YAMAHA FZS600 FAZER
Alan Dowds is back with his topbox!
It’s one of the main determinants of how proper a biker you are. What happens in winter mate? Is it into the Hyundai i30, heated seats on, with your fancy velocipede serviced, washed, dried and covered up in your mancave-spec garage? Or, are you harder core than thou all through the dark nights and salty asphalt? Commuting bright and early every morning, rinsing the salt off at night, cranking up your Scottoiler and breaking out the Keise heated vest and winter gauntlets? Like most of us, I’m somewhere in between.
Being from Scotland, my first decade of riding was carried out under frankly ‘shyte’ conditions (that’s a Scottish term!). I vividly remember wearing SIX pairs of trousers (three pairs of long johns, leather trousers, combat trousers, waterproofs on top) in 1991 while working as a courier in a Glasgow winter.
Working as a bike journalist for 25 years means I’ve had some miserable times, too: donning vented one-piece leathers for high-speed runs down a barely-above-freezing Bruntingthorpe being g a particular highlight.
Nowadays, I’m lucky enough to have all the kit needed for a long winter ride – heated gear, thermals, Alpinestars Goretex x suit, the works, and would be fine if I suddenly had to ride to the Arctic Circle. But I’ll not hesitate to take the car out if needed, and even though my garage is mostly dry and warm, my sofa in ma hoose is much more appealing on a dark and stormy January night.
All of which is my usual whiny way of apologising for radio silence on the Fazer of late. When we last spoke, I’d got her to the point of being reasonably MOT ready, with new Metzeler Sportec M7RR tyres and Galfer brake discs/pads, a spanking new Black Widow exhaust system, a full clean out of the grotty carbs and fuel tank, and a bit of a service. The engine was running, after a fashion, though there was a definite misfire on number three cylinder, and while it cleared up around 5k, the idle was more like a badly race tuned triple than a smooth road-going four-cylinder.
Then, winter struck, and I had the builders in for a loft conversion – so the Fazer was actually stuck round the back of my house, behind a load of scaffolding, for a couple of months, unable to move. Things looked bad. But then as the mercury began to rise, the scaffolding went away, and project Fazer clicked into gear again.
What to do about the misfire? Part of me said ‘take the carbs off again for yet another clean-out’, but I couldn’t face it. I decided that it was running well enough to get riding for the moment, so filled the tank with fresh fuel, hoping as the Esso Supreme unleaded ran through for a few miles, things would improve. I’d arranged insurance on a multi-bike policy with my Burgman 650 via the good folks at Bemoto insurance, so was able to ride to the local MOT shop to see how we got on. I booked an appointment, and gave her another quick clean and polish to give the best possible impression.
The MOT station – Onslow Motors in Worcester Park – is just around the corner from me, so it was an extremely short shakedown ride. Nevertheless, things felt pretty good. I owned two Fazer 600s in the late 1990s/early 2000s, as well as various test bikes, and remember loving them a lot. This one is clearly tired in places, and modern bikes have moved on in several vital areas. But things like slow-speed balance, riding position and steering response are all pretty timeless, and the little Fazer feels spot on in those areas.
The very nice man at Onslow Motors tells me they’ll be done in half-an-hour. Snapper
John Goodman gives me a lift back home for a cuppa, and I return 40 minutes later in a slightly nervous funk. How has she done? “Passed” says the very, very nice man at Onslow Motors! There was one R-clip missing from a brake pad retaining pin, which he replaced FOC for me, and I got an advisory for some minor exhaust leakage from the Black Widow header-head junction. But we’re safe and legal, and ready to go.
Woohoo! I get home for another (celebratory) cuppa – but hold on, what’s that noise? Parked up outside my garage, I can hear a ticking, which is matching the uneven running of the motor. Yep – there’s a load of arcing around the spark plug caps, which I’d not noticed before. I whip them off, give them a proper clean and a layer of insulating tape as a temporary bodge. Back on the bike, and the idle is much, much better. So the carbs weren’t totally at fault after all – I had some missing sparks, escaping from the 20+-year-old stock plug caps.
A first-class delivery of some NGK caps arrives the next morning, and I have them on in a trice. I went for the 102° long reach ones, but they’re a little shorter than stock, so there’s a bit of finagling needed to get the cables into place. The motor is immediately running another five per cent better low-down, and I’m well up for a sunny ride out for some pics. I’d popped into the Post Office after the school run to tax the beastie and apply for a V5 (there was no paperwork with her) so we were all set.
I meet up again with John the snapper, and we trundle off to a favourite photo spot. I’m going steady on the Fazer – I’m sure it’s all super safe, thanks to the careful eye of the Onslow Motors tester – but it would be a shame to throw it up the road at this stage. There’s no ABS or traction control safety aids of course: it’s all down to me to stay upright.
The new brakes need some bedding in – the new Galfer discs are showing where the pads are starting to bite, and they’re a little on the soft side. We’ve also got the new tyres to scrub in, so it’s all pretty vague for the first few miles. Add to the fluffy idle and soggy old suspension, and it could have been a bit of a chore to do some cornering pics – but not at all. The relaxed, easy handling of the basic Fazer 600 chassis is a treat, and I can feel the tyres and brakes getting better with every pass on the bend. The motor is crisp and smooth once over about 4000rpm, and while the gear-lever and linkage look like rusty crap, the change itself is slicker than many a modern machine I’ve ridden.
Parked up after the shoot though, I’m making a mental list of woes that need fixing. Much of that is cosmetic: the Fazer looks its age, and the 12 years between its last MOT and now have clearly been hard on her. The engine is losing most of its black finish, and stuff like the chain adjusters, fork lowers, cam-cover end plates and foot-pegs are all very scruffy: corrosion bubbling off paint and pitting alloy surfaces. The paintwork is no better. The top fairing has some nasty crash damage which has been patched up with fibreglass and painted silver with a stick. Indeed, most of the silver paint *washed off* with hot water and a firm sponging, revealing the body filler underneath… Every other panel has a scuff or mark of
some description, and I’ve clearly got a heap of work ahead to tidy her up. Having said that, from a distance (if you squint a bit…) she doesn’t look half as bad, and I’m fired up for the next stage. She’s never going to be a concours renovation, but we can get her looking much, much better without too much grief I reckon.
Cosmetics apart, I’m keen to work on a few other areas as we go along. I’d like to sharpen up the suspension – there are loads of firms making cartridge fork internals which are an easy bolt-on upgrade over the stock damper rod design (and I’ll tidy up the horrid outer stanchions at the same time). A new rear shock is probably on the list, too – again, plenty of firms offer replacements, either a performance unit like Öhlins, or a good quality Oe-level part from someone like YSS or Hagon.
I’m also looking into some of the ‘standard’ Fazer 600 chassis upgrades which most of the cognoscenti will know about. A slightly wider front rim, from a
FZR400RR EXUP, apparently goes straight on and lets you fit a 120/70 17 front tyre instead of the stock 110/70 17. And a Fazer 1000 rear caliper fits with minor modding, replacing the frankly rubbish old-school OE caliper with a nice blue-spot chappie (sadly these are pricey on ebay at the moment).
So – a long list. If I’m going to have her sorted for summer I best get on! But the fact I can ride around on her for the moment is a big step forward…