Remove exhaust

[paulb]

Hi
I want to take off my exhaust and give it a proper clean, how do I get the rear header pipe off?
The workshop manual makes it look easy but I cant access it easily, does the standard shock allow access? I have an Ohlins shock and I cant seem to get at it. Has anyone else come accross the same problem?

Cheers
P

[Screaming Chief]

Personally, if it's not too dirty, I wouldn't even attempt to take off the very small part from the rear cylinder head.(I welded mine to the next section, eliminating the need to do a bitch of a strip down every time the exhaust gaskets blow out/melt)

From experience, it's not really a one person job, the nuts (especially the right hand one) aren't easily accessible, especially without removing the rear shock.

If you really must remove the exhaust, remove the silencers and the exhaust section that goes to the swingarm space and leave it at that, especially since, when you remove the standard exhausts/silencers, you often have to replace the gaskets that sit between each of the exhaust sections (different of course to the actual cylinder head gaskets)

Of course if you have enough kit/mates to help, to be able to get the rear of the bike off the floor, Ii would say, removing the Ohlins would give you much better view/access to the rear cylinder head bolts.

What do the nuts and the exhaust studs look like condition wise ? you may find the studs try to unthread from the cylinder head when trying to remove the nuts as they have a nasty habit of welding themselves (through heat/road crud) to the studs and sometimes the studs even snap off leaving only a small nub on which to try and reseat the exhaust flange and nut (I speak from experience)

If you end up in the unenviable position of snapping an exhaust stud, you then need to drill out the knackered stud and likely then to need to remake the thread in the cylinder head (not a nice job for the faint hearted), especially doing this on a cylinder head which isn't at a nice height/level.

Have I put you off yet ?

[steve p]

was it welded like your spark plugs SC?

[Screaming Chief]

was it welded like your spark plugs SC?

Some people have a sense of humour, you on the other hand, well lets just call it a mean streak.

I think the best way to say it is that, due to having been ridden in all weathers (like all bikes ought to be able to be) the exhaust had seen some serious heat cycles and plenty of rain and even snow, thus accelerating the deterioration of the flanges, studs and the areas closest to the cylinder heads.

The plug was simply down to the fact, I neither believe in paying dealers exorbitant prices for shit services (nor could I actually afford them even if I did think they were worthwhile) and the "plug issue" was simply down to me not checking the actual condition of the plug in the head, due to the fact that it had carried on working.Only when I decided, time had finally come, to actually remove the plug, did I discover that, it was basically working on a wing and a prayer.Having to do a reasonably big stripdown and a head off job, was educational, if nowt else.

In other news, I spent the last 3 days getting an old ZX7R (that hadn't been run for 3-4 years, which would sometimes turn over but wouldn't run for more than 1/2 a second) up and running (changed all four plugs and bought a new battery) and after a serious clean of the air filter, drain of old fuel, good pump through of Motul engine cleaner and some pro FST for good measure (that was for old times sake as I realise that's more often used for carb icing issues), test of vacuum valve, vacuum switch,ignition coil check and clean, fuel filter strip out and clean, fuel pump strip out, clean,test and a pretty comprehensive stripdown and clean of the carbs, jets and needles out, cleaned, inspected, all put back together with no left over parts and now a bike that runs cleanly on all four cylinders and even idles correctly with no throttle.

Now I can get rid of it.

[paulb]

You know how to put a guy off a job
The bike is off the road at the moment so it will be done over a few weeks/months, I have it up on an abba stand so I can take the shock off no problem.
The bolts are not too bad so they should come out, access is the problem. I am also thinking of removing the swingarm and either polishing or powder coating it, not sure which yet.
I think ill start loosening some bits n lives and see where it ends!