The turning point is approaching.

Another week has passed since my last post. A couple of journeys to Copenhagen to do some simulator training. My sim training is soon over and I can start training IRL with an experienced commander by my side for 10-12 legs. It´s going to be sooo nice to get out of the "can"!

During last week I got a call from the rubber-guy in Linköping. He had my RPM indicator bracket done! Wonderful! It got here in just one day and it sure looks great! Remember what it looked like before sending it to be fixed?

Before restoration.

It was broken and beaten up quite severely. The rubber parts were rotted and dry and came apart at the lightest touch. I talked to Daniel Kinnander at Kinnander´s Gummi (Rubber) in Linköping and he agreed to help me out. A true pleasure dealing with people that know their business!

 Those steel plates were joined together with the two rubber parts through vulcanization, a process that binds the rubber to the metal in a very strong and powerful way. I could have gone another route and used a modern rubber glue and fixed it myself. Easy, cheap and probably strong enough for the few times this bike will ever be driven on any racetrack. But that wouldn´t have been correct, would it? We went the other way. A correct vulcanization of the parts!

To do that you need to manufacture a mold. You put the primed steel parts into the mold and pour whatever rubber mixture you prefer (different mixtures have different properties...) and start the vulcanization process by applying high pressure and high temperature to the mold. To be honest I had no idea these products were so difficult to manufacture. Anyway, Daniel has an old friend who makes molds in smaller series for hobby applications like mine. Regular production demands better molds, of course.

The reason it took so long time to get this done was the making of the mold. Quite a complicated task when you see it.

Bracket and mold.

As you can see in the picture the mold is milled in billet aluminium after the shape of the two steel plates. The bolts keep it all in place and the rubber can be poured into the mold from two sides. The two aluminium parts are pressed together and the rubber cures onto the primed surfaces of the steel parts. The areas of the steel that hasn´t been primed can easily be cleaned from rubber and make the part look just like it did before. I can do that... Cleaning and spray painting is not so difficult!

The mold.

The beauty of it all is that I actually bought the mold, the most expensive part of vulcanization. Since I paid for it, I own it, and Daniel sent it to me. Nice. Now I can repair the RPM indicator bracket if someone needs it done! The actual vulcanization only costs approx $100US or 90 Euros. The mold cost me ca 300 Euros to have made. Now I need to work a bit on the bracket to make it perfect.

Repaired bracket.

The other side.

The rubber used here is Cloropren rubber. A stable and weather proof type of rubber that also can take a lot of vibration and sunlight. Daniel said they use it a lot on the JAS, the Swedish fighter plane. JAS is actually built by SAAB in Linköping so my bracket is in good company!

I´ll start working on the bracket as soon as I can find the time for it. Busy days ahead.

Last week I also delivered the frame to Eduardo across the street. We had a long discussion about the painting and agreed to have it done step by step so we could agree on the next step as it went along.

The naked frame.

Prepared for spraying....

After a couple of days I came down to the shop and found the primer on! A very light spray of black epoxi primer. Just perfect! Exactly the way I wanted it done. Again, such a pleasure to deal with professionals!

Primer on.

Perfect surface for the next coat of real paint.

Primed frame number.

And today (Sunday) the frame was done! a coat of black paint and a coat of semi-gloss clear coat. I think it looks just right! Eduardo was worried it came out too shiny. I think not. Just perfect!

Finished!

Too shiny?

Still very readable!

Still very readable frame number on the head stock. Tomorrow I´ll carry the parts back to my own garage and start putting things together again! The true turning point of the project approaches!!

Belly fairing.

Janne W. is very keen on having both our fairings sent off to Johnny´s mc-lack be painted. He is more ready with his bike. He has owned it for 4-5 years and I can understand his eagerness to get it finished. Actually that suits me fine. I also need to get things done! So, I left my fairing parts to our plastic guy, Ingvar, here in Stockholm. I need to get my fairing repaired here and there and also have the parts fit together better than they did when I bought it. Ingvar is extremely good with plastics and fairings. He has done many for Janne during the years. Yamaha TZ:s mostly. Now it´s time for two H1R:s at once!

Fairing off to be repaired.

As the fairings are gone for a while, there´s extra space in the garage right now. That´s going to come in handy tomorrow when the frame  comes back home and also for another bike. We just bought one for our daughter, Wilma, to train on. She´s going to take here motorcycle driving license this spring and we´re starting soon. A Kawasaki of course, Z300. Nice little street bike with low weight and easy to drive. ABS brakes and nice handling! It´s going to be great fun!

Happy daughter!

Busy days ahead as you can see...

I´m hoping all comes together nicely in my small garage. Space is a serious problem! My BMW 1200GS, William´s Honda Transalp, Wilma´s Z300 and the H1R.

The new bike will arrive tomorrow as will the H1R frame. We´ll see how that plays out. Later tomorrow I´m off to Copenhagen for another couple of sessions in the simulator.

Wish me luck...

/Per

Preparing the frame for paint.

Spring is approaching fast... I´ll soon need more space in the garage for daily drivers and the H1R will have to move into a corner and not take up half the floor area. Time to get it together! Lots of work to do and precious little time to spare. last week it was time to get the frame ready for paint.

The thought of what technique  to use has had me thinking things over and over again. I´ve talked to my painter (the guy who will paint the fairing and seat) and he suggested powder coat. I´ve used that on my latest street bike restorations and have been truly happy with the result. It is a super technique and beats wet paint every day of the week when it comes to durability and looks! Yes, it does mean a bit more work masking and cleaning threads etc, but once it is done, it is worth it!

On these old racers the story is different... It was obvious when looking at the original paint on the frame it was extremely thin. I doubt they even used primer on it! No way I would put powder coat on there. That would not work for me. So, a very thin layer of primer (preferably black) and a couple of thin coats of paint and then finally a semi-gloss clear coat. OK, it sounds like a lot, but I´ll have to tell the painter to keep everything thin and light.

Before painting everything has to be clean and dry and smooth etc. How to accomplish that. Elbow grease and sanding paper? Yeah, that works. I opted for the easy way out and prepared it all for a mild media blasting locally here in Stockholm.

Tank mounting rubber...

First I had to remove all loose stuff on the frame, swing and other brackets etc. The above picture shows what rubber that has been sitting in a barn for 40+ years will look like! Not much elasticity left there.

Tank dampeners.

The "home made" fuel tank support dampeners had to be removed. I´ll change these for the rubber ones used on Kawaski H1:s and H2:s. Looks and works a lot better. And they are easily available!
You can also see the sorry state of the paint on the frame. I tried to clean out a few spots and maybe save the frame from media blasting, but there really was no other way. Sorry to say!

Masking of the steering head.

The steering bearings are sensitive to blasting media and need to be covered and protected. The bearing races were all removed, as a precaution. A simple way of masking it is with a long threaded pin, a few washers and some rubber or plastic covers. Tight and snug. The frame number was masked with duct tape. I want that number fully readable, of course!

The swing also needed some masking and disassembling done. I needed to check on those swing arm bearing anyway so it had to come out. This is a completely different set-up from the street bikes. not as many parts and all in all much lighter stuff. I had a bit of a struggle but finally came out winning... At least partly so. The sleeves were rather stuck but could be persuaded with a little 5-56 and a little heat. the bronze (or brass) bushings was another story... I got one out in my garage but had to borrow my friends auto press tool for the other. Finally got all of it out! Of course I managed to inflict slight damage to the bushings when driving them out. The sleeves actually needed replacement so the hunt for them started that evening. The bushings can be saved, no big deal.

Swing arm bushings and sleeves.

The sleeves have some rust going through the hard chrome surface... Too bad. BUT, eBay was at hand again. I had found a NOS set of these sleeves earlier and tried to buy them at a very attractive price about a month ago... Nu luck, the seller lowered his price by only a few quid and stopped there. Fair enough. Since I desperately needed them now I made him another offer (at the same price he offered me before...) and he agreed to sell. Thanks! Got them from Britain in just a couple of days.
Another problem solved.

I mentioned earlier I was thinking a lot about the paint. Black is the obvious choice, but what shine on the paint, or clear coat. Semi-gloss, gloss or matte finish?

To find out more what the original structure of the paint was, I rubbed up a couple of spots. Beneath the fuel tank dampeners and on a spot on the swing arm.

Suprisingly glossy...

The handle bar and the polished spot on the swing arm shows how surprisingly shiny the paint is. Looking at this you could easily go with the glossy clear coat or glossy black paint.

Original shine.

No hurry in deciding that just yet, just a good idea to check it out before it´s gone... In all I spent the better part of a full day preparing the parts for treatment. It all came together nicely and looked like this, ready for transportation.

Ready for the blaster.

It doesn´t look like much here, but it´s almost all there... And this is the turning point on any of my restorations. When stuff gets back from blasting, and even more after paint, when you start assembling parts instead of taking them apart, things look a whole lot brighter and better.

Off we go!

Such a sad pile of rubble... Who can imagine this is a super rare race bike from the early seventies. I can´t tell you enough how thoroughly I told Pelle at Allblastring in Laenna to be careful with the parts. Not to loose anything and to media blast as mildly as possible. He is a very understanding person and his guys did a superb job! Two days (!) later everything was finished and ready to be picked up.

Media blasted and on the way home.

They did an awesome job. I´ve used them before and have never been disappointed with their work. Such a smooth and nice surface. Not too coarse, not too fine, just perfectly clean and ready for primer. No need to spend hours sanding. Perfect.

After a good cleaning of  blasting media using compressed air I could go through everything and start masking it up for paint. Of course I had forgotten some of the small parts and they had to be sanded and cleaned for paint manually.

Foot pegs and parts.

Brake lever and cable.

The foot pegs and the brake lever among others. The handle bars had to be straightened as well. The bike has seen its fair share of race track close-ups and the right bar had obviously taken a few hits. So, when straightening that one the weld cracked. Not too hard even for me to weld. Fixed it the other day when weather was OK and not too chilly or windy outside. My old MIG did what it is supposed to do...

Repair of handle bar.

I think I got it good enough. At least my weld doesn´t look worse that the old ones from Japan 1970....
A little grinding on the wire brush got it ready for paint.

Wire brushing.

The small bracket that attaches the electrical parts up front shows up on the parts list. I need that one as well. Hmm, I wonder if it is still around here, below that home made bracket for the Kröber ignition?

It was! Well hidden, but easy to get out and prepare. It had been used to support the larger bracket and was actually in quite good shape. Someone ("ESSO") had adjusted it a bit to fit beneath the bracket. It was not too difficult to guess what it was supposed to look like.

Electrical bracket.

It probably has a few extra holes drilled but I hope it hasn´t been cut or destroyed in any other way. We will see about that later. Just a small bending up of one of the edges needed... So far it looks OK!

Support bracket for rectifier and regulator.

Once all these small parts were finished everything was ready to go off to paint! I talked to the guys running the automotive shop cross the street and they agreed to fix the paint. They do smaller paint jobs in-house and I like the chance of keeping things as close and local as possible. The painter (Eduardo) is a true talent and seemed pleased with the mission. He decided on an epoxi primer, black paint and a semi-gloss clear coat that I can polish to the shine I like.

Ready for paint!

Here´s all the small stuff, straightened and ready to be painted. The frame had to be masked a bit as swell. No biggie, just mask the steering head and the swing arm bolt holes. The rest of the threads can easily be cleaned after painting with a tap.

Here´s the frame on the bench! How small it looks...

The bare frame.

Remember I masked the frame number on the head stock? That paint had to be removed, of course. CRC "Paint stripper" is a great product for removing paint. Just put it on and let it cure for a few minutes and off it goes! Easy peasy.

Frame number.

Eduardo promised to be careful and keep the paint really thin over these numbers and letters. As the frame sat there on the bench I could not resist laying the tank in place and have a look at the seat and seat cover....

Mocking up the tank and seat.

Here you can see the rubber parts for the tank to rest on. Better than those home made things that was there before. There will be a few issues later on with the seat and the cover. the position of the tank mounting bracket on the middle part of the frame will decide the position of the tank and the seat. My seat has been repaired and straightened at the bottom so there´s no "cutaway" for the top shock bolt. That cutaway will have to be remade and preferable centered with the notch in the seat cover. This will take some thinking and measuring later on, for sure!

Test fitting of stuff...

I still like the appearance of the seat cover very much! I think it is going to be fabulous! I just need to get everything lined up the way it should be here. I believe the height of the seat could be slightly adjusted by putting thicker or thinner rubber "washers" between the seat and the frame. Mine were quite thick and made the seat float a little bit above the frame. We´ll see where I end up putting it. It has to look good and feel harmonic when sitting on the bike. I am most probably a bit too big to drive it anyway, but if I would (which I for sure will...!) I might need the larger rubbers in place.

So, these last two weeks has seen the frame to media blasting, the original stanchions are still at the grinders and the tachometer mount hasn´t been finished yet either, There´s still a lot to do and pay for...  But I´m slowly getting there! And next week, hopefully, the frame is painted and I can start putting stuff back on it! The true turning point.

The coming weekend will be full of work and simulator training.... Not to fun, but very, very good!

Stay tuned, guys!

/Per

Moving on with the project, slowly but safely.

Sunday morning. The family dispersed all over the world. Our son works as a ski instructor in Canada, Our daughter revisits Kenya on her vacation and my wife hangs out with friends in France. Time to get something done.... Like a new post here!

The electrical parts for the bike are soon complete. A couple of days ago another missing piece arrived from the US. The fuse holder. I know it is ridiculous to hunt for NOS parts when you can put most any fuse holder on here, but I need it to be as correct as I can get it.  Now I need to fix some wiring, clean up a set of used ignition coils I found on eBay (these are for the H1 street bikes, but I believe they will work here as well), clean up the stator and replace the points and the condensers (have them!) and finally get a good rectifier. I have a couple of them on watch on eBay.

NOS fuse holders arrived!

My post on the battery boxes raised a few eyebrows over the world. Why would you make 6 of them when you need only one and the worldwide market probably needs a maximum of 3...?

Hard to tell... I´m a bit of a romantic, I suppose,  and having enough rubber straps for even more of them made the decision natural. Anyway, I´m pleased to tell you I made a deal with one of them!

A friend from France needed one of the boxes and he had a set of  KONI rear shocks that I was looking for to my bike. Such a perfect trade. Thanks a lot Francis!!

Girling vs Koni.

These will fit like a charm as replacement  of the shot Girlings that was on the bike. I think I´ll try to change the top spring holders between the shocks and get that slightly "rounded" look that the original shocks from Kawasaki had. I know this is a step away from what "Esso" used but tatty old Girlings just won´t cut it. Getting the originals (45014-052) seems to be impossible.... Or do YOU have a set??

Changing top spring holders?

This is one of the major problems solved... Nice!

Time for a little fettling with some small parts on the bench! Let´s have a look at that front brake cable....

Needs a bit of cleaning?!

The cables look OK, just needs some TLC, greasing and cleaning, to work fine. The "splitter" above is another story. Full of dirt and saw dust (?) it had to be taken apart and cleaned more seriously. It is also obvious that someone, someday, have been working on this. The fasteners are not the original "pan head" screws from Kawasaki, but some nice "flat screw driver" screws from any machine shop in Sweden 1971... And I like it! It would have been easy to fit the correct screws from my stock but I will keep these oddballs in the interest of authenticity and in honor of the men working to keep it racing back in  the day!

*** EDIT! My Canadian friend Aaron and Janne W. here in Stockholm have confirmed that their bikes also have these screws on the brake splitter... Seems like they are original after all! END EDIT***

Rust.....

As you can see here, the internals of the "brake balancer" was seriously corroded and rusty. these parts had to soak in penetrating oil over night before they would come apart.

That is one of the perks with having your own garage in the house. Just leave it and get back up to the family in one minute...

Watching TV or having dinner I was thinking about these parts. Didn´t I buy something like this many years ago for another project? I was working on a set of front 4LS brakes from an old Suzuki GT750 1972 and tried to solve the problem with having two cables from the wheel become one at the handlebar... Now, where did that little thing go?

Found it!

Yes! I remember buying this little gem from England. It is a copy of the same part for a Yamaha TZ350 with dual front drum brake. The parts are almost identical. Same outer measurements, the only difference is the hole diameter for the brake cables "bosses" or lugs. These are larger on the Yamaha part. An easy fix if you´re going to build your cables. I´m not, so the Yamaha part goes back in the box...

Ok, the evening after the cleaning continued... I treated the cables with 5-56 (penetrating oil) and let them soak in ordinary lubricating oil for a while. That smoothed out everything. working as new! It´s great to be able to reuse what´s already on the bike. This is especially true since finding parts are more or less impossible... Below is a picture of the lower end of the cables. Just needed a good clean and lubrication to be OK. Note the cotter pins that allows you to safely turn the adjusters without turning the cables or separating the cable sheaths from the adjusters? Never seen that on the street bikes.

bottom ends of the cables.

A couple of hour worth of time and the front brake cable was ready to install... In all its glory with the "wrong" fasteners and a bit of scratched plastic etc, etc. Just the way i like it!

Ready to install.

I couldn´t resist polishing the housing a little bit. I need it to look nice also. Even the back side has to be presentable.

Shiny back side.

In this picture you can see I put some heat shrinking tube on to the cable sheath. There was a damage right there from rubbing against the frame or something. A couple of layers of extra protection will prevent further deterioration of the cable. An addition in the name of functionality.

A couple of nights work on old stuff finally rendered me a fully usable front brake cable!

Old, but fully usable!

I finally received the front fork inner tubes from Germany. The seller on eBay made a mistake and sold me a set without having them in stock at the time. Not very good, but I got them later at a very nice price as compensation. The power of feedback is enormous when you buy or sell on eBay! Be very polite and never threaten to post negative. You don´t have to! Every seller knows what negative feedback does to your business...

The story behind this purchase is a tip from Malcolm in Britain stating that the front fork inner tubes from a Yamaha RD250 1973-75-ish would be close enough to re-manufacture to fit the H1R. He couldn´t be more specific but I´m no coward when it comes to shopping! So I got a set just to find out. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? Worst case scenario would have me with a pair of Yamaha RD front fork stanchions for sale... No big deal!

The tubes are from the Italian maker TNK and look awesome! Count on approx 300 euros for a set.

Italian qulity!

 OK, now it´s time to see if this will work or not... You can see my scribblings behind the boxes. That is my measurements from the original tubes.

Too bad I can´t compare directly because I left the originals for grinding the other day. I had a few options when it came to restoring the stock tubes and finally decided to go local. No shipping to England, No hydraulic firm in Skellefteå. I´m using local firms here in Stockholm. The grinding/polishing will be done by B.L Slipteknik in Jordbro, Stockholm, and the hard chrome will be supplied by Fintlings in Solna. That process is in full swing!

Back to the re-manufacturing of copies...

Will this work out?

The TNK tube is ca 5 mm longer than the stock tube. I don´t see that as a problem at all! A 5mm extra washer inside will take up any potential spring slack or I will have them cut to the exact length. What´s more important is the internal design. Will the hydraulic damper unit fit inside the tube?
Will the top bolts fit inside the tube at the top? Thread the same?

The latter questions were easily checked. They did, straight in, all the way in and fit perfectly!

Before I bought the set I looked all over the internet in search of measurements and found what I needed. The outer diameter is the same, 34 mm. The inner is also the same, 26 mm. The surface and quality of the inner surface was the reason I could´t find someone that could make the tubes from scratch. The inner side of front fork stanchions are highly polished to seal together with the damper. These looked and measured OK! I measured the stock tubes thoroughly and made the drawing you can see above the tubes. Everything looked fine. Why not just try it...??

Front fork internals.

These hydraulic dampers sit inside the tubes. The left aluminium parts with the slightly smaller diameter fits inside the 26mm polished tube and the slightly larger diameter washers and aluminium and steel oil dampers sit lower inside the tube in a milled area furthest down, locked in place by a circlip. The size (lenght) of the milled area and the circlip groove size are critical....


In this picture you can see what I´m mumbling on about...

Inside of lower fork tube.

The diameter and length of the milled area seems to be OK, as does the circlip groove. The only thing I can see down here that might pose a problem is the shape of the lower end of the tube. The originals have a more "rounded" shape at the bottom. I think that´s an easy fix if the rest is solved. Let´s see!

Fits right in!

Heureka! That fits like a charm! Absolutely no machining required on the inside of these tubes, that is for sure. The circlip fits tight and snug and the length/diameter of the milled area seems perfect. I´ll double check all of this when I get the original tubes back. Seems like I have confirmed this to be true! RD250 1975 inner tubes takes Kawasaki H1R inner hydraulic parts straight in! I will still have to get the outside of the tubes milled in the top, outer section. Remember the tubes are smaller in diameter at the top yoke? 32 mm there compared to 34 mm at the lower triple tree. That´s going to be an easy fix for any mechanical workshop. I´ll do that when I have the originals ready to use as master.

Fun as it is writing and fixing with this bike I have other obligations... Work takes its toll these days. New challenges and courses I have to attend to, has me trapped with manuals, procedures and checklists to go through. An hour here and there in the garage or by the computer posting stuff here makes life a lot easier and much more fun!

The next post will be preparing the frame for media blasting and paint...

Stay tuned!

/Per