I’ve had this post sitting in draft for a few months and then a friend today asked about changing the fuel filter in a ZX14R today, so it was time to put everything together and publish it.

The first time I had a fuel problem was on my way to the Northern Territory in 2014, in the middle of central Queensland on my 2008 Kawasaki ZX14 passing a road train, with three full size trailers. I had just passed the second trailer when the bike died. Stranded on the wrong side of the road half way along a road train is not a good place to find yourself!

Once I backed off the motor fired again but would die every time I rolled on the throttle. As I rolled into Barcaldine the bike completely died. At the time I thought that I just got a bad tank of fuel so I removed the tank flushed out the tank and gave the fuel pump a bit of a shake and soak and it was all good for the rest of the trip. For the full story see my post.

A few months after this it played up again and after a bit of research it turned out that the fuel pump on the ZX14 and the 1400GTR are an ‘unserviceable’ part and you have to purchase the whole assembly for over $600. However, Davo Jones was the first (or one of the first) to pull down the fuel pump in these bikes and then later it was found that the fuel filter was the same as the Kawasaki Mule filter.

When I pulled the fuel pump down there was no doubt why it didn’t work! It was amazing that any fuel was getting through as this filter had been in there for over 170,000km and it was black and totally clogged.

Fuel Filter: Kawasaki PN : 49019-0013

I thought about doing a how-to, but Fred Harmon has already put something together.

Fred also has step by step instructions with pictures – link

Less than 15,000km later I had it all out again as the pump cried enough, after having to work so hard sucking through a blocked filter. I found a few places that sell replacement pumps for around $100 complete with replacement o-rings and new filter.

So since that point I carried a spare filter safe in the knowledge that I could change the filter with the tools I had on me. This came in handy late last year when I had to replace the filter on my current ZX14R (with 85,000km on the clock) in the car park out the back of a pub at the end of the day riding – while my riding friends drank beer watching me (full story).

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This isn’t a hard job and if you put a lot of miles on your ZX/GTR then it may be something to be aware of.