Death, just moments away

i heard the best way to get rid of the wobble was to rake it a few degrees...i don't know if that makes any sense...bearings bushings and tires of course always have to be good but does this make the bike more stable?? the rake?? i know you can overdo a rake some choppers when i look at them i'm just glad i never have to drive them haha..

The best way to get rid of a wobble is to accelerate through it... like this
I rest my case. :evil:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you knew this and STILL rode it that way?! Not cool.

Kitten Tooth wrote: So that means theres something wrong with my bike then? hahaa im thinking that the head tube bearings for the triple tree need replaced. Theres a very slight amount of play in them.

I really don't care about anyone elses opinions on the matter, raking the bike destroys the handling. You want to do that when you drag race a bike but if you honestly think you know more than the world class engineers that designed the bike in the first place do then congratulations; you just won yourself a place in redneck engineering 101. To each their own. You absolutely need to change out all the bearings and bushings. These bikes are way too old for trusting.
When bikes spend their lives sitting on concrete and do not move as is the case for many, the bearings get flat spots as well. Bumps often destroy the steering bearings after time. Best to replace with the newer timkin roller bearings.
Swingarms are notorious for having slack in them. Remember rubber gets old, hard and generally does not serve any purpose well. This goes for tires that have sat for a long time they get out of round and can easily throw a bike out of control. Some of you guys on the board and you know who you are, spoke out against me and going tubeless yet you have dropped your bikes from having rubber too old. How can you justify that? Dropping a gorgeous example of a classic machine is unacceptable. Me I don't trust rubber to last long. I ride my tires off in a season or two though. When it's warm I ride, I rarely spend time doing other things. Old bikes are often more costly than new in my opinion if you do it right. And we don't modify our bikes with car muffler resonators or make gaskets from cereal boxes because we are too cheap or too broke to do it the right way. You are just asking for trouble when you take shortcuts. Make sure your brake lines are good, I'd use braided lines or replace with new. I learned that one the hard way in my Mustang when I hit the brakes and they didn't work also when I was test driving an old beautiful Chevy Corvair lucky both times I wasn't in traffic. Do you really want to trust your life to the fact that you assume it will work?

spark23ca wrote: i heard the best way to get rid of the wobble was to rake it a few degrees...i don't know if that makes any sense...bearings bushings and tires of course always have to be good but does this make the bike more stable?? the rake?? i know you can overdo a rake some choppers when i look at them i'm just glad i never have to drive them haha..

You don't change rake to eliminate death wobble; you find the problem and fix it. Changing rake is not going to correct a bad tire, bad swingarm bushings, bad shocks, etc. etc. These bikes didn't have death wobble when they left the showroom floor or Kawasaki would have been sued out of the motorcycle business. All changing the rake is going to do is make it difficult to handle curves. Ed

Exhibit A -

650ed wrote: You don't change rake to eliminate death wobble; you find the problem and fix it. Changing rake is not going to correct a bad tire, bad swingarm bushings, bad shocks, etc. etc. These bikes didn't have death wobble when they left the showroom floor or Kawasaki would have been sued out of the motorcycle business. All changing the rake is going to do is make it difficult to handle curves. Ed

Exhibit A -

Ouch, I saw that one too. :lol: I will never rake my bike. To me that is bike abuse.

I believe this Z1R is racked too

I guess I'm getting old.... that story made me cringe :ohmy:

Lynn and I went for a bicycle ride last night. We didn't get 1 block and she went down on her bicycle right in front of me at about 4MPH......skinned up her knees...scared the crap out of me.

Shit happens in an instant....Even quicker when you're going over 100MPH :blink:

This is for you Tim.

KT, get that thing fixed. we dont want to see u in 1 of these videos.

I was talking with some older guys who use to ride these bikes when they were new, they claim Kawasaki did have a problem with high speed wobble, right of the factory floor, dont know how true it was but I wouldnt doubt it.

I have no personal experience with a Z1 or KZ900, but the KZ650 and KZ1000 didn't have any wobble at any speed when new. Ed

Note: I can say with 100% confidence that the KZ650-C1 did not have any inherent speed wobble when new. Please understand my comment is not based on theory, hearsay, or myth. It is based on my buying a new KZ650-C1 off the showroom floor in April 1977 and riding it for more than 35 years (and I still ride it). For the first 32 years there was absolutely no wobble of any sort at any speed. The shocks on the KZ650 wore out after only 2 years at about 12,000 miles and were replaced with better units. The worn out original shocks made handling in the turns inadequate, but did not generate speed wobble. Three years ago, at approximately 47,000 miles, I experienced a consistent 90+ mph speed wobble because of a bad tire(s). That was the first time the bike ever had a wobble. After replacing the tires the wobble is totally gone. Along with the tires I replaced the steering stem bearings (which had dimpled) with tapered roller bearings and installed new swing arm bushings, but the cause of the problem was the tires.

The year after I bought my bike a good friend bought a new (1978) KZ1000-A2. I rode that bike up to speed and experienced no wobble. My friend and I logged many many miles together, often taking forays into triple digit speeds, and he never experienced wobble. He did not keep his bike as long as I kept mine, but suffice it to say the bike had no wobble when new.

Folks can express different opinions on the internet, and some may have experienced wobble due to bad tires or other components, or even manufacturing defects, and I certainly cannot speak to every model made. However, I can say without a doubt that the 2 models I mentioned had no design related speed wobble issues. If they did, the bikes my friend and I rode would have experienced that problem because I don't believe a manufacturing fluke would prevent a design problem from showing up. Ed

Just google kz and high speed wobble, enuff said!