My Ninth Motorcycle - 1984 Kawasaki ZX900 Ninja
Here is the latest addition to my garage, a 1984 Kawasaki ZX900A1 Ninja (also known as a GPZ900R or a ZX-9R). This was the very first of the "Ninja" model line from Kawasaki. I got this in December, 2008 from my good friend Bill, who no longer had room for it in his garage. Bill had gotten it a year or two earlier from his brother Rick, who was the original owner. I was interested in having it for a couple reasons: first, it needed some work and if you've read very much of my site you know that I enjoy working on motorcycles; and second, I have fond memories of this bike from a previous experience, which I'll explain later.
The Ninja did need some work to get it back into good shape. The major problems that I knew of were the brakes, the carburetors and the cosmetics. The brakes were the worst problem, didn't work very well, and were the first thing I worked on. The carburetors needed to be cleaned and rebuild, as the engine ran roughly in the mid-range. The cosmetic issues were about what you would expect of a 25 year old bike with 35,000 miles on it, with faded and peeling paint, scratched bodywork and weather-worn plastic. My plan was to fix the mechanical issues first, then see what I could do about improving the appearance.
The fond memories I mentioned were of a trip that I took with my friend Bill back in 1985. We went to Tennessee to visit Bill's brother Rick and while we were there Rick proudly showed us his new bike, this exact Ninja. Back then this was the most advanced sport bike available, so when Rick offered to let me try it out I could not resist. It was so much faster than anything I had ridden before that I had three tense moments on that test ride that I still remember vividly.
The first occurred shortly after I pulled away from Rick's apartment. I pulled out onto the highway and, as I would normally do on my RD350, I zipped up through the first three gears. At that point I seemed to be going faster than normal so I glanced down at the speedometer and noticed that I was going about 110mph! And there were three more gears yet to go! It was amazing how quickly and easily that bike accelerated and how it didn't seem to really be going that fast.
The second was shortly after, as I was checking out the handling on a twisty side road. I was trying to flick the bike through some tight esses when I met an oncoming car on a particularly tight corner. I had drifted out towards the middle of the road and had to resort to some heroic maneuvers to avoid the car. I then decided that my test ride was about over as I did not want to wreck Rick's new bike. This bike was fast but was not nearly as maneuverable or "flickable" as my RD350.
The third moment came later, when we were coming back from Rick's gym. I was riding the Ninja and was getting a bit bored following Rick and Bill in Rick's car, so I passed them just before the on-ramp to the freeway. Because of the pass, I hit the on ramp with some pretty good speed and discovered that the ramp was a decreasing radius curve. I just managed to keep the bike on the road through that curve, with Rick right behind watching the whole thing! To his credit, he did not get mad, and in fact complimented me on how good I looked riding his bike! Amazing!
I've created a couple of pages to describe how I am rebuilding the bike and to describe the modifications/improvements I'm making. You can take a look by clicking the links below:
Useful Files:
Original Sales Brochure (17MB)
This page was last updated on April 30, 2011