So, we have two hydraulic systems (Three physically). The clutch lever and the brakes levers (Front and back thus the 3rd element in the equation)
Geekness aside, I've been having problems for some time now with my shifting gears heavy clunking, I know that the '14 clunks on first as most bikes, I know that the '14 clunks heavy but mine really CLUNKS and it does so too on 2nd, and 3rd, sometimes 4th and 5th... although as you go up on gears to a much lesser degree...
So I finally followed a suggestion given here (Was it Hub?) a few weeks back and I bled (For the first time in my life my brakes and clutch)
I'll start with the clutch since we were on that topic. Once you learn the procedure you can get it done with your eyes blindfolded and do it to perfection,,, easy as cake, I don't know why it took me so long to learn it. So anyway, it has improved my clunkiness minimally but not because I bled the system and got any imaginary air bubbles out and changed it to some fresh DOT-4 brake fluid,,, no, it was because the bloody rubber diaphragm was bent in, as in bent towards the inside of the reservoir,,, lemme try to explain this... it's supposed to look like a flat square more or less and not a cone. If you remove the plastic cap you will see another smaller cap sitting on top of the diaphragm, once you have the rubber diaphragm exposed you can pull it out, right. Well, the problem here was that the middle of this diaphragm was pushed in allowing less fluid in the reservoir and creating more room with empty space,,, which is counter productive on a hydraulic system.
Now the front brake. EXACTLY the same crud BUT worse!!!!! The diaphragm in the front brake reservoir was grotesquely pushed in, again, the front brake diaphragm is much larger, a rectangular piece that should be flat and NOT like a freak rectangular cone. Once I fixed the shape of the diaphragm, to my dismay, the front brake fluid level was at the lowest,,, all that empty space, robbing the hydraulics from the compression needed to do its job even better,,, no wonder my front brakes have sucked for so long despite having done inspections on the pads and rotors to no avail (Another thing someone said here to do with the brakes, bleed them. Was it Hub again?)
Lastly and my apologies for such a long post.
CHECK your rubber diaphragms in your hydraulics reservoirs, they could have been installed pushed in or what not... how all of this has happened I do not know, no stealership has touched that (that I know if) for any reason...
2006 Kawasaki ZX14 Ninja 1400. New on 12/29/07 22K+ miles June 2009.(GONE!!!)
Im bikeless now... except for the hardly working old Kat...
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"I rather be down here wishing to be up-there than up-there wishing to be down here"
Aviator's saying.