All,
Save this as one for the books.
First, a brief rundown of what happened;
I pre-purchase inspected the bike for Rick earlier this year. Found a couple issues no biggies really. Rick purchases and I tow it to my house to do the necessary maintenance and repairs. This included a needed valve adjustment at 10K miles. Returned the bike to its' new owner and he runs it for about 2500 miles over the next few months. Get a call from him a few months ago and the bike won't stay running, hard to start if it starts at all. No error codes are coming up on display. I'm thinking, "maybe I missed something/ made a mistake on the repairs/maintenance I did." So I take a drive up to NY, from just outside DC, ( @300 miles ), to take a look see at this machine and ease my troubled mind as well. after a weekend of this and that, various tests and troubleshooting procedures we are still at zero. New plugs helped very slightly and only for a brief period of time.
Symptoms
Backfiring, running rich, stalling and very hard to start, will not idle at a normal rpm level, black smoke from tailpipe. Plugs come out black with soot from rich running.
Bike was taken to a Kawi dealer, hooked up to a KDS and full system checked with no leads as to the issues. Kawasaki tech line had access to the KDS system and all data. Still no ideas. Kawi's response, Call and let us know what you find! Really? Thanks a lot Kawi. Thanks for nothing.
Injectors were pulled and checked for flow and leaking. All good there too.
While trying t find time to start thoroughly testing resistances in the harness I get a chance meeting with one of my dealer mechanics. He tells me he just came back from Kawi tech school and they had a bike there exhibiting the same symptoms as mine that he had looked at a few weeks prior. Seems there is a relatively rare failure at the root of all of this.
After listening to him for a few minutes I decide to go ahead and order this particular part from my dealer. 318.00 is my discounted price with tax, this better frigging work.
Part came in on This Thurs and I picked it up on Friday.
I tear into the top of the motor once again, ( bike still has no fairings on it but engine is assembled and will start). Pulled all the brackets and parts, radiator, shrouds, etc. Work my way down to the valve cover and remove it as well. Almost there.
Many of you have no idea how the VVT ( variable valve timing) system works and it isn't exactly easy to explain how it does its power making magic. Suffice it to say when it works it is a very good thing.
I remove all the oil feed tubes and before I loosen the camshaft bearing caps I take a socket and crack the camshaft bolt loose on the intake (VVT) cam and oil squirts out of the feed hole and the VVT unit turns what seems to me to be a unreasonably large distance with little or no resistance. I think I am on to something here now and my mechanic friend had the right insight.
I pulled the cam out and proceeded to separate the VVT unit from the end of the camshaft for replacement/inspection.
NOW I KNOW I HAVE FOUND THE PROBLEM.
It's about friggin time!
EBAY camshaft ordered. Now to wait a day or two for it to arrive. In the meantime I can repair the stripped threads on the engine mounting bolt holes with some new Timesert thread repair sleeves.
This is what the inside of the VVT should look like,
Save this as one for the books.
First, a brief rundown of what happened;
I pre-purchase inspected the bike for Rick earlier this year. Found a couple issues no biggies really. Rick purchases and I tow it to my house to do the necessary maintenance and repairs. This included a needed valve adjustment at 10K miles. Returned the bike to its' new owner and he runs it for about 2500 miles over the next few months. Get a call from him a few months ago and the bike won't stay running, hard to start if it starts at all. No error codes are coming up on display. I'm thinking, "maybe I missed something/ made a mistake on the repairs/maintenance I did." So I take a drive up to NY, from just outside DC, ( @300 miles ), to take a look see at this machine and ease my troubled mind as well. after a weekend of this and that, various tests and troubleshooting procedures we are still at zero. New plugs helped very slightly and only for a brief period of time.
Symptoms
Backfiring, running rich, stalling and very hard to start, will not idle at a normal rpm level, black smoke from tailpipe. Plugs come out black with soot from rich running.
Bike was taken to a Kawi dealer, hooked up to a KDS and full system checked with no leads as to the issues. Kawasaki tech line had access to the KDS system and all data. Still no ideas. Kawi's response, Call and let us know what you find! Really? Thanks a lot Kawi. Thanks for nothing.
Injectors were pulled and checked for flow and leaking. All good there too.
While trying t find time to start thoroughly testing resistances in the harness I get a chance meeting with one of my dealer mechanics. He tells me he just came back from Kawi tech school and they had a bike there exhibiting the same symptoms as mine that he had looked at a few weeks prior. Seems there is a relatively rare failure at the root of all of this.
After listening to him for a few minutes I decide to go ahead and order this particular part from my dealer. 318.00 is my discounted price with tax, this better frigging work.
Part came in on This Thurs and I picked it up on Friday.
I tear into the top of the motor once again, ( bike still has no fairings on it but engine is assembled and will start). Pulled all the brackets and parts, radiator, shrouds, etc. Work my way down to the valve cover and remove it as well. Almost there.
Many of you have no idea how the VVT ( variable valve timing) system works and it isn't exactly easy to explain how it does its power making magic. Suffice it to say when it works it is a very good thing.
I remove all the oil feed tubes and before I loosen the camshaft bearing caps I take a socket and crack the camshaft bolt loose on the intake (VVT) cam and oil squirts out of the feed hole and the VVT unit turns what seems to me to be a unreasonably large distance with little or no resistance. I think I am on to something here now and my mechanic friend had the right insight.
I pulled the cam out and proceeded to separate the VVT unit from the end of the camshaft for replacement/inspection.
NOW I KNOW I HAVE FOUND THE PROBLEM.
It's about friggin time!
EBAY camshaft ordered. Now to wait a day or two for it to arrive. In the meantime I can repair the stripped threads on the engine mounting bolt holes with some new Timesert thread repair sleeves.
This is what the inside of the VVT should look like,