I would like to start of by saying that it was never really my intention to make a 'how to' when I started this. As a result, some pictures (such as fuel tank removal and reassembly) are not show.
When looking for instructions myself before doing this, I did not see anything other than a couple posts with a few vague sentences. I am also not a master tech, simply a 'do it yourselfer' so follow these instructions with that in mind.
I would rate this as medium difficulty, so if you have only ever changed your oil, this may be out of your skill set. I recommend you take a few pictures throughout the dissassembly process as reference.
Back story on my situation.
My '06 ZX6R ran great. I had bought it from the previous owner in May of '12. He had the bike for 4 years, yet only put 400 miles on it in that time. I thought that there may be an issue with the bike sitting (bad fuel) but as the bike rode excellent/started on the first attempt each time, I never thought twice about it.
After a couple of 140 miles rides, I noticed that the bike would act like it was running out of fuel. It would surge like crazy, yet the gas light would never come on and the bike would only take 3.5 gallons (meaning 1 gallon remained)during fill ups. I figured there may be some bad gas or something in the bottom of the tank and decided to drain the tank, pull it off and check it out.
How to:
1) Remove the gas tank from the bike. I have no pics for this but consult the internet/service manual or other how to's to get past this point. If you cannot figure out how to get the tank off, stop here.
You will need to unplug the electrical connector for the fuel pump, and the fuel line itself. Since the fuel line is vacuum based, only a very small amount of gasoline will come out when you disconnect the one fuel line from the gas tank. There is no on/off switch for the fuel flow.
2) Drain the gas. Best bet here, just ride the bike until you are out of gas. For me, since the bike would not use that final gallon, I had to siphon the gas into a spare gas can I used for the lawn mower. And yes, to get that final bit, I simply dumped the gas out through the top. The remainder came out after I removed the fuel pump. Yes its messy and you will smell like gas. If anyone has better tips on this point, feel free to post them up.
3) Remove the fuel pump from the bottom of the tank. This is quite easy. There are five bolts. Simply unbolt them. The fuel pump will them pull directly out of the bottom of the tank. It may take a little bit of turning and manipulation to pull it out, but it will come directly up and out. See the pics below, the five bolt holes in the bottom of the tank and the holes in the fuel pump sump show you where those five bolts were. You will them be left with this:
(bottom of tank)
and this (the pump itself):
Is that corossion on the bottom of that fuel pump? In my, case it sure was... I took this time to shake out the tiny bit of gas that was left in the bottom of my tank. With a hole in the bottom of the tank and the fuel filler open, simply shaking the tank produced the small remainder of gas and these rusty little bits from the bottom of the tank... Yay. Guess I was on to something after all.
Now we need to seperate the actual fuel pump from the fuel sump. the fuel pump picks up fuel from the sump itself (The cylindrical metal piece on the bottom of the pump). To remove the pump from the sump, you need to remove two small screws and two small bolts. Note: Make sure you keep track of what wires are where here.
Now pull up on the pump while holding onto the sump. The pump will the slide off.
That is the fuel filter on the bottom. The mesh filters the fuel that is pulled up from the sump and ultimately injected into the combustion chamber. Holy crap. In my case, there was a lot of corossion!
Look at all of the corossion/rust in the sump...
To clean this out, I used a metal brush and solvent from my gun cleaning kit and some PB Blaster. I scrubbed the hell out of the sump. I also used my finger to pull out the loose corossion/rusticles:
The fuel filter itself unclips from the bottom of the pump. There are two little clips that hold it on. It easily pulls off.
Im not sure of the original color of the filter, but pretty sure it was not rust orange. To clean, I soaked the filter in PB blaster. Seemed to help dislodge the obvious rust and corossion. Not 100% cleaned, but keep in mind this filter is not listed on Kawasaki parts diagrams as a serviceable or replaceable part. Do what you can here. Doubtfully yours will be as bad as mine. Here is how it came out. Better:
You can dislodge the pump from the rest of the assembly simply by pulling it down and away from the white tank. Note: I only did this so that I could sand away some of the corossion from the pump using 150 grit sand paper and some more PB blaster. You may not have to.
The cleaned pump. An improvement.
Now reassemble! Here is a pic of my cleaned up pump. I removed as much corossion as possible from all surfaced with a combination of PB blaster, sandpaper and a wire brush from my gun cleaning kit. It pretty clear my tank/pump had some issues.
When looking for instructions myself before doing this, I did not see anything other than a couple posts with a few vague sentences. I am also not a master tech, simply a 'do it yourselfer' so follow these instructions with that in mind.
I would rate this as medium difficulty, so if you have only ever changed your oil, this may be out of your skill set. I recommend you take a few pictures throughout the dissassembly process as reference.
Back story on my situation.
My '06 ZX6R ran great. I had bought it from the previous owner in May of '12. He had the bike for 4 years, yet only put 400 miles on it in that time. I thought that there may be an issue with the bike sitting (bad fuel) but as the bike rode excellent/started on the first attempt each time, I never thought twice about it.
After a couple of 140 miles rides, I noticed that the bike would act like it was running out of fuel. It would surge like crazy, yet the gas light would never come on and the bike would only take 3.5 gallons (meaning 1 gallon remained)during fill ups. I figured there may be some bad gas or something in the bottom of the tank and decided to drain the tank, pull it off and check it out.
How to:
1) Remove the gas tank from the bike. I have no pics for this but consult the internet/service manual or other how to's to get past this point. If you cannot figure out how to get the tank off, stop here.
You will need to unplug the electrical connector for the fuel pump, and the fuel line itself. Since the fuel line is vacuum based, only a very small amount of gasoline will come out when you disconnect the one fuel line from the gas tank. There is no on/off switch for the fuel flow.
2) Drain the gas. Best bet here, just ride the bike until you are out of gas. For me, since the bike would not use that final gallon, I had to siphon the gas into a spare gas can I used for the lawn mower. And yes, to get that final bit, I simply dumped the gas out through the top. The remainder came out after I removed the fuel pump. Yes its messy and you will smell like gas. If anyone has better tips on this point, feel free to post them up.
3) Remove the fuel pump from the bottom of the tank. This is quite easy. There are five bolts. Simply unbolt them. The fuel pump will them pull directly out of the bottom of the tank. It may take a little bit of turning and manipulation to pull it out, but it will come directly up and out. See the pics below, the five bolt holes in the bottom of the tank and the holes in the fuel pump sump show you where those five bolts were. You will them be left with this:
(bottom of tank)
and this (the pump itself):
Is that corossion on the bottom of that fuel pump? In my, case it sure was... I took this time to shake out the tiny bit of gas that was left in the bottom of my tank. With a hole in the bottom of the tank and the fuel filler open, simply shaking the tank produced the small remainder of gas and these rusty little bits from the bottom of the tank... Yay. Guess I was on to something after all.
Now we need to seperate the actual fuel pump from the fuel sump. the fuel pump picks up fuel from the sump itself (The cylindrical metal piece on the bottom of the pump). To remove the pump from the sump, you need to remove two small screws and two small bolts. Note: Make sure you keep track of what wires are where here.
Now pull up on the pump while holding onto the sump. The pump will the slide off.
That is the fuel filter on the bottom. The mesh filters the fuel that is pulled up from the sump and ultimately injected into the combustion chamber. Holy crap. In my case, there was a lot of corossion!
Look at all of the corossion/rust in the sump...
To clean this out, I used a metal brush and solvent from my gun cleaning kit and some PB Blaster. I scrubbed the hell out of the sump. I also used my finger to pull out the loose corossion/rusticles:
The fuel filter itself unclips from the bottom of the pump. There are two little clips that hold it on. It easily pulls off.
Im not sure of the original color of the filter, but pretty sure it was not rust orange. To clean, I soaked the filter in PB blaster. Seemed to help dislodge the obvious rust and corossion. Not 100% cleaned, but keep in mind this filter is not listed on Kawasaki parts diagrams as a serviceable or replaceable part. Do what you can here. Doubtfully yours will be as bad as mine. Here is how it came out. Better:
You can dislodge the pump from the rest of the assembly simply by pulling it down and away from the white tank. Note: I only did this so that I could sand away some of the corossion from the pump using 150 grit sand paper and some more PB blaster. You may not have to.
The cleaned pump. An improvement.
Now reassemble! Here is a pic of my cleaned up pump. I removed as much corossion as possible from all surfaced with a combination of PB blaster, sandpaper and a wire brush from my gun cleaning kit. It pretty clear my tank/pump had some issues.