A marriage on New Year´s eve.

The last three days have been busy with preparations and shopping for New Year´s eve here in Stockholm. Not that we´ll be having any big party or even be going to one... I´m working early tomorrow morning, the 1/1 2018. That´s quite OK since I got to stay home celebrating Christmas with my family this year. It doesn´t always play out that way in the airline business. After 30 odd years I´m getting rather senior so from time to time I get a few perks here and there.

Anyway, I was also able to continue my "marriage" preps for the H1R during my wife´s tour in to the city to do some last Christmas sale shopping. Nice.

These little babies also had to come out of storage to be fixed before the engine goes back in the frame. They are some sort of "rubber dampeners" that shall reduce the amount of vibrations coming from the motor. I´m not quite sure about their actual function, but if the Kawasaki engineers felt they would do the job, I´m putting them back. I know Janne has a couple of these extra but I´ll stick with what I have, for now. I will, however, put the two in worst condition on the top mount of the engine where they are easily changed. The bottom engine mounts are much harder to reach once the engine is in place.

 The actual lifting of the motor needed careful planning. My rear wheel is out of the frame for rear sprocket fabrication in Tumba at ISR. That makes the frame lighter to handle so I figured this was a good time to try lifting the engine in place.

 I put my sturdy toolbox under the frame with a layer of fabric on top. The engine rests on a plastic box just beside the frame. My plan was to carefully nudge the engine inside the frame on to a plank and then somehow lower it into the engine mounts and have someone help me getting the engine mounting bolts in place while I held the engine and adjusted it to line up the mounts and the bolts. 

That plan fell short immediately! The rubber mounts would not stay put when I lifted the motor. The solution was simple. Packing tape is real thin and will not interfere with the distance between the engine mounts on the frame and the engine itself. The plank had to go as well. Too tick getting the motor too high. I also had to move the left hand fairing bracket out of the way (I should have seen that one coming earlier....) 

Only one of the rubber fit snugly in the engine. The one in the front part of the engine Ebbe had repaired for me. That hole had the exact correct diameter. The others were slightly enlarged.

 All the rubber grommets in place and the engine is ready to be lifted in to the frame! here we go....

Bit by bit, nice and easy and real slowly the engine was nudged in to position. Here I´m close! The plank had to go so I used an old rag instead to somewhat protect the frame from scratches.

It took some lifting, wiggling and quite a few strong words but after a while I had the top front engine mount and frame bracket lined up enough to use a screw driver to push the engine in the right way to let the engine bolt enter.

Getting the bolt through the left side was rather easy. The right side a little more complicated, but after a few more drops of sweat and some cursing I got it in. Straight through the packing tape and out the other side. Good start!

 And here you can see the bolt on the left side. I chose to put a washer here even though it´s not needed according the parts manual. My bolts are a tad long and I also honestly think a washer is needed here. Later on I will probably have to remove the bolts one-by-one to have them drilled for safety-wiring anyway, so this solution isn´t 100% decided yet. I was rather keen on getting the engine back in the frame today so I skipped that for later!

When I had the top front mount in place all I had to do was lift the rear end of the engine carefully and get the rag off. Yeah, I had to tear it off bit by bit, but I´ll take that loss! Here´s the result from the right hand side. Looks good, aye?

And the left hand view. Much more to do on this side of the engine. But I feel real nice having married these parts today! This is one of the greater moments in any motorcycle restoration. Now, let´s just hope I won´t have to take it out again... I wouldn´t be surprised!

This process took some space in my garage as you can understand. Most other parts and things had to move out of the way for a while. Here´s a snapshot of my "mancave" tonight, New Year´s eve. Pretty dominated by Kawasaki racers...

After this weekend and my next work trip to New York I hope my rear wheel will be finished. The next mission is getting that back in the swing, putting the front sprocket on and mounting the drive chain. The seat is soon coming back from Delsbo and after that this project will look much more like the vintage racer it is.

The last picture today shows the tank, frame and engine together. This is where the build gets real fun and interesting. All these small parts getting back on, all the parts needing adjustments to function as they are supposed to and also the final touches on the tank and the paint etc... All such nice work! 


For now, I wish you all a very Happy New Year and a really prosperous 2018!

/Per

Preparations for mounting the engine in the frame.

Since last time I have been busy at work and also trying to locate parts, getting parts fixed here and there and also fettling a bit by myself in the garage. The next big move on the project is getting the engine back in to the frame. I want the engine to be more or less completed and finished when I do that lifting. I know, it is lighter to lift it in without clutch and stator etc, but it is also a lot easier to work on the engine when it is out of the frame, on the bench. The motor has been sitting on the right side of my working area since coming back from Malmö last winter.

After a couple of months I noticed an oil leak from the clutch cover... We suspected this to happen, Ebbe and I, since we never plane ground  the clutch cover nor metal sprayed the primary drive sealing surface. It was obvious the oil came from 2 areas. Partly from the bottom of the clutch cover and partly from the large oil seal in the side of the cover. The engine had been back to Malmö and Ebbe had it all ground and fixed. All I had to do was mount the clutch cover and clutch again. Easy? Well, let´s see.....!

 Nice and easy does it... Well rested mechanic (me), all parts needed present, the parts diagram on the iPad and here we go! When you are in no hurry, this is nice work. You have time to figure things out. How does it work? How did the Japanese engineers think? Good music on the radio and the hours tend to fly away quickly.

The only part that goes inside the clutch cover is the big primary drive. This sits on two needle bearings and has an internal oil seal that can be seen close to the shaft in the picture to the left. The parts really can sit only one way and that makes it easy to decide when you´re done.

Next was the clutch cover. I had sourced new screws (NOS) for this job. I am no fan of Allen bolts at all and especially not on a seventies racer. 220R0640 is the part number for the shorter ones. 8 in all plus one longer. 

Now that I got the screws fastened on the cover I´m having doubts they are correct even though they came in an original parts bag with the correct part number... I believe Kawasaki have replaced the original hard-to-find pan head screws with a newer type. I may have to fix that later!

The large O-ring, sealing between the cover and the primary drive still felt fresh and soft. A little rubber grease on the lips of it and on the fresh sealing surface of the primary drive made it slide on quite easily. You can see the clutch push rod inside the axle. Interestingly there´s no "ball" in the H1R:s clutch mechanism. All the street bikes have them, but not here. Another one of the small mysteries on these bikes that need to be figured out.

Next was the outer clutch housing. Loctite AND the repro lock washer. Double security here.

Inner clutch hub was next. This is secured to the shaft by a large 20mm nut originally secured by a lock washer only. Today I used Loctite and held the inner hub with a special tool made for the H1 and H2 street bikes. It worked fine also here, even though it couldn´t enter the hub the same way as on the street bikes. 

After "Esso" lost his clutch in a race in 1970 I think he made this modification to the clutch hub securing. He drilled holes in the large nut and put a 10.9 grade allen screw into the bottom of the inner hub to be able to safety wire the clutch hub to the shaft. Quite smart and ingenious, so I´m going that way also!

Finishing up the clutch side of the engine is just a matter of following the parts diagram. Start out with one of the two outer steel plates at the bottom and steel-fiber plates until you end it with the last outer steel plate just inside the pressure plate. All the screws are secured with Loctite. I don´t think they were secured by wire originally but they are drilled for it so maybe "Esso" actually did use wire also here. Remains to be seen...

For now I´m going to leave it like this. Ebbe promised me it will not come undone when Loctite is used. Anyway, I think it looks a lot better without the wire. The problem using wire here is that the pressure plate will move outwards when you pull the clutch handle and the wiring will have to be slack enough to allow that movement. I´ll give it some thought and maybe I´ll come up with something that looks OK and works the way it should.

Next up were the handle bar parts. Brake-, and clutch levers, throttle assy and the choke lever. I needed to fix a screw that clamps the brake lever to the handle bar. I had a nice one, re chromed years ago just needing a thread clean.

The right side more or less finished. The throttle grip and brake lever were already done, just waiting to be mounted on the bike. I think this position is correct with the rounded end part of the handle bar protruding through the open end of the throttle grip. I was also able to get the brake cable into the lever after I put the two cables in place down at the wheel. I believe this is the correct sequence.

The left brake plate more or less completed! The cable need to be safe tied with a cotter pin and all the bolts and nuts safety wired. I´ll do all of that when I´m positive I have it all on correct. 

The choke lever and the clutch lever in place on the left side. I´ll wait with the rubber grip until I´m positive I have everything correct here ass well. The grip is fully refurbished and fully usable but I don´t want to take it off one more time if I don´t have to...

I have also started working on the stator and ignition on the bike. The original yoke on the left and one from an H1B 1972 with points ignition i Bought on eBay on the right. They DO look similar! The condensers are different and also the length of the wiring. The H1B also have a larger generator and more windings in order to supply electricity for the street equipment such as lights, horn flashers etc. I´m going to try and rebuild as much as I can using bits and pieces from the H1B to make the original stator work as good as possible. More about this part of the project later. For now I´m happy to have most of the parts in my shop. I´m still looking for the ignition cam 21103-004 and also the cam plate 21106-003. I do not know why Kawasaki have different part numbers on the ignition cams here. One reason can be they actually ARE different in angles, duration or what-not?? The timing cam plate is the same number, though... Interesting!

Remember my adventures with reproducing the seat cover? Well, my sewing skills din´t quite suffice here so I visited NCCR in Delsbo and left the manufacturing to Pär Svedin who works at NCCR and also is a tailor. He´s been working on the covers and have them templated for production.

He sent me some pictures of the progress so far. The material here is real suede leather he had in stock. Looks absolutely gorgeous to me!

He´s using a slightly thinner liner/padding on the under side compared to what I used. Clearly an improvement.

These covers will be close to perfect in my book! I hope I´ll be able to show you the finished product within a coupe of weeks. I´m going to have at least 3 covers made this time. One might be in brown, we´ll see...

The engine bolts on the bike didn´t look too good. I tried to find new ones on eBay and through some of my sources over the world. No joy. 285mm long, quite STD, engine bolts. Very special for the H1R only and thus impossible to find. Luckily my friend, Janne, has a large stock of NOS kawasaki parts and when I had found out what part number I needed (longer ones with the same hex head and diameter...) he could find 3 of them for me!

 In the picture on the left you can see the difference between my "original" bolts and the new one supplied by Janne.  The three heads on the left just didn´t work out. Nor did the fact that one of them actually is nothing more than a threaded standard rod fitted with some kind of head. Not good! I need to get the heads drilled for the safety wire, though. We´ll see if I can handle that myself or if I need to get help.

Janne´s good friend, Wicke, helped me shorten the bolts in his lathe to the required length of 285mm. Part number 92001-1272 is a perfect match when shortened by approx 15 mm and threaded some more. In this picture are also the parts supplied by Ebbe to accommodate a 520 chain and sprockets to the bike. He made the spacer and the special lock washer needed to fit these front sprockets to the engine. 14,15 and 16 teeth up front and three different sizes on the back sprocket will be quite enough for my racing purposes! The rear wheel is at ISR in Tumba here in Stockholm getting the rear sprockets machined as we speak! They will hopefully be done just after New Year and come beginning of January I´ll be able to marry the engine and frame in holy matrimony again! I could risk doing it without the rear wheel on, but it will be a lot easier to do if both wheels are in place.

Tomorrow I´m off for work again. If I´m lucky the first seat cover from Pär have arrived when I get back. Hang in there for more, boys and girls!

Happy Holidays and a very Happy New year to you all!!

/Per.

It´s on wheels!

I really got inspired getting the rear wheel finished, so I moved on with the front one. Getting the brake plates complete was the task of the day. I had all the parts out and sorted them, remember. Well, it showed later on I didn´t do that thoroughly enough. More about that later. 

The front brakes differ a bit from the rear one. There are two cams, each moving one brake shoe on each side, 4LS technology, up front where there´s only one cam moving both shoes on the rear. That means two of everything on each side. Two cams and two shoe pivots. The pivots are fixed to the plate and only need a light coat of grease or copper paste for the shoes to move easily. The two cams can be greased from the outside and need more regular attention. I learned from the rear to mount these strong springs before putting the shoes on to the plate. With everything greased up and double checked the mounting was fairly straight forward.

As I started checking and assembling the outer brake levers I noticed a problem... All of them have steel thread inserts to reinforce the threads inside. I believe these might be factory mounted. all 5 levers, front and rear have them. The problem was one of them had broken and partially followed the screw out when I disassembled the parts. On the left here you can see the steel thread outside the lever. The easy fix would have been to choose a larger screw and just thread the hole. No can do! This needed attention. 

Many years ago I bought the most common thread repair kits from Helicoil. Yes, I had the M6x1.0 in stock. Thank you, my hoarding obsession!

These are fantastic kits with everything you need to make a permanent thread repair included. This one has 9 mm length thread inserts, drill, tap mounting tool and the mandrel to finish the work. All in one convenient box.

Usually when you start a thread repair you need to drill out the hole a bit. The drill in the kit is the correct size for the threading tool, tap. Since there already were inserts in these parts I figured I would be OK just to clean the threads with the correct tap. Worked like a charm!

The next step is mounting the new insert into the hole. Here it is on the mounting tool ready to be "screwed" in to the thread. The idea is simple: replace the broken aluminium threads with a more sustainable one made of steel. 
That´s why you have to make the hole larger and then smaller again inserting the new, much stronger, insert. Genious.

This part of the process is delicate but not difficult. the insert had to be screwed through the first part of the lever into the second one where it is supposed to go. No big deal, the mounting tool holds it firmly as long as you turn it the right way. Here I´m halfway through the first layer.

And here I´m through and in to the second. You need to get the end of the insert at least a couple of threads into the goods for it to stay properly. You can also use a drop of Thread locking glue, like Loctite, to secure it in place.

The last step of the process is removing the little "tab" used for the mounting tool to drive it in to the thread. This tab will hinder the screw from going through if not removed. The mandrel is used to simply tap it off.

And here is the confirmation the repair is complete! the small end tap out of the hole. You do not want this part around in the hole when you´re done. Here it is not that important, but imagine a repair on an internal engine thread....

Time to get the levers and adjusting rod on to the brake plate. Careful comparison with the pictures taken earlier got it right in the end (I think....). If I goofed here it´ll show when I try to adjust the brakes and mount the cables to the levers. And then I´ll just have to remove everything and do it all over again. That isn´t at all uncommon in my garage. Experience tells my I do everything at least two times....

The ventilator plates on the front drum also needed some TLC. This one is the worst of them. The net had separated from the frame and it had also been bent and damaged earlier. My plan to replace them with new ones didn´t work out that well so I had to fix them as good as possible.

It took a few ours during two days of wonderful garage work to get it done! Here it is, ready to be inserted in to the front wheel. The brake shoe pivots have been secured with cotter pins but I´ll wait until everything is finished and adjusted on the bike before safety wiring the screws on the levers. I do not want to do that twice as well...

The front brake finished. You can see the restored ventilators and also the surprisingly good brake shoes. They show almost no wear at all. I believe Björn got a couple of new sets when he bought the bike from Flöter. I´m lucky, because finding these shoes are difficult. There´s always a possibility to restore old ones and have new brake linings glued on to old shoes. I´m happy not to have
 to deal with that as well!

Front view of the front brake. I´m very happy with the turnout of this part! When you have the drum loose like this it is also possible to figure out how to adjust the levers later on. I know from a previous restoration  of a Suzuki GT750 J 1972 that these 4LS brakes actually are quite efficient when adjusted correctly. You need to be thorough and meticulous doing it, though. well, that adventure awaits in the future.

For now it was very rewarding to put the brake plates in to the wheel and snap a couple of pics. I´ve said it before... These are work of art!

The front and rear wheel ready to go on to the frame. Now I need to get going with the rest of the chassis. I need the main stand to mount the wheels and to get the main stand on I need the front foot pegs in place. To get them in place means I have to fix them first! Here we go!

The pegs were painted together with the frame and swing etc. All the other parts were rezinked and stored in bags. In this picture we can see the old foot peg rubbers and the refurbished pegs, springs and washers. I had to find new locking rings, though. Gone with the wind! The only things missing here are the second washers on each peg. They go between the spring and the locking rings. A plan arose when looking at these parts... I was wondering if I could reuse the old foot peg rubbers instead of putting on new ones... You know, I like to reuse as much as possible here. The only problem was one of them was cracked partly and that wouldn´t look too good. I came up with a solution!

In quite a few pictures from the racing tracks during the day I´ve seen these rubbers being tied with wiring. I believe this was done to keep them in place during racing. What if I could replicate that wiring and keep the cracks together at the same time? I bought a safety wiring kit including some high-quality stainless wire. I put three of them in place tying the rubber up enough to keep the crack from "cracking" when not on the foot peg. As I slid the rubber on to the peg the crack stayed closed and the rubber was held much better and firmer in place. NICE!

The surplus wire was cut and the joints were placed at the bottom of the rubbers and gently folded inside the rubbers. This will look very genuine when on the bike. I think I´ll do the other rubber the same way, even though it isn´t needed.

The rear brake cable and brake pedal was next. It mounts to the foot peg and has to go on the frame at the same time. A little grinding on the peg to get the pedal on. The cable had to be cleaned and greased. Thankfully it is in perfect working condition with all parts intact and in good nick. Having the spare parts book handy when assembling stuff is very neat. I´m a modern man so the iPad does it!

Here it is on the bike. I had it on and off about three times before realizing I had it all wrong anyway... The brake resting point adjusting screw shall be inserted the other way around first with the locking nut on top of the frame bracket before putting the foot peg on. I´ll fix this later... Next up was the front fender mounting!

Ihave been thinking this over and over many times and finally came to the conclusion I would use the H2 side cover grommets together with collars a bit slimmer than the original H1R parts seen below, right in the picture. I had to reduce the height of the thinner collars to fit properly on the fender inside the grommets.

To fit the grommets in the fender holes I had to enlarge them a bit. Shaky business taking a coarse file and filing away on these parts!

This way the fender will be rubber mounted for real! I know this will be non-original, but I think it is an improvement compared to the stock mounting. It will not be visible at all but will hopefully keep the fender from cracking.

Since I chose the slimmer collars I didn´t have to enlarge the holes more than necessary and could still use the original mounting screws. Here they are, greased and ready to be installed with the fender in the background.

OK, time to get the wheels on the frame. First the frame had to go up on the main stand. Here it is, beneath the driver foot pegs. In retrospect I should have started with the rear wheel from a balancing point of view. But why make it easy?

I had to balance the bike on the main stand and boxes etc to get the front fork high enough to get the wheel in there. 

It took a couple of tries to get the height right. The combo of the spare parts wooden box and an empty fuel can got it perfect! Remember I always do things at least two times? First I tried putting the wheel on with the tire pressurized. Didn´t work. The tire is too wide to get through the space between the fender mounting screws... Second time I got the wheel depressurized first. It passed the screws and the axle slid nicely through the front fork lower tubes and wheel only to find I had mounted the front wheel brake torque brackets the wrong way. Off with everything and the third time I finally got it right. You learn as you go along! 

It was with great pleasure I could re pressurize the front tire and finally fasten all the hardware. For now, anyway...

The rear wheel is a lot easier. Only one brake plate to hold during assembly. The rear took only a third of the time to get in place compared to the front one. Remember the sorting problem I mentioned earlier? Well, that became obvious when I tried to install the rear brake cable in the rear brake lever cable bracket... There are 3 lever cable brackets on the bike, two up front and one at the rear. The rear one has a larger opening for the rear brake cable lug. This is larger than the two up front. Guess where I had put the rear one? Yeah, up front, of course. To my defense, they are not that very different. That cost me another hour of small, irritating fettling in cramped spaces behind the levers and the wheel spokes. 

The final result is quite good, though! Here´s the front wheel in all its glory. Mounted to the front fork and ready for brake cables and final adjustments. Maybe a little too shiny for my taste but it´ll do for now. Getting stuff duller is not that hard!

Finally.... Here it is. On its wheels for the first time since January this year. I also got the upper fairing bracket on including the refurbished "ignition lock". As you can see I had to mount it upside-down. It wouldn´t fit at all the other way. That switch might not be the correct one or the bracket on the fairing bracket might have been changed by someone earlier. I really don´t know and frankly don´t care too much about it either. I kind of like those small peculiarities that comes from a long history. We´ll see how that´ll play out later on in the process.

It was very tempting to put the tank in place... Looks great, doesn´t it? If I had the seat it would look even better but that will have to wait for a while.

Here´s a closer look at the tank and top fairing bracket. That bracket is very adjustable in its fastening to the frame. I can only hope this height is correct. If not, I´ll just have to change it. No biggie.

It is really beginning to look like a racer again. That front end is so beautiful I can spend minutes just looking at it. Here I also tried out the engine mounting bolts. I saved a set from a very nice H1-69 I parted out earlier this year, but they were too short! 

These are in no way the original ones, and frankly they look like sh*t. Home made and not very nicely manufactured at all. I´m going to check if the H2 ones are a bit longer and may fit better. I know I have some in stock, somewhere. Searching for parts is something I do a lot! 

The next step could be putting the engine in the frame. Or I´ll continue working on the chassis some more. The RPM indicator, the handle bar levers and cables all need to get on there. We´ll see. For now I´m very happy to see it with the wheels on!

Stay tuned for more...

/Per