The saga of keeping my 1986 Kawasaki Concours on the road for 100,000 miles keeps adding chapters, detours and speedbumps. After a summer not riding as much as I would have liked due to work-related travel and starting a new business, plus some electrical issues the bike is back on the road. She's running pretty strong with some minor issues related to rubber and gaskets showing their age more and more. Yesterday I realized the trips I had planned for the next two days would easily take the odometer over 97,000 miles-only 3,000 to go!
Until.
Four miles into my ride to lunch at the start of a proposed 55 mile commuting day the speedometer drops to zero as I accelerate onto the freeway. I'm already in fifth and about to click into sixth, tachometer happily bouncing away (it's done that the whole time I've owned the bike once I hit 4200 RPM) but nothing on the speedo. Even worse, the mileage is stuck at 96920.4 miles. Oh no! This has happened a few times before but often resolved by tapping the face of the dash or going over a bump.
TAP TAP TAP. Nothing.
Run over some "zots dots". Nothing.
Find a set of small manhole covers slightly recessed from the roadway once off the freeway. Bumpity bumpity bump. Nothing.
OK, quick diagnosis is either a broken cable (likely, happened to the previous Ninja 900) or dead speedometer (ugh). Yep a dead speedometer would also mean a dead odometer and need for a replacement with who knows what mileage showing.
I got home kind of late last night and decided to troubleshoot this morning. Unscrew fitting from drive gear on front wheel, pull on cable, and knotched end piece and about two inches of cable come right out in my hand. Whew. Quick look at 1994 Connie to see how many parts have to come off to get cable (answer-1, the dash since no side fairings or inner fairing are currently on it). Out come the tools, off comes the inner fairings and the dash from the 86, "steal" the cable from the 94, reverse steps, go riding.
Speedometer/odometer work fine and I rode about 60 miles today. So odometer shows 96980 miles on it. Due to known overstated speed, I'll let the 50 or so miles I rode after the cable broke yesterday slide-not parking this bike right at 100,000 miles anyway.
Wonder if BikeBandit or my local shop sells just the inner cable? Probably almost as much as a replacement on eBay or the Connie forum.
