KX60 thread

[Bruce CurtisMember]

The venerable Kawasaki KX60, it was manufactured for over 20 years virtually unchanged, many champions have cut their teeth on this little wonder and moved on to greater things and still it remains a stalwart of the modern minibike world.

unfortunately it also has a reputation as an old style 2T nothing then everything in the power dept and as such is NOT a good first bike for any child, it has and will throw Dad off the back in anger when it comes onto the pipe, so in this thread we will explore a few options for making it a nicer smoother cycle to ride for the young guns.

Firstly suspension-

The forks are generally too soft for most kids that ride even slightly agressively, there are quite a few options out there but a simple spring change and slightly heavier oil will help infinitely, there are also some very good valving kits and so forth out there as well, but springs and oil is usually enough for most.

Rear- this is actually a very good system similarly copied from Suzukis famous (and rightly so) Full floater, kawasaki dubbed it “unitrack’ it is a single dogbone connector from swingarm to a pivot which inturn is connected to the shock on the other end, it is a very supple system but has flaws in it as kawasaki elected to use a very rudimentary dampner. Most of the time it works well that the rider doesn’t notice it at all, which is an indication of good suspension, I recommend using one of the two fulcrum points that suit, setting the sag and checking as the rider gets bigger, other options are adjustable length dogbones, and a variety of aftermarket shocks designed for these little terrors.

Brakes- unfortunately the KX60 never recieved an update with it’s braking system, however short of a conversion to discs they can actually be made to work well. Firslt the front brake lever assembly needs to be swapped to something designed for little hands, instead of the adults one that is OEM, I used a high end BMX race setup, short, with good fulcrum and feel and adjustable reach. The rear pedal usually need bending out from the cases as little toes have trouble finding it tucked in away, needs to be in a direct line from the foot peg.
Now the key to these brakes, regular maintenance is it, cable well lubed and routed for a smooth action, wheels pulled and inner drims cleaned scuffed up to remove varnish and dust. A clean and light grease of the cam and shaft will increase power and you may find one shoe wears wuicker than the other, a regular rotate will help here too.

Other controls- the footpegs are tiny even by 1980s standards, and difficult to find when the foot leaves the pegs, there are several good companies making them, or sometimes with a bit of fiddling you can adapt later model big-bike ones, we ended up with mid-ninties CR250 aftermarket forged ones on ours, he loved them.
Handlebars are a strange sizing as the KX60 has a very low headset height, pitbike ones are too high and the stockers are steel which transmits too much vibration and sends young arms to sleep. We were lucky enough that our local Bikeshop kept an eye out and we eneded up with an aftermarket aluminium alloy set intended for I think a KLX110, perfect height and good sweep.
Grips, little hands don’t like big grip and can’t get good purchase around them, so we initailly used thinner highend BMX race ones, until we came across some trick kids Gel ones from again our local friendly bikeshop.
Clutch has very heavy pull for little ones, use a good quality cable, regularly lubed, a good quality lever assembly for little hands and adjust so it engages in the closer to the handlebars than you would for yourself, little fingers don’t have the power of big ones
Gearlever is a funny bend and is so close to the footpeg you’d have to be a contortionist to use it enffectively, solution is to heat and rebend or add a little length to it if you are handy with a welder.
Seat has a funny lump in the rear stopping them from sliding off I s’pose, it also stps them from sitting rearward when they need to, remove the seatcover and shave the lump off with a electric kitchen knife, and while you’re there replce the cover with a gripper style one.

Ok that’ll do for the first installment, next we might look at the powerplant.

BC

[ScottMember]

I had the first model that was released and the only air cooled model the 84 KX60. Was a ball tearer for a young 8 year old, flipped it off start lines many a time, the main competition used to come from the CR60’s as the YZ60’s were pretty outdated by this time. The fast guys used to graft KX80 suspension to them for a more user friendly ride or extend the swingarm. Also back in the day when there used to be a 50cc class but no new 50cc bikes being released Gary Treadwell from Kawasaki West (Big kawasaki dealer in the 80’s) used to either de stroke them or re sleeve them back to a 50cc. In the 50cc class they could not be touched as the RM50’s and YZ50’s had nothing on a resized KX50.

[Bruce CurtisMember]

Adding to data
a 6mm channel can be cut in the rear lower portion of the barrel to equalise flow through the side transfer ports, this enhances lower midrange and low end response without any detriment to topend power.

At close to sea level
The needle should be dropped at least 1 clip position
exchange the pilot for one or two sizes smaller
a better fuel filter should be installed

Clutch perch can be drilled and tapped to put a small adjuster to bring the lever closer to small hands, this can be done using a 4/5mm metric thread and long grubscrew and done corrstly will still allow freeplay while allow younger hands to get the leverage they need.

1990s Cr250 pegs fit the mounts with a little filing of stoppers

KLX110 handlebars are the right height

YZ250/WR type alloy shifters fit and are mush easier for feet in boots to change gears with over the stubby things that are standard.

[Author]

Posts