Maintenance Day

I needed to do some maintenance work to the Hayabusa prior to the trip to Canada. I had a set of rear brake pads already from a prior order and of course had all my normal consumables (brake fluid, engine ice, wd40, chain wax, etc…).

To do:

Replace the rear tire
Replace the chain
Replace the front sprocket
Replace the rear sprocket
Replace the rear brake pads
Replace the front brake pads
Replace the engine oil and oil filter
Replace the clutch fluid (DOT4 Brake fluid)
Replace the rear brake fluid
Replace the front brake fluid

Of course I needed to chase down the necessary parts. In addition, I needed to get a replacement chain breaker. The one I had (EK brand) appears to have gone out of business and I’d bent then broken the breaking pin last time I worked on the chain.

I hit Amazon for some parts and Motorcycle Superstore for the rest including a new rear tire. I’d had a Dunlop on it from a couple of years back but I only got about 5,000 miles out of it. The Metzler Z6 tires I normally use had given me almost 14,000 miles on one occasion. I ordered a Z6 from Motorcycle Superstore. Generally I try to get local but the store I was using apparently went out of business.

First off, remove all the bits from the bike. I removed the side plastic and then removed the rear tire. I broke the chain at the same time since I was getting a new one so I wasn’t too worried about it.

I removed the hub, removed the old sprocket and put the new one on.

I also removed the cushions from the hub because I was taking the rim and new tire to the Colorado Powersports folks in Boulder.

And of course removed the front sprocket and put the new one on. I only hand tightened the front sprocket since I needed to do a bit of cleaning before fully assembling it. In reality, I only scraped some of the wax out and didn’t make it spotless.

Over the following few days, I got most of my parts I’d ordered. I started off by replacing the rear brake pads. They were quite worn and just about to the metal. There’s a cover that snaps in place and then a pair of rods that hold the brake pads. Since they’re on the small side, to keep them in place, there are a couple of clips that hook over the rods and around the pads. Once done, you push in the fancy cotter pin.

The fun part is you can’t actually see anything so you have to feel where the little holes are in order to put the cotter pin back in. It’s a tedious task.

It might not be easy, but in looking at the old pair and the new pair, you can see there isn’t much pad left.

It looks thick but really, it’s almost paper thin at the top left there.

Looking at the brake from the top. It’s still attached to the brake arm so you can’t really spin it around like the front brakes. On the plus side, it’s much easier to push the pistons back. With the old pads, the pistons are pushed all the way in. You have to open the rear brake cylinder, clean out the old fluid, and stuff a rag in and then push the pistons back apart. In looking at the old pads above, you can see gouges in the pad material where I used a screwdriver to push them apart.

And the brake from the bottom:

Interestingly, there is a spacer piece that goes on the back of the pads. Since the brake action tends to wear the pads unevenly, these spacers have the brakes at a slight angle so the pads wear fairly evenly as you can see from the old pads. Put them in wrong, the brake pads wear unevenly and need to be replaced quicker.

And the tire remounted. You can just see the new brake pad in the center and there’s plenty of space between the pad and the rotor. Once new fluid is added, a couple of pushes on the rear brake lever seats the pads and we’re ready to go.

The chain was a pain in the butt as always. I wasn’t able to find the chain I normally use, again EK seems to be out of business. So I got the next one down. Unfortunately, the chain only came in 130 links (I only needed 112) and in either Red, Blue, or Gold. I decided to go with Red since I have a few other red things on the bike. Generally it’ll be a bit dirty so a bit of red isn’t going to be all that big a deal.

Plenty of overlap. I’d already used my new chain breaker with the old chain without much trouble so didn’t anticipate any issue with the new one. However while I was using the tool to push out the pin, the tool pin shattered inside the chain. So I had to scurry down to the local Kawasaki place to get a new breaker. The pin was half way out and I couldn’t extract it with pliers. The new one seemed a bit less complicated and seemed to be just for the 530 type of chain. I seated it all and finished the extraction without any further issue.

I used the press to put the chain back together and then the anvil to spread the pin heads a little to keep it from coming off. I even used a caliper to make sure I pressed the plate on to the same width as the other links of the chain.

That was probably the biggest piece with the rear brake being the next difficult. The rest was pretty simple.

I changed the oil and oil filter. I’m using a different filter this time so we’ll see if I experience any difference (K&N vs a stock one). I also got the clutch and brake fluids changed out, also pretty simple in general.

I received my front brakes on Tuesday and proceeded to finish up the job. the old front brakes were in a bit better condition with about an eighth inch of pad left. But since I had new pads and was doing all this work, I went ahead and replaced them. The fronts are pretty easy. Unbolt them from the front suspension tree, turn them over, remove the cover, remove the single cotter pin, remove the rod, and the old pads drop out. Of course you have to press them apart first which is harder because you’re pressing against your hand. So not so much in the way of leverage.

I got them put back together without much trouble (the second brake is always the hardest) and the bike’s ready to go.

When I was putting things back together, I noticed a crack in the coolant reservoir. I wasn’t sure so I pressed on it and it disintegrated. After some pushing to test the area, I have the full opening. I didn’t realize until later, but that’s just the size of the exposed part of the reservoir.

I’ve ordered a replacement along with a replacement for the rear seat release cable. The tip had broken off months back and I used a zip tie to hold the cable in. I had to cut the seat off in order to get into the “trunk” so I could remove the rear plastic and replace the dead brakelight bulb. Anyway, that’ll also be coming in and I’ll be able to repair the rear seat as well.

I took the bike out for a test ride. Everything seems to be running exactly as expected. I do note that the front brakes had to be carefully used several times in order to get them set. At one point, I grabbed them and they stuttered a little. After a bit more riding, they seem just fine so all is well.

Ready for the ride to Jasper/Banff!