2006 Ninja 250 mods

[aspenratt07]

Technically I started these mods a few weeks ago but never got around to posting them to see what people thought of my semi-talent. I got my bike last October, and finally decided to make it look better than when I got it. The previous owner made some not so good looking mods himself so I am trying to fix it, not to mention make it look like something I would ride. I laid him down last Thanksgiving break, in the grass, thank god; but tore up my lower fairing on a decorative rock, who buys those? And I have been put through some massive headaches trying to fix the more serious problems caused by the previous owner. So here's some before pictures:

emphasis BEFORE pics:




along with my very first mod done last fall: green underglow


let me know what you think and I will post a some teaser photos in a few minutes to show what's coming next...

[iplante]

Umm.. YUCK?

Now I want to see the "after" pictures. Honestly I doubt you could've made it worse if you tried.

What the **** are those mirrors?

[iplante]

Also I hope you fixed that seat. It looks saggy and the green doesn't fit with the body color.

Which by the way the paint color is kinda nice..

Edited to add: Aren't frame sliders supposed to be a bad idea on the pregen?

[StephenA]

holy crap, why did you spend money on that?

[aspenratt07]

Here are a few teaser pics...

Step one, remove the fairings (that front one is a pain so it will have to wait):


Step two, I attempted to fix all the cracks with bondo, as well as fill in the extra holes the previous owner gave me and the big gaudy front turn signal holes:


Step three, prime the tank and fairings for new paint:


Step four, all new fresh paint job (pain in the butt):


That's all for now, gonna have to get some sleep now and I'll post more tomorrow or the next day. Lemme get some opinions until then.

[iplante]

Also, please shorten the swing arm and put the license plate back where it belongs!

What kind of cans are those?

Holy **** my dog just farted. If I don't come back I've died of asphyxiation..

[aspenratt07]

Originally Posted by iplante

Umm.. YUCK?

Now I want to see the "after" pictures. Honestly I doubt you could've made it worse if you tried.

What the **** are those mirrors?

yes, thank you, the mirrors were the first to go, the one on the right wouldn't even hold a position so I couldn't see cr*p.

Originally Posted by iplante

Also I hope you fixed that seat. It looks saggy and the green doesn't fit with the body color.

Which by the way the paint color is kinda nice..

Edited to add: Aren't frame sliders supposed to be a bad idea on the pregen?

yes, that seat cover was just stapled over the original so I removed it and found two folded up t-shirts in between for comfort. LOL. The paint wasn't a bad color but was a lazy job and I decided on something more classic Kawi. I dunno about the frame sliders they were already on there, but they did save that old paint job when I tipped over my bike the day after I got it.

Originally Posted by StephenA

holy crap, why did you spend money on that?

I got it for way under book value, and I didn't need anything too nice for my first bike because I knew I would probably bugger it up.

[aspenratt07]

Originally Posted by iplante

Also, please shorten the swing arm and put the license plate back where it belongs!

What kind of cans are those?

Holy **** my dog just farted. If I don't come back I've died of asphyxiation..

I actually like it stretched, makes it almost one of a kind, plus adds stability, and it's lowered as well, which is great for my short legs. Plus, I don't want to spend that kind of money on my pregen, I don't make enough for that. Well, I believe they are stock, but I guess I don't really know, that's what was on it, and yes, it's very loud. I have thought about trying to find a 2-1 exhaust but haven't had the money to spend on one anyway.

[aspenratt07]

Alright, one more pic just for fun. My fuel tank cap had some scratches in it so I decided to repaint it too, but ended up with some interesting black paint because this is what happened when I put the clear coat on it:



But I actually like it with the Kawi green, adds some texture.

[aspenratt07]

Well, not nearly as many responses as I was hoping to have by now, but I suppose everyone is on their ninjettes instead of online. But here are a couple pics after I got the fairings back on:





Of course, I'm not done yet, as you can see it's missing some mirrors, those weren't on yet.

[lowdown112]

I like everything except the rear turn signals, the seat and the mirrors love the color and the ext. swingarm! I wish mine was extended. Love the chrome accesories im not the only one anymore . I wonder what swingarm thats off of? My 250 is my first bike too. Can you make a vid of the cans?

Nice bike!
Posted via Mobile Device

[motoKRAKEN]

very nice!!! im super jealous now! i like the green it looks good, still debating if im gonna re paint my bike or not.

[ninjamunky85]

That poor ninjette in the first pics.

Glad to see you rescued it from it's previous owner. Nice work.

[c-dog]

Nice paint job! Classic green too. You saved it that's for sure.

It's amazing the variety of styles and tastes out there. I like what you did with it, looks much better.

[UnshavenCanuck]

Looks good so far, get that fender done, it's not too hard to remove (you can sneak a wrench in there without removing the tire). Is that swing arm off something else or has it been welded? One of the pics makes it seem homemade, if so get it checked out to make sure it's tickety boo. Bar end mirrors and blockoffs seem too be your next step. Check eBay, I got decent ones shipped from china to Canada for 11.00 all in. They worked so nice I ordered a second set for backup. Keep up the good work.

[iplante]

Wow that looks great dude.

I would get black grips and black levers personally, but that's just my preference.

What are you going to do about turn signals?

[Racer x]

That looks great. How is the ride with the long arm?

[motoKRAKEN]

Hey did you paint those little tie down clips at the back? I can't really tell but I noticed yours were black in the updated pics.

[Snake]

The bike looks much better now. Your headed in the right direction.

[aspenratt07]

Sorry it took me so long to hop back on and reply to posts/post more pics, I've just been pretty busy, and dealing with even more problems with my bike, and not the best of weather to be trying to fix it in. But here goes:

Originally Posted by lowdown112

I like everything except the rear turn signals, the seat and the mirrors love the color and the ext. swingarm! I wish mine was extended. Love the chrome accesories im not the only one anymore . I wonder what swingarm thats off of? My 250 is my first bike too. Can you make a vid of the cans?

Nice bike!

Thank you, I actually don't like chrome myself and will be removing as much of the chrome as possible. I would love to make a vid of my cans, but I'm having issues starting by bike right now, so that is going to have to wait.

Originally Posted by motoKRAKEN

very nice!!! im super jealous now! i like the green it looks good, still debating if im gonna re paint my bike or not.

I suppose that depends on the condition of the current paint job, if it is really nice and still stock then I personally wouldn't go through the headache of repainting it. But mine was in terrible condition, so I figured it would be worth it.

Originally Posted by ninjamunky85

That poor ninjette in the first pics.

Glad to see you rescued it from it's previous owner. Nice work.

Originally Posted by c-dog

Nice paint job! Classic green too. You saved it that's for sure.

It's amazing the variety of styles and tastes out there. I like what you did with it, looks much better.

Thank you, and yes it would seem as though I rescued it, and I am liking it much better now.

Originally Posted by UnshavenCanuck

Looks good so far, get that fender done, it's not too hard to remove (you can sneak a wrench in there without removing the tire). Is that swing arm off something else or has it been welded? One of the pics makes it seem homemade, if so get it checked out to make sure it's tickety boo. Bar end mirrors and blockoffs seem too be your next step. Check eBay, I got decent ones shipped from china to Canada for 11.00 all in. They worked so nice I ordered a second set for backup. Keep up the good work.

I actually found it easier to pop off the front tire, interestingly enough, and have got it painted and will post those pics soon. Haven't gotten it put back on though. I'm not sure what the swing arm is from, I didn't think to ask questions like that of the previous owner, it's not homemade that much I can tell, it just has a crappy paint job on it and that's probably why it looks so bad. But it hasn't worried me at all, seems fully stable. Nope I actually put on some mirrors in the original mounts, which was another pain in the beep. Pics coming really soon.

Originally Posted by iplante

Wow that looks great dude.

I would get black grips and black levers personally, but that's just my preference.

What are you going to do about turn signals?

Well, I did get black levers, pix soon. And I picked up some nice black grips, but for some st*pid reason they would not fit on my bars, too small. So I ended up keeping the chrome grips (only after scraping the cr*p off the throttle one) and using the black bar ends that came with the new grips. Doesn't look too bad. And I got LED turn signals.

Originally Posted by Racer x

That looks great. How is the ride with the long arm?

Thank you, it rides great with the longer swing arm, more stability. Not to mention it keeps me from trying anything st*pid. Though I don't know if it's my imagination or not but I do think I get pushed around more by these terrible kansas winds.

Originally Posted by motoKRAKEN

Hey did you paint those little tie down clips at the back? I can't really tell but I noticed yours were black in the updated pics.

Technically they were painted black when I got them, but yes I did repaint them as well, they turned out just like my gas cap, with that texture. Looks really nice against that bright green.

Originally Posted by Snake

The bike looks much better now. Your headed in the right direction.

Thank you. More pics will be coming really soon.

Sorry about the long post, I wanted to respond to all of my replies before posting more pictures.

[aspenratt07]

Here I will tell you of the many problems that I have been faced with since I woke up my ninjette earlier this spring:

Hole in the gas tank. Yes, wouldn't you believe that the previous owner decided to use a bolt much too long when replacing the fairing on the left side and punctured the tank. I have been through hell and back trying to fix this problem and screwed up my new paint job on my tank, upper and lower fairings. I have tried numerous sealants while still being able to use the bolt hole, to no avail. I even tried to just use JB Weld to seal the hole completely and that still didn't work. So I have mostly re-stripped the bike, fixed the paint job on the upper and lower fairings and am refusing to put them back on until I have this leak fixed. I have now JB Welded the bolt into the bolt hole and all around the bolt hole double layered, and with my minor tests it seems to finally be holding. But I refuse to use the matching bolt hole on the other side either because I am afraid the other side will pop just to spite me.

The metal mirror brackets were bent back. Yes, somehow the brackets got bent back towards the tail of the bike and with all the prying I have done it's better but not as good as I would like it to be.

My new hand grips refuse to fit my bars. All sport bikes are supposed to have 3/4" bars (and they don't look like 1" either), so naturally I ordered 3/4" grips, makes since right, well they turned out to be too small for my bars. So I am stuck with the chrome grips for now.

My new turn signals turned into a bigger project. I got some cool super flush mount LED turn signals, but didn't think about the fact that the bike was set up for halogen, so the switch wouldn't be so easy. So after much research I found that I'm going to have to trick the system up by my instrument cluster in order to make it work, otherwise I've just got hazards instead of turn signals.

Now for my biggest problem: It won't start. I rode it for a good hour and a half the friday before last and come saturday night it wouldn't start. I would hit the starter button and absolutely nothing would happen. I have started a thread about this, so if anyone has some ideas, hop on over and let me know.
http://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=128027

Those have been my problems, and now for some updated pics.

[aspenratt07]

Now for the long waited for pics:

Here are the new bar ends on the still chrome grips:


The new mirrors attached on the existing brackets:


They were wrapped in fairly cheap looking Carbon Fiber, but they still look nice:


These are the new LED turn signals, the rear are mounted on the passenger footpeg stays:


And the underglow looks awesome with the new paint job:



Let me know what you think, and I will post some more pics within the next few days. I've got a short work week this week so hopefully I can get my bike running, the fairings back on with some fully completed pics and a vid of my cans. All I can do is hope.

[aspenratt07]

And to suppress many curious minds, yes I did get my front tire fairing painted, though the pics I just posted where before that time.


I don't think I had the clear coats on at this point though, it was getting too dark for pics at that point. In the background shows the upper and lower fairings after I fixed their paint jobs. Most of the fairings aren't even on the bike right now because I am trying to fix this starting problem.

[lowdown112]

Man i want that swingarm《>.<》

[iplante]

Hate the swing arm but otherwise great job man

[allanoue]

I am not a fan of light shows.

[iplante]

Originally Posted by aspenratt07

My new hand grips refuse to fit my bars. All sport bikes are supposed to have 3/4" bars (and they don't look like 1" either), so naturally I ordered 3/4" grips, makes since right, well they turned out to be too small for my bars. So I am stuck with the chrome grips for now.

1/8 of an inch too small.. unless I am mistaken, Ninja bars are 7/8"

[vanman69]

most sport bikes are 7/8, i find cruisers tend to be 1in.

[CZroe]

Why on Earth are the turn signals mounted next to the pods and not in them?!

[Josh_kcco]

nice bar ends. where did you find them at?

[triumphtriple]

I don't understand the swing arm, why? Its a 250, not a drag bike. Since its your first bike, having a extended swingarm would greatly hinder your handling, making it more difficult to learn. To me a ex250 is a amazing handling bike but slow of course. Making it a poor handling bike and slow, I know you didn't do it but I would put the correct swingarm on it.

For the most part you are doing some awesome work bringing it back to life. I am wondering how much you paid for it and the miles. Great work bondoing. Ground effect lighting is not for me, but to each his own.

[Ish]

PLEASE INSTALL THE CORRECT SWING ARM!! Pay for the shipping and i will send you the correct swing arm

Besides that good job and great save