Changing Shift Lever on 2013 Ninja 300 (EX300) (With Pictures)

Replace Ninja 300 Shift Lever

One of the architectural flaws of the 2013 ninja 300 (I haven't ridden later models, but maybe it's still the same) is that the shift lever seems to protrude out from the bike in such a way that if it even tips over, it can buckle and destroy your shift lever. I've had to replace the shift lever twice. The first time I lowsided at around 40 and the lever twisted up on itself like a pig tail (I don't have a picture of that any more unfortunately). The second time, I set the kickstand down and it happened to land right on a random bolt on the ground causing the bike to tip and fall over on the left side. Everything else was fine, but again, the shift lever got bent and unusable

It has been suggested to me to try to bend it back into place, but there are a few problems with that. First, any time you bend metal, it stresses it, making it weaker than it was before. I don't know by how much, but that's a consideration. Second, I tried to, and I couldn't get the thing to budge. I even tried heating the metal a bit but it still wouldn't go. If I had more tools and experience maybe that would be a viable option. But a new shift lever is about 40 bucks, and the tools to properly fix it are probably much more.

This is actually a pretty easy procedure, but if you've never done anything to a motorcycle before (which I hadn't the first time), it can still prove daunting to start taking pieces off your baby.

What you need:

• 1 OEM Ninja 300 Shift Lever
• This is again, assuming parts as of 2013. I don't think much has changed with this assembly in recent years, but I have to give that caveat.
• The official part number is 13242-0088. 
• You can also use the shift lever off a ninja 250. I did my first replacement with a 250 lever and it worked perfectly for 3 years (until I dropped the bike on it)
• Loctite (Blue 242)
• Breaker bar and/or torque wrench
• Note: using a torque wrench as a breaker bar is not a good idea since it's a sensitive tool. That said, with the factory Loctite on the bolt, you'll have to give it quite a bit of force to take it off.
• I just best-guessed the tightness of the bolt, but the official service manual says the torque of the bolt should be 12Nm (106 in-lb).
• Allen wrench adapter for breaker bar/torque wrench.
• Sorry, I don't know what size the bit is. Most Allen wrench bits come in a set. 
• Adjustable Wrench
• Again, sorry I don't know the specific size of the bolt. YOu don't need anything crazy here though. The nut it takes off is easy to move
• Rear Stand (OPTIONAL)
• I have a set of spools and a rear stand I use any time I'm working on my bike. It just gets it up off the ground a bit, stabilizes it, and doesn't lean towards me. However this is not necessary to do this procedure. Just a nicety.

Getting Started

I think I may have gone into more detail than is necessary for this, but my goal was to eliminate just about any ambiguity there could bein the procedure. The overview of the process is:

1. Remove shift lever bolt
2. Loosen nut on connector rod, and by hand, unscrew shift lever from rod
3. Screw the new shift lever onto the rod, and tighten the nut
4. Thread the shift lever bolt through the head of the new shift lever
5. Add a little Loctite to the bolt, make sure the shift lever is oriented correctly, and screw the lever and bolt back on to the bike (tighten to 12Nm of torque if you have a torque wrench)

Detailed Instructions

1. With your Allen bit adapter in your socket wrench, start undoing the shift lever bolt. You'll need to give it some good torque to break the Loctite, but once it gets going it should be pretty easy. As it comes out, you'll see washers on both sides. Don't lose these

   

   You'll need to give this some muscle

2. When you've entirely undone the shift lever bolt, you'll be left with your broken lever dangling from a little bar. This bar directly connects to the mechanism which makes your bike shift gears. It's an interesting little bit of engineering which you can play around with if you want. However, as I discovered on my first shift lever change, you don't need to touch anything but the one nut on the side closest to where the rod connects to the shift lever.

   

   Shift lever right after it comes
   off the bolt assembly

   
   

   

   Just hanging out...



Here's the bike-side of the bolt assembly.
I just blew some compressed air
in there and a quick rub from a rag to
clean it up

3. With the shift lever bolt detached from the bike, you now need to remove the broken shift lever from the rod. Locate the nut on the rod right up next to the shift lever. The goal here is not to remove it, but to loosen it a bit so its easier to unscrew the shift lever from the rod.

   

   In this picture, I've already loosened
   the nut on the rod a bit, so it's
   not pushing against the shift lever.

4. Now just use your hands and unscrew the shift lever from the rod. Here's a bunch of pictures of the lever as it's removed, and the bolt disassembled.
   
   
   
   

   

   Right after removal from the rod

   
   

   

   New lever (left) compared to bent lever (right)

   
   

   

   Bent lever with the bolt still in

   
   

   

   Bent lever with the bolt removed

   
   

   

   New lever with the bolt I removed
   from the bent lever in it.

   
   

   

   Another view of the new lever
   with the bolt in

5. Now we basically do everything in reverse. Use your hand and screw the new lever on to the end of the rod where the old lever was just taken off. 

   

   Lever attached to rod before
   tightening nut

   
   

   

   Lever attached to run after tightening

6. Thread the bolt through the head of the new shift lever, making sure to include the washers on both sides (you didn't lose them, did you?). Add a little bit of blue Loctite to the business end of the shift lever bolt. Orient the shift lever correctly, and loosely screw the bolt back on to the motorcycle. This can be a little confusing because the combination of the rod, the joints, and the ways you can orient everything in 3 dimensions means you can move this thing all around, and you might have even forgotten to which way to orient things to get it back on the bike. However I show the correct orientation below so if you get stuck, you should be able to emulate that. With the new lever on the rod, tighten the nut down  again. I ended up taking the bolt out temporarily while I reoriented the lever so don't be confused by the pictures with it missing. You can thread the bolt through the head it at just about any time up till you put Loctite on it.

7. 

   Threading the bolt back through
   the head of the shift lever (see
   the washer on the ground?)

   

   This is BACKWARDS! If you end up
   like this, don't worry. Just fiddle with
   all the ways you can orient the lever
   and rod until it's correct. In other words,
   so the foot-pad of the lever is pointing out 

   

   This confusing angle just shows
   how many directions this assembly
   can move it. This is me moving it
   from what you saw above (with
   the foot-pad pointing in) to the
   correct orientation (pointing out)

   

   Correct orientation 

   

   Add Loctite. A little goes a long way

   
   

   

    
   
   
8. Finally, if you have a torque wrench, tighten the bolt to the specified torque (12Nm). Otherwise, I just sort of felt it out. Tight but not too tight, ya know? 

   

   Showing how the shift lever should
   be oriented when you start tightening it

   

   Use a torque wrench if you have it

   
   

   

   Finished product!

Hope you enjoyed this!

Ninja 300, Pros & Cons

I wanted to finally get around to writing a review of the new Kawasaki Ninja 300 I got earlier this year.

Super brief history on me, the Ninja 300 (known also as the EX300) is my first motorcycle. My wife got me a Living Social deal last year for a Motorcycle safety course for my license endorsement, and it was all over after that. After weeks of fervid searching and balancing performance vs responsibility vs cost, I opted to get the new EX300 for my first bike. Having no experience with other bikes other than single rides on friends bikes, this is really my impressions of owning this and only this bike. I'll talk about the pros and cons of the bike, and where I plan to, and might suggest going next.

Overall, functionally, I have very few complaints about the EX300. Most of them have to do with the fact that it is, indeed, a smaller bike, and the physical limitations associated with that. I'll discuss those issues later, but first lets talk about objective facts of the bike.

The first thing I noticed about the EX300 is it's light. I think its about 400 lbs with all the gas and fluids in it (wet weight). It's also small. The bike is so easy to maneuver. I've taken it on canyon roads and quick turns like roundabouts. There's a particular route I like to take on the weekends around where I live which has a roundabout in the middle of the road, maybe 20 yards in circumference which I take around 30-40 and when you throw the bike to the right and then the left, it responds impeccably; like it wants to turn quickly. Once you exit the turn, the engine responds quickly as well to give you power when you open the throttle. There's about a quarter second delay from when you open the throttle to when the engine really gets the message you said "go", but then it obeys. Any speeds under 50 mph and you can get pretty good acceleration out of the engine. Torque from about 4k to 12k RPM is pretty stable which is nice so you don't have to down-shift to get power. Given that you only get about 8 mph out of each gear, that's good because you could potentially have to do a lot more shifting to make sure you're in the power band for your speed. The riding position stock is very "standard", not sporty.

The handlebars are pretty high which means when you're riding around, you're sitting pretty much straight up with a small lean forward. My friend who rides a cruiser (who used to ride a Yamaha R1) says he prefers the upright posture much more as the racing tuck gets uncomfortable very quickly. I've ridden his R1 briefly and the position on the Yamaha is absolutely leaned over and different from the EX300. Personally, I rather like the tuck position. I think I feel faster and more agile. And since highway riding really pushes the engine to the limits, I end up tucked just to eek out every bit of power and aerodynamics I can.

And speaking of highway riding, this is an area the bike really struggles in. As compared to mountains and canyons where you're really going between 30 and 50 the whole time and the bike truly shines, the highway you're trying to go between 65 and 90, which is all in 6th gear. You can get on the highway pretty well as the bike accelerates from 0 to 60 pretty quickly, but as you go faster, as with any vehicle, your acceleration exponentially decreases. You have to plan you moves well in advance. Take, for instance, passing a semi. You're going 65 MPH and need to get around the Semi because he can't see you. You can't just change lanes, open the throttle and get past. You have to get in the passing lane, power down a little to open a gap between you and the back of the semi so you have a "runway" to pick up your speed. Open the throttle and 65 and the bike hardly responds. It will pick up speed, but very gradually. You have to use the "runway" you opened up to really pick up speed so that by the time you enter the trucks blind spots, you're already going 80+. Also since the engine lacks grunt at high speeds, to maintain a fast velocity, as I mentioned before, you end up in a tuck a lot of the time. Personally, I don't mind that position, but it's a bit more of a necessity rather than just looking and feeling cool or being agile on the bike.

Now moving beyond the functionality of the bike, I'd like to talk about simply owning the bike and what doors it opens, or are closed, to exploring the bikes functionality. As I mentioned at the start of the article, once I rode on two wheels, I didn't want to do anything else. Maybe it's just the honeymoon phase with me and my bike, but all I want to do now is ride, and ride hard. I've already dropped the bike once (took a long turn at about 45 and hit some gravel).

Fairings got scratched and had to replace the shift lever, but other than that, the bike was fine. I took my protective gear seriously so I was basically fine to. What's more is it didn't turn me off to riding in the least. What I really want to do is take my bike to the track where I can push the limits of the bike in a controlled environment. I'm also a poor computer programmer so my budget for motorcycle parts and equipment is minimal. To really get serious about track riding or possibly racing, I'd need to make some mods to the bike. New bodywork, safety wiring, tires, etc. Not to mention fixing the thing if (when) it goes down. So how much effort do I want to put into transforming the bike? Well another thing about the EX300 is that (and perhaps just because it's a new bike) I haven't found many (any actually, but that doesn't mean they don't exists) which allow 300's to race. There are 250 classes and 600 classes, but the 250's don't seem to allow the 300s, unlike the 600 classes which have some wiggle room for things like the ZX-6R or Daytona 657R. Which is a shame, because one of the things I really like about the EX300 is I can push the bike to it's limits without shitting my pants. Racing a 300 would be awesome for me, but that doesn't appear to be in the cards right now. So I could get an old 250, work on that and modify it for a race bike, but if I'm going to get a new bike, I might as well get a 600, or something else with enough oomph to satiate my need for speed. The problem comes back to that it's an oddball displacement size, and the future of it's acceptance is uncertain.

So what are the takeaways here? If you're a beginner rider and didn't take to motorcycle riding like a fish to water, this might be a good bet. It also has the benefit of keeping me out of too much trouble. I go fast on the 300 often, and if I had a 600, I'd push it just as hard. It lets me have fun, but self-limits. Difficult though that may be to accept, that's actually a really good thing. I've even given the 300 too much power and almost lost control of it. Were I on a bigger bike, the bike would be in a fence. I hate using the phrase "It's a good starter bike" because that's like saying a child is "spirited". Lets face it, the kid sucks and the bike is weak. But at the end of the day, it's still a motorcycle, and it has more than enough power to get you from A-Z, quickly, or wrap you around a tree if you fail to respect its power. With that in mind, if you want a more reserved but fun riding experience with a sporty feel (i.e. not standard or cruiser), this is the bike for you. But if you took the MSF class and by the end just wanted to get out on the road and open up that throttle, you'll outgrow this bike too quickly.

In short: Fantastic bike, but you'll probably want more, and quickly.