Unloved Zed’s braking woes
Mechanic Jason Atreides had a few nasty surprises from this old Zed
Any bike will go downhill fast if it’s neglected and Jason Atriedes at M&M Motorcycles reckons this Kawasaki Z750, which came in for a much-needed service, had been particularly unloved. Jason said: “I normally strip the brake calipers down as part of the service, but there was no way I could knock the pads back off the discs. When I looked at the master cylinder reservoir I could see it had been
‘He’d used a wingnut on the chain adjusters’
pushed forward on its bracket. “The brake line from the reservoir to the master cylinder and lever should be as straight as possible, but this one was kinked through 90 degrees, cutting off the fluid.” There was plenty of meat left on the pads, but as they became more worn down, extra fluid couldn’t feed into the system so the lever would have got softer and softer until it was eventually coming back to the bar.
All Jason had to do was gently bend the bracket back into shape. “I don’t think the owner even knew it was like that,” he said.
But there were more problems with the rear brake line. The rear hose was an aftermarket stainless braided line with a nylon inner. But whoever switched it over hadn’t bothered to thread it through the loops on the swingarm so it was waving around in the breeze and could’ve suffered next to the hot exhaust.
A rubber hose can be clamped off for re-routing, but this would damage the nylon inner on a braided line, so Jason had to leave it.
“I don’t look at people’s shoes, I look at their bikes, and I knew this bloke wasn’t keen on spending any more money than he had to, as one chain adjuster was held in place with a wingnut,” Jason sighed. “This bike was well on its way to being a rat bike, but rats have got more style!”