H1 H2 Gauge Restoration Service

[donfulsang]

I restore original Kawasaki Triple Gauges to Concours Quality. This service is far less expensive than buying NOS gauges as they are getting extremely rare and very expensive. I can restore your gauges and I also sell some restored gauges ready to go. Your gauges will appear as new and be inspected, lubed, and calibrated to read accurately. I have developed many special tools and press cylinders to disassemble, reassemble and renew these gauges. I only restore Kawasaki Triple gauges. I reset odometers to 0 or whatever mileage you request, I repair broken trip meter axles, replace glass lenses, apply new face decals, repaint indicator needles, glass buffers, and gauge cans. I have restored over 250 gauges to date and have become quite proficient at it. I Guarantee all my gauges to work properly for 6 months. Current lead times are about 1 week. I too am a Triple enthusiast and I restore complete bikes as well, due to buying many NOS gauges that neither worked properly, didn't come with any warranty, and cost a small fortune; I decided to repair gauges and I actually enjoy it, I am retired so I am willing to offer this service to others.

Click the photobucket link below to see more of my work.

I offer very fair prices! Prices start at $110 for a complete restoration as shown in the pictures below. Which will include:

1) Disassemble unit inspect drive, fluid damper, and mechanism.
2) Strip and repaint gauge can, indicator needle, glass baffle, face screws; all paint is oven baked for durability.
3) Sand silkscreen off faceplate, paint and bake faceplate, install new correct decal.
4) Polish glass bezel and beauty ring if supplied, renew or replace glass gasket.
5) Lube vital parts, check calibration adjust if needed.
6) Install new glass lense, compress bezel/gasket to be water tight.
7) Apply green sealant on gauge drive and screws just like Nippon Seiki did originally.
8) Clean odometer and trip numbers, reset odometer to 0 miles or whatever miles you like.
9) If broken; replace speedometer trip Axel and plastic knob This will add $35 to price (Late Models).
10) Give gauge final inspection and retest calibration for smooth movement and accurate readings.

It take about 5 hours to restore a gauge to NOS appearance. All gauges restored are well packed for safe shipping back and warranted for 6 months.

Contact me via messages or call 407 323-3597 and I will send you a detailed current price list, a Scope Of Work that entails my services, shipping address with instructions, and additional pictures if you like.

I am also interested in bartering old triple gauges for parts or to restore, let me know what you have!

Please Contact me for more information or with any questions.

Copy and paste this photobucket link to see my work.

s1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii588/donfulsang/


Message me, email me [e-mail] or phone me at 407 323-3597 8-8 PM

[H2 Dude]

photo's

[donfulsang]

I am ready for some gauge work, I am caught up so turn around time will be quick.

Thanks for all your past patronage.

Don Fulsang

[paul]

i feel as though i should speak up here. i will start by saying that i think that don has done good work for some of his customers. that's why i chose to send my gauges to him. however, i have had an overall negative experience.

last summer my '70 H1 gauges were in need of repair: bouncy erratic tach needle and a trip meter repair/speedo calibration. long story short, the gauges were never repaired to a satisfactory state (except for the trip meter worm gear, that was fixed). after three "warranty claims" made within the 6 month warranty period, it still remained that l was left with a tach that reads 1000 rpm low (reads 0 at idle) and a speedo that under-reads throughout its range with grossly increasing error spread between indicated and true (verified with 2 different iPhone speedo apps based on GPS an driving alongside a friend that was calling out speeds in 10 mph increments). by now the gauge cases and chrome ring were so chewed and damaged by the constant tweaking from the 3 warranty claims. i have invested $333.00 US (not including the shipping charges x3). i have attempted to contact don to resolve this matter in a fair, professional and respectful manner, however, i have had no response whatsoever. i may disclose and post the email communications from start to end supporting my claim and credibility.

i hope the take-away here is not misinterpreted as a smear or to be mean. it's an account of what has happened to me and i feel that it simply unfair and needs to be brought to the attention to those who are considering having this type of work done. if you have had a similar experience feel free to pm me.

[hodakaman]

Paul, thanks for bringing this to our attention. I need some gauge work done too and Don seemed the logical choice, but this is very concerning. Perhaps he would do an exchange for you since yours are not being fixed. Too bad he would not respond here. Please keep us posted as to how you make out. Sad to here this. Good luck.

[paul]

hodakaman,


after the third warranty attempt he just gave up and simply ignored my emails therefor no such offers of exchange were made. mind you, all of our email conversations were polite (both ways).

[donfulsang]

This response is concerning early H1 gauges. First of all I want to clarify that the early H1 clocks were very cheaply made and never designed to be disassembled or repaired, they were throw away gauges that Kawasaki choose to keep their prices down. All of them are over 40 years old at this point and most have two issues, the dampers are leaking and causing erratic readings, and the internal compression washer that retains the threaded post has loosened over time allowing enough post movement to affect overall operation. Neither of these two problems can be repaired simply due to the way the internal mechanism's were constructed. The only choice is to replace the entire internal mechanism with a known good unit which have become extremely rare and very expensive when found.

I nearly decided to stop taking the 1969-1971 gauges entirely however, with the early H1's being the most popular and typically most valuable of all the triples, I started informing any customers requesting service on them to first attempt to wiggle the cable posts and if there is movement as this is absolutely not repairable, believe me I have tried everything. This saves postage expense back and forth for both of us. The later model gauges are much improved and making repairs on them is feasible. I am not a miracle worker and never professed to be one.

In Paul's case, the original clocks he sent to me should have been returned to him as they were in very poor condition. I did replace the entire mechanism on his tach twice and paid return shipping each time at my expense. When he sent me a short video of the tach needle bouncing the second time, I immediately made that repair and returned the gauge by replacing the entire mechanism yet again. When he complained the third time he sent the exact same video as the first email and I began to feel like I was being scammed. That is when I decided not to respond to him any further. Maybe Paul didn't realize he sent the same video twice, but it sure appeared I was being taken advantage of.

In my defense, I have restored over 350 clocks to date and only had 5 returned to me for warranty service, in my opinion, that is an excellent record. I have many repeat customers that send me their gauges on every triple they restore. I just finished two sets this week. I have a new approach on early H1 gauges and since I have nearly exhausted my spares, I don't take any on if the cable mounting posts are loose. This forum does not send me a notice when I have a message like the other forums do, I don't remember to check for messages on this forum all the time thats why I encourage all inquiries to contact me direct through phone or my email as denoted in my original content. The early gauges can fail quickly just be installing them with only minor sideways pressure on the cable attachment (Incorrect cable routing). I also realize to pass a 100 point inspection the gauges must be original, I too have restored early H1's.

Don Fulsang

[e-mail]

[paul]

mr. fulsang,

if you felt like i was 'scamming' you should have brought that out to my attention. however, you did not. you assumed and convinced yourself that i was 'scamming' and you and disappeared which would appear to any reasonable person as suspect behaviour after accepting $333.00 USD. i am still out the $333.00 with gauges that are decorative rather than functional.

in my last email attempt to resolve this i agreed to absorb the cost of parts if you refund the labour cost which i believe is reasonable. it was made clear that you could repair gauges and that you honour your warranty.

as far as the videos, i just went into my email history to verify your accusation that i sent two of the same videos as part of my 'scam'. they are clearly two different videos as you can see the asphalt of the street vs the tile floor of my parents garage. please see the videos below:

[Deleted]

Might be an option as it looks to be of the same appearance.Wish they offered an H2 unit.Might be worth buying and sending out for a new H2 gauge face to Don if it would fit the early H2 mounting wrinkle painted cases and if it has the right drive ratio.

replical gauge

[donfulsang]

Paul the two short videos you sent me had the same exact serial number on them. The tach in question had the internal mechanisms replaced twice by me at my expense and return shipping to you twice at my expense also. I don't have any tach mechanisms left. Just to make peace, I I'll split the cost of one of the aftermarket tachs (Above) with you. Remember you didn't want to pay full price as you didn't want a cosmetic restoration, the meters you originally sent were in extremely bad condition. I did the best I could with what I had to work with. I certainly didn't make any money on the transaction.

Buy the aftermarket tach since appearance doesn't matter to you anyway and I will Paypal half ($45) for it as you likely will have to pay shipping to Canada.

Don Fulsang

[zambia]

That sounds like a fair proposition - I have a question/idea: the repro meters don't seem to have the solid feel and build quality of OEM, would there be any point in buying them just for the faces and guts? Then assembling in OEM housings?

[donfulsang]

It may be a very good idea. I have not held one of the reproduction units as of yet, I have no idea what quality they are or where they are made. Wouldn't have to be too great to be better than these old 40 plus year old clocks we try to keep working. The face screws may be set at a different spread than the originals but they are dead ringers with the exception of having the Nippon Seiki logo and the chromed center dome like the original pointer needles.

I could order faces with no holes punched so the fastener spread wouldn't be a problem, I don't know how their pointer needles attach as the originals have a slight taper interference fit. I have lots of original needles.

I guess I should buy one to convert and see what problems show up.

Don

[paul]

Sept 13, 2016 8:58:24 GMT -5 donfulsang said:

Paul the two short videos you sent me had the same exact serial number on them. The tach in question had the internal mechanisms replaced twice by me at my expense and return shipping to you twice at my expense also. I don't have any tach mechanisms left. Just to make peace, I I'll split the cost of one of the aftermarket tachs (Above) with you. Remember you didn't want to pay full price as you didn't want a cosmetic restoration, the meters you originally sent were in extremely bad condition. I did the best I could with what I had to work with. I certainly didn't make any money on the transaction.

Buy the aftermarket tach since appearance doesn't matter to you anyway and I will Paypal half ($45) for it as you likely will have to pay shipping to Canada.

Don Fulsang

I bought a repro tach and it did not work very well. if i recall correctly the indication lagged and bounced quite a bit.

correct i did not want to pay full price because it was my choice as the customer to choose from your list what i wanted done. I did not want a cosmetic resto because it wasn't the priority. are you saying that had i chose the full cosmetic resto that the meter would have worked? they look pretty good cosmetically as you can see in the videos. did you want me to spend more that the $333 i have already spent? what more do they need cosmetically because i am curious to know? the gauge face look pretty good don't you think? what i needed was a functioning tach. my '70 H1 is not a ground up resto. i built the bike with function and reliability being the primary target.

if the tach was extremely bad and you replaced the bad parts with good parts then it was repaired? or are there bad parts still in it? i don't understand your point. don you even say yourself: "In Paul's case, the original clocks he sent to me should have been returned to him as they were in very poor condition".
then why didn't you?

you didn't make money on the transaction? where did $333 go? labour? i certainly lost money in the transaction.

we all try our best when we do what we do. 5 duds out of 350 clocks is a phenomenal record don. that's 98.5%, which is an amazing score. but it's how you handle the 1.5% percent that bothers me.

[roco]

It's unfortunate that your experience was not what you expected but there is always two sides to a story, Don has over the years done hundreds of repairs and has tried to explain the reason why repairs were not forthcoming. I personally know Don and it is not in his character to do shoddy workmanship, he takes pride in his repairs.

[smokingfast]

I sent my 1972 H2 speedometer and tachometer to Don for refurbishment and he provided a written estimate of the work required. The units were then completely refurbished and sent back to me, along with the defective items. When I received them, they were absolutely magnificently restored works of art . . . I couldn't be any happier with Don's work! The communication and professionalism were also excellent. I highly recommend Don's services to anyone wanting their H2 gauges restored.