been pottering about the bike parts for a couple of weeks, just tidying up or cleaning up the bits. Now it was time for some serious work. So i fitted on the braided hoses, Man that was easy, they just replaced the original 1 line splitting into two with a much simpler system. They just made it two lines all the way, very smart. But while i worked on this i noticed that the headstock rotated in a very clunky/chunky manner. Oh no, maybe the headstock bearings now need replacing. That wouldn't have surprised me really as they ARE 20 years and 55K miles old. To my surprise though I just took the thing apart (my first headstock !), then cleaned it all up with WD40, and then re-greased the bearings. Man they are so smooth now. So of course i forgot to take pictures of the state of the bearings etc, i know i know, i just get carried away. So here is a picture of the headstock back together, AND one of the forks actualy back on the bike. Oh yeah, the other thing i did today was to finish cleaning up and putting back together the second brake caliper. I must admit to having very little faith that this system will be oil tight after i get it back on the bike. I mean, there is a LOT of pressure from the brake lever, and i have taken everything apart that could be taken apart. So a few leaks are inevitable, but then it will be a big job to fix up after the fact. I am not looking forward to that.
So here are a few pictures of it so far. Next will be the other fork, and then the brakes back on. etc etc.
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31st March 2004, I haven't done much on the bike, just some small cleanup, as it makes my hands ache. But i mostly seem to have gotten busier with work and life. I sure ope i get it done before the summers end (haha when's that again!).. Happy riding folks.
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3rd March 2004, I got to actually clean the brake reservoir yesterday. And i am quite proud of the job I did. I also got the internals pretty clean too, took some work and effort, but i reckon i nailed it. Let's see what you think.
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25th February 2004, I put the second Fork back together tonight. It wasn't difficult compared to the first, only i did make one minor error, that had me confused for a little while :) When i had done this I decided to look properly at the brake reservoir on the handle bars.. EEK have a look at the photo to appreciate what a mess this is in. I am not sure how to even clean this.. At least now i know what was wrong with the front brakes being crap!!
Looks aged but
awesome.. hope it don't leak!
Woah, spongy
chocolate batman!!
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24th February 2004, Did some more work on the bike tonight. I took apart the second fork. It's amazing how much easier it is to do the second one. :o I now have it cleaned and ready for re-assembly tomorrow.
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23rd February 2004, Here are the photo's...
My workplace, This was after I got the forks apart, a bit cramped maybe, but not bad. Sandwiched between the minivan and the CBR and the washer..Oh yeah, there was quite a lot of black tar like gunge stuff in the fork, so I was very pleased to get all that out.
The actual fork in all its parts, although the Haynes manual says I should have 2 more washers in my fork.. hmmm. So putting it back together was interesting.. and a little worrying. Sure hope it doesn't leak.. I did test it by using it as a Pogo stick for a while, hehehe
On Sunday I decided to tackle the greased up brake caliper (the one that had been leaked all over by the fork oil). This turned out to be a major job (Hours). I did take the thing COMPLETELY to bits though, sure hope it doesn't leak now.
These pictures show how bad it as and now how good I managed to get them. The de-greaser seemed to be useless I might add. So I used a combination of... Wood chisel, sand paper, wire brush, and lotsa elbow grease... It appears I haven't got a photo of the reassembled caliper, I shall try to fix this tonight.
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22nd February 2004, I thought it about time I did some actual work on the katana 600. So I have put in some hours over the last couple of days, and so I thought I should share some things. Hence this new page....... I posted the Story element at the bottom of this page. This outlines what has happened / is happening / etc...
More pictures very soon. I have actually taken some :)
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20th January 2004, My Katana..
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Story
Once upon a time (8 years ago) I came to America, to California to be exact. I needed to get some transport and being a motorbike fanatic I decided my first vehicle would be a bike. I ended up buying a Suzuki Katana gsx600f from Valencia (near magic mountain!). This bike had a supertrap aftermarket exhaust and was tuned to some degree. We shall see soon enough how much it has been tuned. The bike sounded pretty good and rode real nice. It had a two stroke sorta feel to it's power band because of the tuning, ie: it was real peaky. I didn't mind the power band being so slim, and I generaly went thru the mountains at mack ten anyway, so this was cool. I loved riding the bike and managed to put on a healthy 55K in about 6 years or so. It don't sound so perfect, but it runs great. Well it runs great if you don't count the fact that the rear shock has been shot for years, seized is the technical term. The front forks have been out of balance for I don't know how long, cos one leaked it's guts out. the other is still sealed. I did have the pleasure of falling off the bike 2 times in the first 3 years of owning it, once due to gravel, another time due to mud (yeah i shouldn't have been riding when there was mud on the mountain roads). They are my excuses and i am sticking to them :) So i end up getting my CBR954RR (my dream bike for many years) last year. This means my 600 went to the side of the garage cos it really hasn't been fully safe for ages. In my defense I can say I didn't realise how badly off it was till i started taking it apart :o... yeah real scary now. I have wanted to renovate this bike for quite some time, and i did obtain some replacement parts such as braided hosing for the brakes and rear brake disc (yes i wore mine out :p). So now i have rebuilt the CBR it's time to get the 600 project underway.
Goals
Well to get it back on the road is the main goal. This means fixing certain things....
1. The brake hoses have died because of age and the intense Californian sun...... Got Braided ones to put on
2. The rear brake disc is worn to below minimum by quite a bit...... Got a replacement from a breakers.
3. The front left fork seal has gone..... replace seal and fill up with appropriate fork oil. Got these from the Suzuki shop.
4. The front fork leaked oil ALL over the brake caliper and all else....... Clean up the mess and replace the brake pads. Suzuki shop for the pads.
5. Everything is covered in Grime and oily filth... needs a major cleanup, and am working on that now.
6. Bikes in bits....... replace everything i have taken off, and smile...