New in Florida with a '96!

[Jahjahwarrior]

I'm a newb, and after reading this site voraciously for the last 2 months, I finally got off my butt and joined.

Took the MSF course a month and a half ago, and got licensed two days later. Already had the '96 Ninja 250 with 22k miles in the garage, but had no riding experience.

Bought it without riding it from a guy 2 miles from my house, and got him to ride it over for me, after doing a lot of research and finding that the Ninja met almost all of my requirements. Cheap ($1200), easy to find and cheap to buy replacement parts (eBay!), relatively upright riding posture similar to a sport touring bike, gobs of gas mileage. And I'm not vain at all but it didn't hurt that the blue matched my car.

I knew going into it that the bike needed a battery, we jumped it to get it to my house, but otherwise the seller said he'd just done fluid and brake change, and it would be good for a few thousand miles.

That would turn out to be more or less, not the case, depending on how much care you put into your bike.

The first thing I noticed was how difficult the key was, you had to jiggle it to get the bike to start. It wouldn't open the gas cap and I just barely got the helmet lock off to find the key code. The seat lock, which I needed to remove to replace the battery, also refused to work. $29 to a guy on eBay to cut the key by the code.

While I wait for the key I sorted out the issue with the seat lock: the latch wasn't connected to the lock. The seat release cable is just hanging down, missing some pieces, and you pull it to release. Still haven't gotten that fixed...

With new key in hand, the ignition and helmet lock were happy but the gas cap wasn't. Drilled it to remove, cleaned it all up and lubed it up, key still didn't work. Turns out, it's just busted. Stick anything about key sized in it, but a little wider than the stock key, and it'll turn. The key for the disc brake lock I have is just perfect...so someone could steal my gas but atleast I can gas her up.

About this time I realized the stock tail lights didn't function. The guy had done a fender delete and bolted on a piece of sheet metal and a door hinge to hold the license plate, and had a cheap LED turn signal and brake light thing wired up. Only one turn signal worked and he had it wired backwards!

$25 for a new stock taillight as the one on the bike had all clear lenses, and I wanted to wire up the side pods as both turn and brake lights. Another $35 for a real fender delete, license place holder with turn signals. Spent an entire evening fixing the chopped off wiring harness, sorting out which wires did what. $15 for a cheap brake light flasher and now, middle light is running light, gets brighter and flashes when you brake. Side lights light up but dimly when you brake and don't flash. Turn signal makes the side light use the brighter filament, and it has orange turn signals on the license plate as well.

Somewhere in there I decided to upgrade the stock horn for a FIAMM and it's much more noticeable now.

Also about this time I realized the right side rearset (for the driver peg, so the front rearset) was missing half of the bracket for the peg. Ordered a new one on eBay for $45.

Shifter pedal was set up in the most awkward angle possible, got that adjusted for free and added some anti seize for future protecting it so it'll stay easy to adjust.

The front turn signals are flush mounted but only one worked. It took a lot of fiddling to figure out that the previous owner had it wired up to another piece of cable he'd added, that wasn't wired to anything at the other end. 20 minutes of work to remove the extraneous wire, and re-connect to the proper wires.

Also at the front end I added a 12v power outlet. For some reason he had taken the stock 12v wires hanging up there, and chopped them back so they only had about 1/2" free from the wiring loom. And of course I wasn't thinking and I let them touch after stripping...30amp fuse replaced...

The bike came to me with a 30w HID and I wanted to change it to the ADVMonster Rev2 LED. I'm not sure if it's any better...it's got real clear cutoffs now unlike the diffused light from the HID, but I did gain high/low beams again. The HID was wired in funny but he hadn't broken the stock fixture so that was good, and it was great to see his creativity with installing the bulb. Took a stock bulb and cut off the flange, and used some epoxy putty to hold the bulb in there. I carefully removed it incase I decide to go back.

About this time I decided that I didn't trust this guy a whole lot and I ordered supplies for an oil change with Rotella T6 and a K&N filter. I was glad I did. He had overfilled it with oil by a bit, the crush washer used was way too big and was quite deformed, and the orings on the barrel of the oil filter disc thing, was halfway gone.

Engine has some oil on it and I think it's leaking from the banjo bolt on top of the head so I've ordered those crush washers as well.

Taking the fairings off twice I was very tired of the almost stripped stock philips head screws, and replaced them all on the lower side with stainless steel allen head bolts.

Same time as I did that, I replaced the front brake rotor. It was really grabby at low speeds and a "new" replacement was $12.84 from eBay...shipped from only 30 minutes south of me to boot. Those screws were a pain to remove and I hope to never have to do that again.

Week before I replaced the rotor I thought it might be the fork oil. Seals aren't leaking and I ordered spares to replace when they do, but just changing the oil was a pain. That stupid split ring is just annoying. The fact that they didn't spend the extra $4 to use a real circlip almost pissed me off enough to write them a nasty letter. Lowes and Home Depot didn't have them but the local hardware store had a whole bin full of nice stainless steel ones.

I add oil like the ninja 250 wiki recommended, higher than the stock fill, and the front end feels much better now. Could not have done the job without stopping in the middle to go get a gear puller. My thumbs were killing me from trying without it to push the fork end back into place!

And while doing all that, I realized the stock brakes were a bit worn. Didn't realize quite how badly but ordered new pads. When I took off the old pads, which look original, I realize the smaller one is down to the wear bar, but the bigger pad was worn into the metal! The EBC double H pads are awesome and I ordered an organic set for the rear. Will be upgrading to a stainless line on the front of the bike and changing the brake fluid soon.

I had also taken off the front brake lever, removed the corrosion on the pin it pivots on, and greased it up to make it turn smoothly.

Somewhere in all of that I bought some rubber step pads for trailers, cut one in half and added them to the gas tank. Really helped me feel like I was riding instead of slipping and sliding around.

While driving home one day, with about half a tank of gas, the bike lost power. I got it going again on reserve but it still felt like it lacked power. Next day was even worse, and I was losing faith in the bike's ability to go. I had already changed the fuel filter 2 weeks earlier, with real hose clamps and real fuel line (it came with a filter but a kinked up clear line without clamps...) but I popped them off, and applied vacuum to the petcock to drain most of the gas into a gas can, then popped the tank off to get the petcock off. Filters looked good, put it all back together, got to the gas station with the little bit of gas left and with a full tank of fresh gas, issue hasn't repeated itself.


One day I decided to lube the clutch cable. I also had gotten a spare and was planning to zip tie it to the current one waiting for it to break. I could not get the original off to lube the darn thing. Finally gave up, and cut it off, and just put the new one on! Turns out the one he had on there was about 3" too short, I'm surprised it worked at all. Could not get the handlebar end off without removing it from the clutch end... New one works great.

Had to do some non-necessary things too, like taking off the silly looking chrome plastic and fake leather with skull ends handlebar grips, and replacing them with a plane Oury rubber ones, and adding weighted bar ends again.

Turns out it has a dark smoke Zero Gravity double bubble wind screen. It came to me with some cracks and kept cracking, so now it has some nice JB Weld "scars" across it holding it together.

Finally got around to the chain after a few hundred miles. It was waxed when I bought it, but a bit of scrubbing turned it from a nice black chain, into a nice silver chain. I'll be keeping it silver...

I've been commuting on it 25 miles each way to work basically daily since I got it. A Sena SMH05 bluetooth on the helmet was really nice, and of course ATGATT: an HJC snell, dot and sharp rated helmet, gloves with palm sliders, mesh jacket with D30 armor and kevlar lined pants with some leather boots. Added a ram mount ball to the left handlebar like Yeager's site recommends but it won't work for holding much as things hit the windscreen in low speed sharp turns (see above about the cracks in the windscreen!!). I have a bluetooth radar detector (so I can hear the warnings in my helmet) because I've found that the air conditioning doesn't work unless you are going a certain speed.

I have to say that I absolutely love this thing. Being out in the air for an extra hour a day. And curves...man are those fun! I've only had a few very minor "oh crap!" moments, like turning on my gravel driveway, locking the front brake at low speed on my dirt road after putting on the new brake pads, minor swerves to be sure to miss a tow hitch, roadkill, and bag of trash in the road. Haven't driven in the rain much, no bees in my helmet, just a lot of sweat.

The MSF class (required for license in Fl) was awesome. The instructors were tough but made it fun. Several people failed, but I think only one for riding--an older gentleman who wasn't very coordinated, was shaky on day 1 and fell over on day 2. Once before the test, and once at the very last moment of the very last piece of the test. I lost a few points on riding for hitting the line in the box, and for going slow in the curve, but still passed easily, wasn't even close.

The written test got 4 people out of 16. I was amazed you could miss even a single question, it was so easy. One of the guys who failed was "that guy" (one of 2 in the class) who had been riding for 20 years without a license and made sure to comment on that atleast once an hour both days. It got old the first time he complained about having to take the class. He failed the written test miserably and then argued with the instructor. One guy who failed stormed off but came back an hour later and took the riding part of the test so he would only have to come back later for the written part. Two people who failed the written test didn't speak english as a first language and complained that it was too difficult to understand.

The next project is mounting boxes on the sides. I haven't found a good solution online yet. I will probably end up using the hook attachment points and the passenger rearset to mount something. I plan to take some longer rides with some friends that will take 6 hours saddle time easily per day, and need the storage space, but am not desperate so I'll figure that out slowly.

thankfully it came to me with a Muzzy exhaust. Stock exhaust ninja pulled up to me at a light the other day, and he looked sad when we both pulled away from the light, listening to my exhaust compared to his.


Jupiter Lighthouse



South edge of Lake Okeechobee


Milk crate fits pretty well on the back and lets me take the drone out as long as there won't be any rain. Was out at Juno Beach taking pictures of kite surfers.

[dcj13]

Welcome, Mike! Good looking bike!

[Singh2jz]

Congrats and welcome! Bike really does look nice..

[Motofool]

Welcome, Mike !!!

Nice looking pre-gen.

Please, visit our Riding Skills section and work as hard on the improvement of the rider as you have on the improvement of the bike.

[Jahjahwarrior]

Of course. My father is a doc who specializes in liver transplants. They get a lot of livers from motorcyclists, so he calls them "donorcycles." Have to prove him wrong.


I've got a lot of experience with road bicycling but the feel of the rear tire of a motorcycle is different. The worst is a small roundabout I go through every day. The morning turn is easy, it's just through 1/4 of the turn. The night turn goes 3/4 of the way around, and the rear wheel just feels like it's going to slide, regardless of what speed I go. But it never does, of course. I've been taking curves slow, but have found that as long as I look somewhere, the bike reliably goes there.


The Riding Skills section is definitely a top notch section of the Board, I don't just read the Farkles!

[Snake]

Hello and welcome.

[csmith12]

Welcome!

Awesome work!

[DEFY]

Welcome !!!

[snot]

welcome

[CC Cowboy]

You post was much to long for someone with dyslexia to read but I'd like to say that I'm glad the blue carton on the back matches the color of the bike.

Just wondering, if it didn't match, which would you paint, the carton or the bike to make them match?

[dcj13]

Originally Posted by CC Cowboy

...glad the blue carton on the back matches the color of the bike.

Just wondering, if it didn't match, which would you paint, the carton or the bike to make them match?

The carton is for delivering livers to hospitals. That particular blue is "liver delivery livery."

[Jahjahwarrior]

Originally Posted by dcj13

The carton is for delivering livers to hospitals. That particular blue is "liver delivery livery."

Hah! That's a good one!

Carton would be easier to paint...but I have noticed several cracks on the right side fairings appear, probably over tightened the bolts. Will weld them back and touch up paint after I get a stainless brake line in and the rebuild kit for master cylinder.

And in the middle of all this I go to change my wife's car oil and discover her cv joint is shot, and her windshield fluid pump leaks... Repair on that joint is half the cost of this motorcycle!

[KJohnson21]