A bit more progress, removing various rubber bushes and mounts from the frame, the footpegs and beginning on the triple tree etc. Ran into some stuck fasteners on the helmet locks and the centre stand. Will have to try heat, having applied penetrating oil. Also made some progress on the steering head, but got stuck… Read More »
Spent half an hour down in the shed working on getting the loom off. In the process, finished removing last bits of the cooling system, remnants of the rear mudguard and the battery box. Bit concerned about how few of the connectors I’ve labelled, and really wishing I’d been more thorough. Was clearly a bit… Read More »
During my downtime, I’ve been obsessively reading the excellent forum dedicated to this bike at http://ltd454.proboards.com/ and found that the problems with the electrics I was having may have simply been a bad ignition switch. It’s also possible that the running issues were down to bad valve clearances, as this engine appears to like to… Read More »
A bit of a hiatus for the last few weeks as I have been in hospital and then laid up post-surgery after getting a nasty appendicitis. Took advantage of increased mobility and a bit of free time to do a little light wrenching (literally, most of the fasteners gave up without any real effort on… Read More »
After a hiatus, I took advantage of the dry weather and some time to crack on a bit further with tearing down the LTD. I’d got as far as removing the exhaust, but couldn’t actually release it from the bike due to a stuck fastener that I didn’t want to deal with in-situ, and the… Read More »
Oscar and I continued the process of dismantling the LTD this morning. First off, drained the cooling system and removed the radiator. Second, remove the exhaust. Overjoyed to find that the nuts on the stud came off easily (not snapping). Next was to begin the process of removing the engine. The Haynes manual has a… Read More »
My existing bike is a 1985 Kawasaki EN450 454LTD. It had problems with starting, which got partially solved by taking it to a mechanic but before I’d ridden it a handful of miles, it had electrical problems I haven’t managed to solve.