Hey everyone!
I haven't seen many videos documenting the full revival of these bikes (at least not in HD) and just wanted to post my take on it. It's definitely a longer one at over an hour, but if you enjoy Vice Grip Garage or Watch Wes Work style videos, this will be right up your alley. I also rebuilt an EX-500 a year ago and had a lot of fun with it, so wanted to tackle another one.
I'm much more active on reddit, so I polled there to see what a good touring bike would be. The bikes I have are much more suited for shorter cruises, so I wanted something better fit for longer cruises. I settled on this 2000 Kawasaki Concours which I picked up for $2k.
The bike was in okay shape to start with, but it needed the following major things to be addressed.
Some things I still have to figure out.
There are time stamps in the video if you just want to hop around (I know, it's a long video). There are some funny bloopers at the end, so I'd highly recommend at least watching those.
Hope you guys enjoy as much as I did. I also hope this might help some people who are looking to revive a Concours of their own. Some of the videos / images I came across were quite low quality, so I hope the higher definition will help a bit. I'll continue to update this thread as I come across some new findings or have any updates to give.
I haven't seen many videos documenting the full revival of these bikes (at least not in HD) and just wanted to post my take on it. It's definitely a longer one at over an hour, but if you enjoy Vice Grip Garage or Watch Wes Work style videos, this will be right up your alley. I also rebuilt an EX-500 a year ago and had a lot of fun with it, so wanted to tackle another one.
I'm much more active on reddit, so I polled there to see what a good touring bike would be. The bikes I have are much more suited for shorter cruises, so I wanted something better fit for longer cruises. I settled on this 2000 Kawasaki Concours which I picked up for $2k.
The bike was in okay shape to start with, but it needed the following major things to be addressed.
- Needed the Carbs cleaned / minor rebuilt - This was a bit of a pain just knowing how difficult it was removing / installing the carbs on my EX-500, so I knew heat and lube was gonna be my friend. Cleaned up all the jets real nice and after installing, no issues with idle or throttle response.
- Rebuilding the front / rear brakes and calipers - My goodness these were really bad. Both sets of calipers had basically completely locked up. It took a lot of effort and patience to get the pistons out (mainly brake cleaner and an air compressor), but once they were I was able to get everything cleaned off and the seals replaced. If you wind up doing this, you can avoid a lot of fluid draining out of the line by sticking a vacuum line plug into the line (like how the banjo bolt would go in).
- Oil / Coolant drain and swap - This one is pretty straight forward, but wanted to mention that Autozone carries the filter as this STP S6012 filter. It doesn't show as compatible on the Autozone website, but in store they have it listed as compatible. Side note, not sure why but the engine only took 2 quarts of oil instead of the 3 that the manual says. Hmmm... Also, the bike had almost no coolant in it. The guy said he added a switch to manually turn the fan on to keep it cool in stop and go traffic, and I think I know why now. Why he didn't just add coolant is beyond me...
- Grease the appropriate joints - This one is pretty straight forward. Just find the grease zirks and grease 'em on up.
- Remove and replace / balance the front and rear tires - This sucked, kind of a lot. Not because it was overly difficult, but because there are a lot of conflicting opinions on how to remove the rear tire. A number of people use a method of propping up the center stand on a 2x4 (but this comes with a set of issues like people saying you need to ratchet strap the center stand to keep it from falling forward, and in my opinion just doesn't seem very stable). The manual just says "oh yeah, remove the axle and pop the wheel out to the right". Did they even notice the mufflers are completely in the way? Dumb engineers... Anyway, I go over it in the video, but you can remove a lower bolt on the shock, let the rear wheel drop, pull the wheel to the right (to disengage from the final drive), and then remove the 4 final drive bolts to remove it so you can get the tire out. Honestly, this was probably the easiest way to do it (for me) without having to do any other sketchy stuff. After getting them off, I had called around to a bunch of local tire places (dealer and small businesses) and none of them would mount and balance the tires for anything less than like $100 per tire. I ordered some tire irons off Amazon and did them myself. Heat is definitely your friend here, as I had trouble getting the bead to mount on the front tires. I wound up using a Shinko 777 150/80-16 on the rear and a Dunlop Roadsmart 3 110/80-18 on the front. Both tires are MUCH better than the original ones on the bike, which were over 13 years old. Balancing the tires was pretty easy. Throw the axle in a vice or on some jack stands and spin until you find heavy spot and add weights. Lots of videos on youtube for this.
Some things I still have to figure out.
- Tons of wind over my helmet - Apparently this is a common issue on the stock Windshield. I don't really feel like spending $300 on a new aftermarket one, so if anyone has any tips please let me know.
- Why the bike only took 2 quarts of oil instead of 3
- Get luggage mounted onto the bike
- Brakes are a tad bit spongy, but overall grab strong
- Slight amount of play in the throttle
There are time stamps in the video if you just want to hop around (I know, it's a long video). There are some funny bloopers at the end, so I'd highly recommend at least watching those.
Hope you guys enjoy as much as I did. I also hope this might help some people who are looking to revive a Concours of their own. Some of the videos / images I came across were quite low quality, so I hope the higher definition will help a bit. I'll continue to update this thread as I come across some new findings or have any updates to give.