3700 mile, 06 zx6r brought back from the grave

When I was 17 and fresh out of high school I decided cars were too expensive so I bought myself an old track prepped 06 Kawasaki ninja zx6r. At the time of purchase it did not run at all and the brakes didn’t work. Having no hands on mechanical knowledge I thought this would be a great place to start and I’d have it road worthy in a few months. Almost 2 years later i was able to get it running and have been having a blast with it ever since.

This is where I made the best and worst decision ever. Right after graduating high school I purchased a 3700 mile track prepped 06 zx6r in non running condition for $2000 dollars. I had no mechanical experience at the time so I figured what better way to learn besides diving right in. Little did I know at the time that it would take a little under two years to finish my vision.

Now was the time where I started to see what all this bike really needed. I was told it just need a fuel pump and the brakes bled. I took the sellers word on that and found out it needed a lot more. The tires were from 08 telling me it hadn’t ran for 15 years at the time. I took the bike apart and it looked like a great base. Then I got to the air filter and the gas tank. I poured out the gas left in it and it came out brown; not a good sign for what’s to come. Then I took the air filter out and it disintegrated in my hands. This was the point i realized it wouldn’t be a few months to get road worthy

With the initial excitement of buying a bike I set the vision. I saw a photo of a black and gold 06 636 and set my sights on that. I ordered fairings and bought some gear. Should I have bought $2500 in gear before I knew my bike ran? No, but they did come in handy.

After seeing the brown gas I didn’t have much hope. I took a look at the inside and it was completely rusted out. I figured I may be able to see how deep the rust went by removing the paint, even worse. The rust was on both sides of the metal so I had little hope. I had a friend try to weld the holes but every time he welded one two more appeared. $500 later I got myself a clean, black, gas tank and finally could say goodbye to the rust.

Wanting to make progress with no clue what to do next I made a friend. Me and Noah checked to make sure the bike had spark and then tried to start it on starter fluid. Luckily for me it worked and the bike roared to life. This gave me a ton of confidence that I could get this bike finished.

Now knowing the bike can run I started going down the line of where the issues could be. Because I had bought a new fuel pump and a new gas tank I knew the issue wasn’t on that side of the fuel injection. I took a look at the injectors and not a single one was firing. So after stripping 4 screws and extracting them I got the injectors out and cleaned finally. After also discovering my front and rear master cylinders were bad I rebuilt the rear and attempted to rebuild the front with no luck. With no hope for the old master cylinder I bought a nice brembo rcs19 for the front and has been a dream since.

After cleaning the injectors and putting the bike back together it finally started on its own! This gave me so much motivation to keep pushing to get it finished. However when checking to make sure everything was good on the bike I discovered my swing arm had a hole in it and one of my rotors was warped. So after buying a new swing arm and a new set of rotors I was finally starting to see the finish line.

Now knowing everything was working I tossed the wheels and chain back on and made her look all pretty. The fairings made the bike feel complete and I didn’t want to ride it without them. So after 6 hours of putting them on I took the bike for its first ride. The joy of hitting 16,400 rpm in first gear was amazing. I smiled ear to ear for the next week after that ride.

After almost two years of work it was finished and it was time to enjoy it. Of course it’s a project so things went wrong but since fixing the issues it’s been a dream. I’ve put a little over 1300 miles on it and still have that same smile every time I rev the throttle. Now at 19 and in college I’m glad I had the chance to be able to build this machine and I’d do it all over again every time if I could.