Thought id post here as im a little bit lost tbh. Its the time of the year when i switch my winter tyres out on the z (its my daily commuter in all weathers) back to sportier tyres, currently SuperCorsa's. Ive had the front end apart on it more times than i care to remember. The front is not oem...atall. 1. Marchesini wheels. 2. Currently HEL V1 calipers. 3. Nitron pro fork cartridges. 4. PFM discs. Now first off the bat when i ordered the Wheels (about 7 years ago now) marchesini in their wisdom sent the spacers from the gen3 z1000 which werent quite the same. It didnt compute at the time for a while as i had to pull the forks apart to get them in there. Eventually one of the lads on the .com forum told me that they were different. I shaved a couple of mm off the RH spacer and all was good. Fast forward to last weekend, i switched back to the summer tyres that i took off start of winter last year. Put it all back together as i usually do -went to work on it monday morning and it felt awful, like the front tyre had 5psi in it, heavy steering, wanted to get stuck in all the ruts and grooves in the road.... got to work and thought "i must have not pressured it up...." got home (30psi in it) - put it up to 34 (what i usually ride on) Tuesday: went to work again...same but not quite as bad, but it felt like the front brakes were dragging. Got home and sure enough they were. Spent a couple of hours with various spacers wondering if the calipers were too close to the discs and eventually got the wheel to spin relatively freely but, only when i added a 1mm washer to the right hand side spacer. I might add that the HEL calipers are as good as new, have no corrosion on them and i clean them every other week through the winter to make sure theyre in good working order. Wednesday: Again on the way to work, much much better but the steering feels still quite heavy... Ive been through everything and cant nail it down...very weird. Also the suspension has been setup correctly for my weight and ive not messed with it since, so its not that....ill keep messing with stuff but just wondered putting my thoughts down here...
Tracking stuff like this can be a pain. The first thing I would do is to make a proper drawing of all the parts - not necessarily full engineering sprawling, but enough to work out all your spacings. This may show up something. Why it would have changed is a mystery though. Might also be worth changing back if that easy to do and see if the problem remains.
just a thought, i noticed this every year at the start of the season if the tyres were coming to the end of their life at the end of the previous season. it would feel heelish. put new tyres on it and it would be sorted. my guess is that i was just adapting unconsciously as the tyres wear through the summer.
Well, not sure ive answered my question but im feeling optimistic.....after i got to work this morning i went out with my little electric pump which didnt have much battery in it....i set it to 36psi (so when i remove the valve a bit comes out and it goes down a bit) but - it wouldnt go on indicating that it was over 36psi so, i thought hmm must be really high for whatever reason so i let a bit out....left the office earlier on (home now) and it was totally flat almost impossible to ride. so, pulled over - set the little pump to max just so i could get some air into it to get home (only a couple of miles though town) battery ran out (couldnt remember how much charge was in there) got home. got the big pump out and i think it was on something like 25psi so ive pumped it back up again (back up to a definite 36psi according to my dewalt pump) - ill go out for another test ride over the weekend...essentially i think i what i thought was 36 in there but clearly didnt then clouded the issue with my half dead mini pump not reporting the pressure also.... Anyway chaps - thanks for the replies...!
Hopefully all sorted now...... But definitely a great bike,as absolutely love the Z1000,first Kwak I ever owned,and put 30k faultless miles on it..... Great memories !!!!
Yep, been there... when I commuted there was a 15 mile biff down the M4. I changed the tyres from Michelin Roads to the Metzeler Roadtecs that everyone was raving about & set the pressures as recommended. On the motorway the bike felt unstable and when in the wash of a van/large SUV felt even worse and to me threatened to have a full on head shake. To cut a long story short, both the foot pump & gauge I was using gave (different) incorrect readings and after investing in a decent pressure gauge stability returned.
Yeah - i think on this occasion it was a mixture of a few things.... 1. The whole tyre change procedure....lots of tools out and all over the floor 2. Checking everything and probably missing the tyre pressure - initially i did use the dewalt to pressure it up...but hey ho. 3. The front calipers dragging. (but now fixed.) 4. My little battery pump giving the wrong reading... Ill definitively find out over the weekend...ill take some tools out with me and the dewalt pump....
gen4 here with 27k faultless miles so far....no plans to sell it ....best bike ive ever had period....nothing beats it.
Just a thought, did you bounce the forks before torquing the axle pitch bolts, if not it can cause the forks to bind. Apologies if I’m teaching grandma to suck eggs but I’ve seen many omit to do it when changing wheels.
Yeah - kind of wiggle them about a bit to settle them... Ill be out on it tomorrow testing if i get the chance...! (Weather allowing)
Funny I had a 16 plate z1000 and it broke down . Never got to the bottom of it as I traded it in for an r1
