I love to teach my son how to ride and repair stuffs the old fashion way. Here I will share some of our cheap DIY projects and repairs. I will also share some of my experience as a biker and as a pro mechanic. I am not a mechanic anymore but I still do repairs but mostly for my own machineries and this is why I try to keep everything easy and cheap. I also don't race anymore but I still love riding up the mountains where there is little or no help and all I can rely on is my small tool pouch and my monkey repair skills to bring me home whenever my bike or my friends bike breaks down.

If you are a tech-wiz or some kind of high-tech repair guru who likes spending too much $$$s buying stuffs and spends most of your time at a coffee shop posing your best biker battle gear clown costume and talking how great a biker you are then THIS IS NOT FOR YOU... Here we seriously ride our bikes and we try to keep everything simple, easy and cheap. Most of what I will share here are intended for riders who usually break their bikes to peices and may not be needed by other bikers.

I will also be sharing some cheap ways how I repaired my cars and computers. And for laughs, I will also add some weird / funny / odd stuffs that I or we did that worked and didn't work. Sorry about this blog's style, set-up or whatever you may call it, I'm an old school biker and its easier for me wrenching cars and bikes than typing on my keyboard...

Friday, December 31, 2010

Kawasaki Estrella 250 Lever Repair, etc...

This bike was a goner when it first came to me. The engine wont start and had several missing and damaged parts. Most of the parts are good and all it needed was a bit of work and some TLC. 

I think that this is one of the most easiest bikes to do a frame swap. No special skills and special tools needed. I also did a frame swap on the ZZR on the background (have done 20+ ZZR frame swaps...) but I'd rather do Estrellas than ZZRs any day :)

Because I am too cheap to to buy a lever, I heated it and slowly bashed it using a plastic hammer  to make it straight again. I learned this technique riding Trials bikes because my levers often get bent when I fall off a boulder or hit a tree. The problem with non-racing bikes are that the materials used are crap compared to "for competition use only", and hammering the lever on a normal bike can cause it to break. The technique here is to use heat and slowly bash it with a plastic hammer. Unlike Trials race levers that you can bash them without using heat and they still wont break.

Here is the photo of the lever after bashing it several times. I still could straighten it a bit more but I didn't want it to break it so best for me to stop here. The funny thing is after straightening the lever, I found two new levers in my desk that I forgot about. I didn't use the new ones and still have them somewhere...

The sad thing about working on gravel is searching for parts that accidentally fell down. Here I lost three steering head bearing and had to steal the bearings from my other Estrella just to get this done. 

The tail pipe was covered with rust and I'm too cheap to buy a new one so I just painted it with heat resistant paint and it looked sexy again.

My son stole the headlight from my dead Honda Steed to replace it's damaged headlight and also overhauled the carburetor himself because he was very eager to test the bike that afternoon, and waiting for me to overhaul the carb will take ages... He got the engine to run, then he bled the brakes, changed the engine oil and took it for a spin. Notice how happy he is with his work :) 

9 comments:

  1. hi there may i ask where can i find any spareparts that are cheap in your country for kawasaki estrella BJ250A i had an old bike it need some repairs.

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  2. Thank you for your message.
    I am in the car/bike/truck/export/parts/tools business but I cannot promise you a cheap spare parts since I get the parts directly from the makers. My parts are all original and I can say that I am connected with Kawasaki in some way (if you notice that most of my bikes are Kawasakis and Hondas). I only sell brand new original parts and I put a very small percentage on top, just enough to pay for my car's fuel to get the part but only to fellow bikers w/c I know you are. For non bikers, I charge double, hahaha! Joke-joke :)

    Another option is to tell me which parts you need and I will ask around because my other bike shop mates may have something that they don't need that we may get cheap or even for free if we are lucky. Sad that I gave my spare Estrella parts to my bike shop mate... You came two months late...

    Another option is if you have a friend here in Japan who can buy stuffs for you at Yahoo Auctions Japan and can send the parts to you. Usually 2nd hand parts are more expensive compare to Yahoo Auctions Japan but if you have time and patience, you'll find really cheap stuffs. I also buy and sell my extra parts at Yahoo so I really know that stuffs are cheap there. Here is the link for Estrella at Yahoo Auctions Japan:
    http://auctions.search.yahoo.co.jp/search?ei=UTF-8&p=エストレア&auccat=26308&f=0x2&slider=0&tab_ex=commerce&s1=cbids&o1=d

    Use Google Chrome to translate it to English. English will not be perfect but readable in a way. There are lots of Estrella stuffs there. Price setting is at the highest but as you go over the pages, you'll find really cheap stuffs but please keep in mind that since this is an auction, prices sometimes starts very low but sells high. Some are just dirt cheap.

    If you need more advice, you can send me a message here or send me an email. Happy riding!!!

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  3. Hi iWrench Bikes,

    Thanks for all this information.
    I will drop u an email soon =)

    Cheers.

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  4. very good article, thanks for sharing
    Greetings from raden mas

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  5. That is a pretty happy youngster. nice work on the bike.

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  6. I admire you for what you do to bond with your son in such creative ways. I am not a handy man, but enjoy your handy work. Keep up the good work! And, thanks for sharing.

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