❙ KAWASAKI H2C
He’s gone and done it: sorted this veritable pile of pernicious parts and sold it on. Farewell, Purple Pain…
Ralph finally finishes the evil stroker – then flogs it!
This month is the final part of the varied tales of woe on this subject of the worst bike buy I have ever made.
I have sufficient photographs to keep this particular misery going on for years, but I am sure you are as fed up with reading my moaning, so let’s draw a veil here!
There were a lot of parts that the previous owner had allowed to corrode and so these had to be replated. I use an industrial plating company in Bristol who do a cracking job, but they just do the stripping and plating, they’re not metal polishers. If you want a superior finish on zinc plating, it is wise to give parts a good clean up and ideally a quick polish. Because of the nature of the parts that are zinc plated, I don’t waste hours giving the parts a perfect mirror polish. Zinc plating is applied to bike parts by the manufacturers as corrosion protection rather than as a decorative finish like paint or chromium plate.
With a standard restoration one is trying to achieve a ‘factory’ appearance, which is why good restorers don’t over-polish stuff. A light polish, however, will give
you an ‘as-new’ finish after plating.
The end of the rear wheel spindle had been mauled by some primitive animal and had some marks with a pattern not dissimilar to the diamond pattern found on standard bench vice jaws. I clamped the spindle in the three jaw chuck of my centre lathe and carefully machined them away, finishing off with emery cloth.
Extreme caution should be exercised abrading stuff with emery cloth in the lathe because whilst it is a great way to a good finish, if you catch something like your sleeve in the rotating chuck it will do you no good at all. When rubbing a spinning object with an abrasive, a fair bit of heat can be generated which can have a detrimental effect on skin, so bear that in mind!
When I came to replace the side-stand, yes, it too had to be refinished. I noted that it was as wobbly as a Somerset farm labourer after eight pints of scrumpy and that needed addressing. Side-stands often get worn beyond their years by young lads looking cool posing side saddle on their bikes outside bars. Where the fork that forms the hinge of the stand gets splayed,
the bike leans progressively further over. Curing the problem was easy. I simply fitted soft jaws in my six-inch bench vice and used it as a press to return the work to its original shape, as shown in the photograph. It is best to squeeze it a bit, test it and repeat the process until it is a nice fit that allows the stand to hinge.
When I collected the zinc-plated parts they were just like they were handed over the counter of a Kawasaki dealership 40 years ago. When reassembling the rear wheel spindle adjusters, I gave the bolts a smear of Ferroslip to keep them nice and free, and easy to adjust. The wheel spindle got a generous sliming with Corrosion Block grease for obvious reasons.
Once the wheel was in and the chain cuddling the sprocket it was time to straighten up the wheel. If the wheel is a bit wonky, it won’t be great for the bike’s handling; left and right handers will seem very different, but even a bit out of kilter will make a big, detrimental difference to the life of your final drive.
A chain and sprocket set up is a very efficient way of transferring power, which is why you never see shaft-drive on performance bikes (erm, Z1300? Bertie). If the rear sprocket is not perfectly parallel with the chain, however, there will be losses in power and all the final drive components will wear quickly and that can only be seen as being a bad thing.
I invested in a little tool many years ago which you place on the rear sprocket that shines a laser beam down the run of the chain. Mine was the cheaper of those on offer and shines a dot; if one dug deeper one should have one that strobes the beam, ‘drawing’ a line down the chain. As you turn the wheel the dot travels up and down the chain run. When the dot is at the same place on the chain at both ends then you know the sprocket is straight. It makes checking the chain run so easy and quick that it’s worth its weight.
The side-stand was replaced with a newly plated bolt and I used my spring puller to re-attach the spring. I have seen so many lads struggling to fit springs without the correct tool. When I strip a bike, I can often see the tell-tale marks from misuse of Mole Grips and screwdrivers and I have never been able to work out why people make life so difficult for themselves when the right gear isn’t even expensive.
I withdrew the exhausts from under the bed in the guest bedroom where they were safely ensconced in bubble wrap. New gaskets were stuck to the inside of the exhaust outlet in the cylinders with some grease and the headers attached with the requisite collars and nuts; initially very loosely as I needed some wiggle room when the silencers were attached. The pillion foot-rest mountings are used to secure the silencer brackets at the rear. These had also been for an electrifying swim in some noxious chemical baths, so they were, again, as new.
When having foot-rests replated, don’t worry about the rubber as the nasty chemicals do it no harm and comes back looking positively rejuvenated. There are various brackets underneath and I found my podger great for lining up the holes for the bolts. Once the pipes were comfortably in place I tightened up all the fasteners to Mr Kawasaki’s prescribed torque.
When I rebuilt the gearbox and came to refit the oil seal around the gear shift shaft, I noticed some damage to the casing but hoped it would be okay. Naturally it wasn’t and oil leaked from its oil seal. I carefully removed the seal and established the size that the hole for it should be, i.e. round, rather than round with a flat on it. I found a piece of round mild steel bar in my scrap metal box and machined an outside diameter exactly the
same size as the hole for the seal should be. I then bored a hole the size of the gear change shaft. I chamfered the outside diameter to provide a lead to reshape the damaged hole. Before starting to use the tool I warmed up the damaged area with my propane torch to make the aluminium alloy more malleable. I then slid the lubricated tool over the shaft until the chamfer was up against the damaged part of the case. I smartly tapped the end of the tool with a copper-faced hammer driving the tool all the way into the counter-bored hole. This reformed the hole to the same shape as the seal. Once the tool was removed I was able to install a new oil seal and this time there was no leak. Happy days!
A few more bits were reattached and then it was time to see if the smog monster would live to fight another day. I couple of prods and the purple beast restarted its quest to rid the planet of unwanted ozone.
I rode it around a bit to ensure that I had found all the faults with this perfectly restored investment, before taking some pictures and advertising it for sale.
The day it’s prospective new owner came to see it, the sod started leaking fuel out of the right-hand carb. I quickly removed the offending item and found that this was yet another fault with the carbs that had been restored by an ‘expert’: there was a good size hole in the brass float. I soldered it up and all was well. After causing me so much grief, I bet the cow behaved beyond reproach for the new owner! I did feel sad parting with her, given how nice she looked and sounded, but every time I looked at her in the workshop I was reminded of the betrayal.
Now it has gone I am reinvesting the money I got in a brace of Z900s – one completely standard and one very much not, but being customised with what was available in its early life – no upside-down forks or CNC machined in China parts, instead very much within the spirit of the late 1970s-early-1980s.
Both the stock and the custom builds will be covered in the hallowed pages of this fine organ, starting with the standard restoration. Stay safe.