Good Mechanic Required For Friend

[Frosties]

Hiya fellas, hopefully you can help.


Have a good friend living in Barking Side with a '98 ZX9R who is struggling to find a good honest mechanic at a decent rate. At present all he has is the Kawasaki dealer called Bacon Motors in Newbury Park and is so far very disappointed with them to say the least.


Really needs a good old fashioned fella who can set valve clearances, carb balancing and general good servicing. Barkingside/Romford/Chigwell etc


Any advice as always appreciated.


Cheers 

[darrsi]

Best mechanic I've ever used personally is at PDQ in Taplow, but cheap they are not, last time I was there it was about £60 an hour but the fella's there are wizards with bikes, will not hang about working on it, and it will get it Dyno'd for good measure. (it's the Dyno fella, Nick I think his name is, that you really want on your bike)
They're also much more kitted out for the sports bike as well so should have any parts needed on site, but they really know what they're doing.
Mega polite and informative on the phone as well.

http://pdq1.com/services/

[Frosties]

Cheers for that Darrsi, will store that one. Unfortunately a bit too steep for my mate.


Any other suggestions for near Barkingside/Romford/Chigwell area?

[mtread]

If he doesn't mind coming a bit further east, John Soper Motorcycles in Leigh  on Sea. Very good and not expensive.

[melons]

Russ should tick all of the boxes and he's not too far away from Bacons either


Bemer Bikes
Unit 13
400 Roding Lane South
Woodford Green
Essex IG8 8EY
Tel: 020 8550 9200
Mob: 07801 493053

[Frosties]

If he doesn't mind coming a bit further east, John Soper Motorcycles in Leigh  on Sea. Very good and not expensive.

Will bear this one in mind fella - cheers

Russ should tick all of the boxes and he's not too far away from Bacons either


Bemer Bikes
Unit 13
400 Roding Lane South
Woodford Green
Essex IG8 8EY
Tel: 020 8550 9200
Mob: 07801 493053

That sounds good melons. Has he done much work on your bike?

[melons]

Only for minor stuff on my old bike, but a couple of blokes I work with use him & rate him, he's also got quite a following with BMW  riders (clues in the name)

[mtread]

Meant Julian Soper not John Soper [url]http://www.juliansopermotorcycles.com//url] Done a lot of work on my Fazer and my Speed Triple and always been delighted with the results

[pilninggas]

I am late to this thread, but can I add my 2pence?

He has a bike which is 18 years old - if he is looking for a mechanic to do brake-pads, chains, tyres etc then no problem; but, if he is having problems, then the pros will either steer clear or will charge a lot and if the problem is difficult to fathom it will get pricey quickly.

Can he not get himself on a Ninja forum (one with ZX9R knowledge) and get the lay of the land?

We are a knowlegeable lot on here, could he post exactly what he needs a mechanic for on here and perhaps we could give him useful input so he makes better decisions. It is very easy to throw money at older bikes (or someone else to do so, and to invoice the owner at the end) and not actually resolve things [it's why you see loads of bikes on ebay/gumtree with "not runnning right, probably needs new plugs" - which means 90% of the time "I replaced the plugs and it still won't run right, i give up"].

[Frosties]

Only for minor stuff on my old bike, but a couple of blokes I work with use him & rate him, he's also got quite a following with BMW  riders (clues in the name)

Sounds good enough to me fella, cheers 

I am late to this thread, but can I add my 2pence?

He has a bike which is 18 years old - if he is looking for a mechanic to do brake-pads, chains, tyres etc then no problem; but, if he is having problems, then the pros will either steer clear or will charge a lot and if the problem is difficult to fathom it will get pricey quickly.

Can he not get himself on a Ninja forum (one with ZX9R knowledge) and get the lay of the land?

We are a knowlegeable lot on here, could he post exactly what he needs a mechanic for on here and perhaps we could give him useful input so he makes better decisions. It is very easy to throw money at older bikes (or someone else to do so, and to invoice the owner at the end) and not actually resolve things [it's why you see loads of bikes on ebay/gumtree with "not runnning right, probably needs new plugs" - which means 90% of the time "I replaced the plugs and it still won't run right, i give up"].

It's a good shout and justified. Trouble is, my mate is totally computer illiterate and fairly dyslexic - so doing what I can for him.


From what I can make out, he only gets 100 mile/17 litres riding sensibly (no fuel leaks), 1 plug is always fairly black, he's having trouble getting the butterflies to operate smoothly/not stick, pick up is snatchy and it runs a bit lumpy. This sounds predominately like carb balancing and valve clearance setting. He's just got to the stage that without the proper tools, he wants to get a decent mechanic to give it the once over.   

[pilninggas]

Only for minor stuff on my old bike, but a couple of blokes I work with use him & rate him, he's also got quite a following with BMW  riders (clues in the name)

Sounds good enough to me fella, cheers 

I am late to this thread, but can I add my 2pence?

He has a bike which is 18 years old - if he is looking for a mechanic to do brake-pads, chains, tyres etc then no problem; but, if he is having problems, then the pros will either steer clear or will charge a lot and if the problem is difficult to fathom it will get pricey quickly.

Can he not get himself on a Ninja forum (one with ZX9R knowledge) and get the lay of the land?

We are a knowlegeable lot on here, could he post exactly what he needs a mechanic for on here and perhaps we could give him useful input so he makes better decisions. It is very easy to throw money at older bikes (or someone else to do so, and to invoice the owner at the end) and not actually resolve things [it's why you see loads of bikes on ebay/gumtree with "not runnning right, probably needs new plugs" - which means 90% of the time "I replaced the plugs and it still won't run right, i give up"].

It's a good shout and justified. Trouble is, my mate is totally computer illiterate and fairly dyslexic - so doing what I can for him.


From what I can make out, he only gets 100 mile/17 litres riding sensibly (no fuel leaks), 1 plug is always fairly black, he's having trouble getting the butterflies to operate smoothly/not stick, pick up is snatchy and it runs a bit lumpy. This sounds predominately like carb balancing and valve clearance setting. He's just got to the stage that without the proper tools, he wants to get a decent mechanic to give it the once over.

When I had the very similar symptoms on my old FZR1000, there were 2 problems: 1. The carb supplying the fouled plug cylinder had a perforated diaphram and 2. the emulsion tubes were worn. I don't actually think ZX9R carbs are as prone to emulsion tube wear, but you never know. I'd be inclined to get the carbs off, inspect, and maybe get them ultrasonically cleaned in the first instance, particularly if the butterflies are sticky (definitely not sticky cables?).

[Arfa]

Surprised about Bacan's TBH - I had heard nowt but good things regarding them in the past. Though never used them myself.

Recently tried Wheelies Motorcycles: http://wheeliesmotorcycles.com/  down in Rainham (just behind Elite Tyres). Only used them for a simple job (chopping side stand shorter on my wife's lowered bike), but they did a very good job and not bad price.  Seemed good to me, and would certainly consider using them again.

Otherwise, if you head into town, there's Pole Position near Limehouse: http://polepositionint.com/
Used them a few times, for services/ tyres etc. Not to bad at all, full Fazer service & Mot has cost me just over £200 in past. They often need to order tyres for the Fazer though. Also, they don't do MOT's on site, they nip your bike round the corner to London Scooters nr Tower Bridge.

[Frosties]

Nice on Arfa    - that gives him at least 2 with poleposition and Bemer Bikes both nearby. Given my mate both names and numbers so down to him who he feels happier with.


Cheers for the advice fellas, as always on this site - people you can count on  . Let you all know the outcome.[/size][size=78%] [/size]

[JoeRock]

Got one myself (2000) - well worth him getting on to zx-9r.net


100 miles a tank is what I would get thrashing (and I mean a full tank of complete mayhem) - commuting on mine at the moment I'm getting over 55mpg like clockwork and hitting reserve at about 190.


If he's got a B, ignore what I'm about to say. If it's a C, then he can sort the following:
Pickup and low speed throttle openings (below about 3k) are snatchy/lumpy as standard on them. Most people on the forums recommend adjusting the pilots (will check what the settings recommended for the Cs are as I only know the later models), fitting an ignition advancer and balancing the carbs should work wonders.
They're not well known for wearing the emulsion tubes, unless they've had dynojet needles fitted as they had a bad batch that did cause that. A pretty common upgrade is to fit very small washers under the stock needles to lift them a little bit - smooths out and gives a power boost in the midrange (they run lean as stock).

[Frosties]

Nice one Joe, gold dust info - by luck it's the C model he has