1986 Ninja ZX600 A


Impulsive purchase off Ebay. Was not running and came with an extra 1985 Ninja parts bike. The parts bike was probably 75% complete. Previous owner stated he had carburetor problems and the bike would not run. Had new tires and a stellar "rattle can" paint job.

Took me a little bit to figure it our but basically what looked like happened was a mis-match of carburetor parts between the two bikes. Jets etc...
One set had a dynojet kit and the drilled out slides were matched up to the stock jets and vice versa and the pilot jets were open but not fully. I used the pilot jets from the donor carbs. A good soaking and cleaning of the passage ways had me on the road. I re-adjusted all the valves(they were loose) and dropped the oil to make sure it was ready. Over the last couple of weeks I put on a couple of hundred miles. Starts and runs great. Idles smooth at 1200 and no hesitation. Coolant temp also dropped after fixing the lean condition. I think I am a little on the rich side yet but that is better than lean and it has no flat spots so I am going to leave it.

After running it around for a couple of weeks I was confident enough to tackle the body. I wanted to make sure it was reliable mechanically before I put much work into the cosmetics.

The 1985 parts bike plastics were better than what was on it so I swapped them. I also went with the 1985 paint scheme.

The idea was to do this project "on the cheap" and I had the red, black, and silver so that helps. So far the only thing I have bought was the oil and a new gallon of Berryman's carb cleaner. Once I get the final body work done. I will work on dismantling and selling off the parts bike.




As Purchased (but now running)




Stripping off the body work







Base coat/Clear coat is used. Fairing mounting brackets are metallic silver.



Side panels in epoxy primer



Silver stripe painted waiting to be reverse masked for the red and black



Front fairing with the lower red painted ready to be masked for the upper black.




Fairing installed




Side panels installed.





I have my own vinyl cutter so I scanned the logo off the owners manual to create the decals for the fairing.












Black Primer






Silver Metallic for the stripe



Tank and tail installed to lay out stripes



Tank strip laid out and the tail is masked.




Tail after red, black and clear.



Tanks after red, black and clear.



After all decals had been cut and applied.














Here are some not so good pictures with the flushmount signals, smoked windscreen, Kanji decals, and front seat recovered in red. I have a solo seat cowl I may use but I need to get the rear recovered also.








Here is the first one done sitting next to the second project. Check it out here>



Below is what is left of the parts bike.