Blog: Charlie's project ZXR400 – more progress

Now that my wheels have new bearings and new rubber I can put the final pieces in place before setting out on the frame. Stripping down a bike to the very nuts and bolts tells you a few tales on what has and has not been done in the bike’s lifetime. What I can say for sure is that the brake discs have never been removed from these wheels in 20 years, not domestically anyhow. All of the nuts still had the Kawasaki famed “red” locking paste on them which almost seemed a shame to clean up – and I thought Kawasaki’s bled Green.

As the discs have never been removed they were due a thorough clean, no need to replace them, just give them a good rub down as they will have new brake pads to bed into, now was the perfect opportunity. Brake cleaner of course came to great use as I removed the build up of grime and finally got each disc back to a shine with a pure steel wool. There are lots of brake cleaners around but fortunately my sister’s fiancée works for BMW so, if he wants to marry my sister he can supply me with brake cleaner which he duly did– thank you Glenn.

Once all parts were cleaned it all went back together relatively smoothly, with the help of the manual for the ZXR I had down loaded online. Thank god I had put all the different parts in there own nicely marked out bags. Now, I have two completed wheels and can start putting together the carriage that they will carry – at last, I am getting somewhere.