Oh I fully understand your pain. They must employ the winner of worlds strongest man to tighten them up!

Thank you Paul, great to have such useful people close by!

I do try to be methodical and clean and I'm glad it looks like it, most of the time!

I may have the test ride already filmed... just not got as far as the edit yet!

There's about 2-300ml, but no official amount of oil, as the manufacturers don't expect them to be rebuilt. It's useful to partially fill the gas bladder as you're oil filling, so it's inflated to the full size, but full pressurisation is usually done at the end

A bit of air pressure will ease it out nicely

They have recently updated the listing and only seem to class the piston kit as 'road' As it should be fitted by a specialist they should be able to advise spring rates and damping setup for race use

Once the bike is in gear it'd only be putting the same load through as riding, as the motor will turn over way before any excessive loads are applied

17/39, stock. Tall but still plenty of go on the road

You can work it out by calculating the weight of bike and rider, linkage ratio, wheel travel required and load, but it gets a bit complicated. I know the stock spring weight, and have an educated decision from there. The stock spring is on the firm side, especially for a light rider on the road. The stock springs are linear rate, as are the replacements, I don't use progressive springs and it's unusual to see progressive springs on stock bikes The linkage however is non linear, on these bikes it's regressive, which is unusual, so fitting a zx6 b1h link can make them feel softer as it's more progressive. I also changed the fork springs for 9n/mm options. The valving I've used is track focused, but will work on fast road riding, as I still want the bike to behave like a sports bike, just a little softer than stock, with better damping.

I'm used to race bikes where we often alter chain lengths to suit gearing and wheel base changes, so trying to reuse as much chain as possible is a habit.

He has to make a living, so is not going to give away all the details.

There are a few specialist tools, including a nitrogen supply at quite high pressure! So most home mechanics won't be able to do the rebuild without some extra kit, and to be fair you need to be doing it regularly to get the money back! There are also a few bits of the rebuild that are quite small in detail so difficult to film in enough detail.

Oh and yes, I think some of these earlier generation bikes are as much fun, if not more fun than the latest kit. They tend to need a little more effort for the rewards, which I like. Although a new Panigale would be nice!

Sure a Panigale v4 would be awesome, but the price isnt !

There's a rubber block in the stock end, you just need a needle for your gas line

@@obsession_engineering thanks, found fill kit on ebay.

I'm not sure if Kawasaki specify them as non rebuildable, but normal main dealers wouldn't have the tooling. There are a few shocks out there that really are a pain to try and rebuild, but most can be done, and these are pretty straight forward

Yes, the majority of modern shocks are, and there's upgrades available for many too.

@@obsession_engineering thanks, my ESA on my XR wasn’t and the price BMW wanted, over £2000, got a replacement ESA from Triactive in Holland, and it was the preload that seized and ripped the seal and it is not rebuildable, good to know, how much for a service upgrade and rebuild.

I'd call that 04 but not sure when khi introduced the changes. Think it was worked off engine numbers

@@obsession_engineering I’m curious, as well. What changes where made between 04 05 ? Also mine doesn’t have any of the emissions stuff on it at all. None of it. Looks like it came from factory like that

I ran the sportsmart TT in 180 but can't actually remember if it was the 55 or 60 section... Probably the 60 as that's a closer profile to the d213

@@obsession_engineering thanks mate, look a lovely looking tyre, I always used to swear by the sportsmart v1 but I couldn’t gel with the v2, I think il try the tt