Getting the ZXR400 ready for the summer

Tuesday 17 February 2009 at 9:30 pm I spent a productive day on Sunday reducing the ZXR400 to a large pile of parts. With a bit of luck over the next month or two it will be back together and better than before. In fact it has to be - I'm booked on a trackday at Anglesey on May 8th with the PBMagForum.co.uk crowd.

Job #1 is to replace the head gasket that I blew back in August last year, and have been procrastinating about ever since. While I've got the motor out I'll be changing the camchain, as that engine has done (as far as I know) about 27,000 miles. That ought to be fairly simple, although no doubt it won't be as simple as all that. 20 year old gaskets...mmm.

After that, it starts to get interesting. I want to get the bike to a state where I can ride it to trackdays with the track bodywork on. The basic plan is a single endurance style headlight (actually a ZXR400 H model light) in the front fairing, indicators in the mirrors, make the CBR600RR single seat unit fit properly, and contrive some sort of quick release tail-light/indicator/plate arrangement for the back end.

In practice, this is going to involve fabricating new subframes front and rear, so I'm going to try and take the opportunity to tidy up a few of the things that annoy me about working on the bike, like cable routing, access to the battery, and so on.

Will it be finished by May? Place your bets.