Category Archives: Bike

Teardown: Various mounts, footpegs and triple tree

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 »

Teardown: Loom removal

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 »

LTD project update – thoughts and ramblings

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 »

The teardown continues

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 »

The teardown begins

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. I have acquired another bike, which still needs a bit of work (wrangling… Read More »