H2A Wreck Rebuild

[Tripnut]

Bought a "new" project, she's a beauty. plan is to get her going within a couple of months. I looked at a few bikes but they had not been "molested" (looked after) and had so much "patina" (crap) on them that it should have been embarrassing for the proud seller. I decided that those bikes would need stripping down and rebuilding before you could be proud to ride them anyway so I thought I may as well spend the same amount of money and have a perfect (for me) bike not just a starting point.

Did anyone ever look at a super clean bike and think: "That would look a lot better with some ingrained dirt in all the hard to reach places"?

So with a budget which is around the same amount as buying one of the crappy (unrestored) bikes I have been looking at, this is my starting point:




Like I said a beauty, got some time off work because I just finished a project so am busy tearing it to pieces having already got everything I need to finish the job.

[Tripnut]

Here is the spec I'm going for:

Standard pipes (Doremi)
Standard engine (complete rebuild)
Standard purple colour
Lakeland Ignition
Ivan's jet kit
H4 headlamp
Hydraulic clutch (thanks Ned)
Stainless spokes
Twin disc's
Hagon shocks (we did this in the 70's as soon as we bought one so I consider this to be standard)
KH250 UK spec handlebars
Thinking of chroming the chain guard, My H1E has a chrome chain guard and it balances the chrome of the single exhaust.

Nothing I would call a huge distance away from standard, just a few small mods to make it nicer to ride. All the chrome will be triple and all the powder coating will the highest UV rating I can get. Nothing to deliberately make it look customised.

Next year I'll be looking out for another set of barrels (jugs) to send to John for reed valves which K should have done in the first place.

Just looking to make it the bike Kawasaki should have made in the first place.

[Deleted]

I have seen a lot worse LOL.

[shiloh]

Me too, when i found my H2b, the back wheel wouldn't turn, and all covered in pine pitch from leaning on the culprit tree for yrs.
Yours is a beauty.

[Tripnut]

Will be looking for a green H2B or blue H2 next year, if all goes to plan. Will probably still do more miles on the H1E than anything else though.

[zambia]

Nice bike! Did you Armor All the tires? I can actually tell it was once purple.

Please post tons of pictures as you go!

[Curtis]

Cool you got a dry clutch setup !

[Tripnut]

Got the heads off, tank off, and a few other bits and pieces. Bores look surprisingly good, which is a worry because it's locked solid.

Didn't get as far as I wanted today because I have to move a couple of bikes outside and it rained. The Harley will turn to crap if left in the rain because the finish is so bad and I fitted re-chromed pipes to the H1 yesterday and they don't have a nice protective coating of gunk in them yet so everything had to be moved back in so work was suspended for the day.

Will post lots of pictures, here is todays handy work:



Must change the date on the camera! YES it does still have some original paint on the tail piece.

Funny the way that dead bikes look smaller than live ones, the H1 looks bigger than the H2. Even the headlamp looks bigger!!

[Tripnut]

Dry clutch was a mod by Kawasaki from when the bike was a factory racer, or something. Yeah that's what it was, probably.

[Tripnut]

Sunny today so making hay while the sun shines.

Engine is out despite all the engine mounting bolts being seized and some of the mountings being broken, looks like the bike was excecuted with a 50cal. Takes a hell of an impact to do that to engine mountings but the frame looks straight amazingly. The mountings and the crank cases seem to have taken all the impact.




Got to get the meters off the H2 and H1 today so I can send them off to Don for a complete restoration, H1's are not too bad but the damper has gone on the speedo so may as well do them both at the same time. I am always aware that the parts you see when riding are the handlebars and anything on them, the meters, headlamp and top of the tank so these things have to be perfect or it's not worth even painting the side panels.

As the engine mountings need doing anyway before I get the frame coated I'm thinking of getting a bit of extra bracing on the frame and maybe the later swinging arm if I can get one at the right price. I have ordered the Hagon shocks and will go up a bit on the fork oil, same stuff I did to the H1 and I like the way that handles. Cant ride it like a modern bike anyway because I don't want to be dragging the new pipes on the ground, I have nearly worn the side stand away on the H1 so I need to get a grip!!

If anyone has exact specs for the rear engine mountings I would be grateful if you could send them to me, the old ones are so bent up there is no point in measuring them, I need to get new ones laser cut, was thinking of going for polished stainless this time around and using stainless bolts so I never have the same problems I had this time. All the old bolts were a mixture of metric and imperial and one of them was a very long engineering screw, all were seized solid.

Not much that's left on the bike is going to be reused so can tear into it this afternoon.

[Tripnut]

This is where I am going, My H1E is a rolling restoration, will probably never be finished but it still looks good. Am not going mad with it like the H2 because I like to ride it so much that it has to stay on the road.

Got the meters off the H1 at the moment because I just sent them to Don to sort them, it's got an H1D speedo on it to keep it legal so I can still ride it.

Looks like I need to play around with the date on the camera again, took the photo today.

[Tripnut]

Latest update, apparently I have family responsibilities and they are supposed to be more important than stripping down an old wreck. Didn't have as much time as I thought I would have today, seems like when the weather is good enough to work on the bike "we need to make the most of the good weather".

Two days to strip the bike down is turning into four or five. but still managed to get to this today:



Am now at a stage where I can turn the bike upside down and start to remove the suspension, providing the weather is good enough tomorrow, but not too good apparently.

Does anybody have any idea what the stickers in this photo mean? Does it mean the bike belonged to the navy? Is that why its painted white over the top of the purple paint and it has knobbly tires? Did the navy shoot it dead?



Every nut and bolt will have to be replaced, either too rusty to even plate or completely the wrong type ie AF, too big, screws instead of bolts, self tappers etc. Ordered a new engine mounting kit from a guy in France today. Decided that SS would be too much risk of cathode / anode problems having had boat experience of that, so BZB it is. Not much point in cataloguing the strip down because there is not much info that would be useful to anyone, it was too much of a mess to begin with. Toying with the idea of zinc plating the frame and then smoothrite instead of powder coating. Need durability because this is going to be an all weather bike, same as the others. The bike also needs jetwashability for the same reason so the electrical connectors may not end up being standard.

[Tripnut]

P.S.
Not a single engine alignment shim anywhere.

Don't think I'm going to find taper rollers in the steering head, I am seriously starting to doubt this was a one careful owner bike.

[shiloh]

Looks like you have hand full.
Time and patients will win the race.
The sticker is prob a gate pass , who ever owned in the past worked at the base.

[Tripnut]

But I'm so bloody minded I will finish this in double quick time and it's damn well going to look showroom fresh when I'm done. I'm not going through all this agro for nothing.