The bike was bought as a non-runner, but we knew a mechanic who worked on it; he reassured us that it was a good machine. Having a ZX7R road bike already, I felt confident I knew the model of bike well enough to get it going.

For a start the battery had less than 1 volt in it! So I changed it with a spare one I had and it fired up on full choke pretty easy. Of course there was more.

The bike sounded rough - it wasn’t firing on all cylinders. I felt one of the headers and it wasn’t hot like the others. I then changed over the HT lead with one of the others (at both plug end and coil end of course) and the same pipe was still not getting hot. I had 4 new plugs - that were originally for my road bike - so I stuck them in. The bike then started firing on all 4, but still didn’t sound like it should.

Next I went to clean out the carbs. So I took the tank off and realised - as I walked across the garage with it in my hands - that the tap was faulty and didn’t turn off properly! With a garage and clothes now stinking of petrol, I noticed the colour of it was almost like a 2 stroke mix; very dark. Chances are the bike has done nothing since the previous owner last took it out and the fuel has gone off.

The carbs were not the cleanest inside, so I gave everything a good wash in clean petrol. The pilot jets were the worst with some looking completely blocked.

Putting it all back together I also noticed that one of the earths to the sub-frame had snapped off its ring connector, so I crimped another one on.

I put the tank from my road bike on, which had good fuel in it; fired it up and it sounded much better. I let it slowly warm up and it was running and sounding great.

There’ll be lots done to this bike to try and make it more competitive for 2016, so watch this space.