Yamaha and Kawasaki

[jakeman]

Hi all,

Here I am again, knocking at the door of free information. Please don't turn me away. My #2 son inherited a bike from my #1 son and it is a Kawasaki 454 LTD, whatever that is. I thought I had raised them better. Anyway, he recently ran it out of gas and hasn't been able to get it going since. He said he only got about 40 miles out of the tank before that happened. Logic says its a fuel problem, probably in the carbs. My question is this, if I can work on my xs1100 carbs can I also work on the Kawasaki? Are all Jap bikes basically the same? I've only seen the bike a couple times and cant remember the set up. Don't all rice burners have one carb per cylinder?

I figure since I am now an expert on Mikuni carbs I should have no problem on the Kawasaki. Am I wrong?

Thanks guys,

[randy]

Yes, Jake, they're all about the same. I remember my KZ400 had Keihin carbs, so yours probably has Keihin's, but that vintage is very similar to the construction of the Mikuni's. the only big difference I recall is that the Keihin's had pressed-in main jets, which was a real PITA!

Look on the side of the carb for the maker's name and go from there.

[strom]

Z LTD were good bikes. Thats just about all I hear from a friend who once owned one. My advice.... check em out, clean them, check the gas tank for gas, put the petcock on prime, check spark, check the airbox for gas, clean fuel filters and off you go.
If you gotta replace the carbs, get a used set from ebay. Not worth the time and trouble modifying yamaha ones if they won't go straight on... then theres rejetting, resetting, re....
Good luck!

LP

[old_bartender]

Jakeman i belive you might have a chance of a life time. if your son and you take this on as a team. with 3 kids that all are on there own now.Cars, truck and motorbike. we work on them all. sometime we fail to get them running. but we did it together.
one more thing go to (kawasaki.com) they have part setup like yamaha.com has good luck.

[e.z.nightrider]

Owning both an XS1100 and a KZ305 CSR ( an LTD with wire wheels) I can tell you that the carbs are very similar. You can use almost all of the tech info from this site with very little changes.

[jakeman]

Thanks for the advice everybody. I'll let y'all know how it turns out when I'm done. Bar_Tender, that's good advice, but both my sons live in the city and all of us are working, so getting toghther to do stuff doesn't happen too often. Wish it did.

Thanks all,