Kawasaki Z200 - £350-£450? I fancy this..any views?

[crammy69]

Had one in the eighties and found it excellent for the London commute although it ran out of steam on the M25, 60mph was a realistic travelling speed. The big end went at 37,000 miles but I put a new crank in and kept it for a further 20,00 miles without problems. Points to watch are the usual ones, the mudguards rust through from the inside. The swing arm pivot bushes wear so I put a grease nipple on the arm, and the cable operated front brake likes plenty of fresh grease on the cam and ball bearing plate otherwise it siezes.
The head comes off without removing the engine from the frame and has three potential oil leak points. There are "O" rings on the cam cover and the cam chain tunnel ( probably the source of the current leak ). Also the rev counter drive cable weeps when it's "O" ring gets tired. I'm not sure of parts availability, worth checking.
Hope this helps,

Doug.

Excellent stuff, many thanks!

[coppersaucepipe]

Similar money should get you a Z250 or 2 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kawasaki-Z250 ... 3f1ee8441b or a GPZ305.

The 305's originally came with chocolate cranks and belt drive but when they were working would achieve 90+mph top end, cruise at 70 plus and would return 70 mpg too. (Mine did anyway)

[TimeBandit]

The 250twins are utter tripe... very poor engines in the reliability dept and when they used the same engine in the 305 the thing just turned to expensive scrap... Even with the best of oils an plenty of tlc the things were shoite... infact most of the old kawk air cooled twins were crap..all the way up to the Z750.... alloy like cheese!

The Z200 singles are by far the better one...big solid bearings on the crank an cam(if i remember) an sound rather thumpy with a decent... many moons ago i got Wakefield Council's very own Z200 instructor bike... awful brown colour with just 11k on the clock... Did me fine as a work bike......had three of em over the years...

They can be a bit faffy when the battery isnt at its best though

[barker]

ive got a honda cm 200 good size light enough for traaffic and fast enough for the open road so i would thinkthe quaker would suit you