Riding report of my Kawasaki Samurai

Another brilliant Sunday… After tinkering the Samurai, I felt like giving it a go. Not the brightest idea as it turned out…

Rolled it out of the garage, and then it was time to tighten the triple tree nuts, everything felt loose and the front suspension was clunking.
it wasn’t like that last summer. I sling the poor bugger on its side-stand, go back inside and what do I find? A pool of stuff under the bike. Great!
Although I had ultra sonic cleaned the carbs, the float valves weren’t obviously shutting off. Since it was OK on the center stand, I still went.

I took the usual test course of about 20 kms, with some nice straights. The bike felt very unnerving, suspension and frame-wise. Once warm it would accelerate and I felt again the nice side of the Samurais: it is a very supple and torquy engine. I stopped to adjust the brakes and I noticed that some screws were undoing themselves. Uh Oh, time to drive home. I gave it some stick on the way back, when suddenly the exhaust changed note… sure enough one of my baffles had left its pipe. I managed to recuperate it and deafened everybody until the workshop. They are very quiet in standard trim, but I think I’m going to try to shorten some baffles later on… it did sound good!

Needs to be done:

Brakes (front chatters, rear isn’t quite good)
It feels like the front forks have no oil in them – real pogo sticks. This could well be the case. The rear units also feel as if they have no oil left in them, they just bounce.
Tighten all bolts around the triple trees – and general check all over the bike.
Baffles Check and tighten
Tach seems extremly optimistic, the speedo is fine or at least credible.
Turns signals, need a rear unit and a new RH control.
Horn Need a new LH unit and a new horn probably.
Seat needs to be redone.
Clutch would need a bit of fine tuning, the slipping zone is very short.
Carbs needs new float valve… I am pretty sure I put a new keyster set in there, so I might have to investigate another alternative.
It also feels like it’s rich (check starter plungers, but then again I think I changed them)
Oil pump feels like overoiling and it wouldn’t adjust, like the spring was sticking. Might have to locate a new one or go premix.