A tale of two triples
Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 5:22 pm
This is a bit long winded but I'm a writer so you'll have to cut me some slack. It's a good yarn if nothing else:
It was 1974. I was 16 and had pulled up at a set of lights on my Fizzie. As I sat there with to its little two stroke engine burbling away underneath me I was well chuffed. I’d actually made it go right to get on the road - legally! From the tender age of thirteen, me and my mates had been hacking around the local cowfield on much bigger and more powerful bikes than this little tin pot. We started off on Bantams. They were ten a penny in those days and it was a good thing too because we kept seizing them up, most likely because one ever told us that you had to put oil in the petrol. From those little smokers we progressed to an AJS 500 which we picked up for a fiver from some old boy who lived down the road. Stripped to the bone, that old thumper gave us hours of enjoyment - till the conrod snapped that is. That went to the scrap heap. Next up was a 350 Trumpet which we found dumped in the bushes next to my house. (If only something like that would happen today eh!) Somehow, we figured out how to get it running but soon tired of just hacking it round the fields. It was my best mate Gary (nicknamed Gooz) who came up with the illustrious idea of venturing out onto the roads. However, we knew we’d have to get it roadworthy first, so that’s what we did – well, as far as we were concerned anyway. The lights didn’t work, nor did the horn, and the tires were a bit worse for wear but little details like that weren’t going to deter us. It was dangerous, exciting and bloody stupid but we were fifteen years old and it was 1973 and there wasn’t much else to do. We kept to the B Roads where there wasn’t much traffic. That didn’t last long though – the big roads beckoned and sure enough, just our luck, the local plod spotted us thrashing it down the A 21 at over 80mph, which was pretty much flat out for that old twin pot junker, and we were nicked. The local magistrate took a dim view of our antics and banned us from driving for 6 months. Neither of us were even old enough to have a driving licence so we were a bit confused as to how that worked. Then we were told that the ban would start on our 16th birthdays. Oh no! That meant we wouldn’t be able to get a moped like all our mates would. I almost cried. That also put paid to any more hacking round the fields on motorbikes too. My Mum confiscated the old Triumph and sold it to a scrap dealer and me and Gooz were relegated to pushbikes for the next few months.
My sixteenth birthday came and went. The months rolled by very slowly after that. As my “driving ban” entered its final month and the big day neared I was gagging to get on the road and I yearned for a Fizzie. I’d been doing some window cleaning and had save up some money. Three weeks before I was eligible to receive my provisional licence I came upon a used one going for £60. I only had £40 so I pestered my Mum till she gave in and loaned me the rest. On my first ride out on the road, all taxed, insured and best of all replete with my coveted provisional drivers licence tucked away in my lapel pocket, I had a grin so wide you could've slipped a double decker bus through it. That very same day, I was sitting there at a set of lights when I spied a dude at the other intersection on a spanking new Kawasaki triple. It was brand spanking new and its chrome twinkled and glistened, while it's engine smoked and burbled. What an awesome machine I thought. Then he clicked it into first gear and took off and man and bike disappeared into the dusk at an extremely rapid rate. I think it was a 750 but can’t be sure but I clearly remember it was very exotic and VERY fast and I wanted one!
Well, time went by. The Fizzie survived (just) and on my 17th birthday I spent all my hard earned savings on a Yamaha YCS3. It was an extremely clean and tidy two stroke twin and a steal at just under £200. Unfortunately it turned out to be a gutless pig and although my Dad had advised me not to buy it I didn’t listen to him. I eventually took it to a local Yamaha dealer who frowned, shook his head and informed me that the crank seals had blown. Worst of all it was going to cost £200 to fix it. Almost in tears I accepted scrap money for it. Sod two strokes I thought. What’s a crank seal when it’s at home anyway? My next bike was a Triumph TR25W and it took me all of two weeks to blow the big end out of that. I just wasn’t having much luck with these darned road bikes. Undeterred, I took my test but I had to borrow my mates 250 Suzuki to do it on cos I didn’t have a bike of my own. What a revelation that bike was. It was such a blast that I nearly missed my appointment with the tester because I went the long way round. I passed the test and went for an even longer way round run home. It was such fun I didn’t want to give it back. Two strokes were again back in favour, so what did I do? I bought an MZ 250 – one of those monstrosities with the headlight/tank setup that looked like a cross between a massive timing light and a great white shark. It was also a non-runner but I was virtually broke and it was a clean looking machine and he only wanted fifteen quid for it. It was also butt ugly but it would have to do. I never did get it running though and eventually sold it for scrap. Back to four strokes again and a second hand Triumph TR6 became my next victim. When it ran properly it was a blast but somehow the sump plug wriggled loose while I was thrashing it down the M25 on Christmas Eve and that was the end of that. After that a bought a nice Norton Commando Roadster and then a Harley, a Honda 400 four, and so on and so on. However, I still hadn’t even got my leg over a Kawasaki triple, let alone ride one.
Time marched on. I got married, had kids, and basically dropped out of biking for several years. It was a Yamaha Tenere, the big bulbous blue Dakar rally thingy that got me back onto two wheels again, then after that a TDM 850 for getting to and from work. I still liked the idea of tinkering with old classics though and went through a progression of them; a rusted out Triumph Bonneville, GT125 & 185, even an old Fizzie! All good fun and believe it or not I actually made a profit on each bike when I sold ‘em on. Still no Kawasaki triple though. Then Gumtree came up with what I’d been looking for, well almost. It was a KH 250 in bits and not a million miles from where I lived. I was down there like a shot and paid £1,100 quid for it. A bit risky I thought but then again it was mostly all there, albeit in an assortment of boxes. “I know how much these things are worth mate, so this is a good deal,” the guy informed me. I had no inkling of “what they were worth”. I was more interested in simply getting my hands on my very first kawa two stroke triple and here it was in all its dismembered glory, so I parted with the cash and stuffed the whole lot, frame, wheels and boxes of bits into the back of my Jeep.
Eventually, I pieced it all together and even resprayed it lime green in my back garden using aerosols bought from RS paints. When it was finished I thought it looked pretty damn good. The engine was virtually complete when I bought it and after fitting the carbs and exhausts to my utter amazement it fired right up. After a bit of fettling with the points (actually a LOT of fettling) it ran fine. What a luvly little machine that was. I intended to keep it but after one rideout where I rang its neck I came back without the side panel. I was really miffed. I’d painted that all on my little own-some. Anyway, I thought I’d post an ad to “see what it was worth” It didn’t take long before some eager chappy came round and gave me just under three grand for it. Wow, what a result! These old triples really were actually worth a bit! Bolstered by this turn of events I was now (in my mind) a Kawasaki Triples expert and on the lookout for another.
Eventually, a 1970 Kawasaki H1 500 Mach 111 came to my attention, again via Gumtree. I wasn’t even aware that they made them that long ago. It was incomplete and a non-runner and the guy advertising it, a dealer near Brighton called Neil, promoted it as “the holy grail of H1’s” and it piqued my interest. The pictures didn’t portray it that way though. It looked in a sorry old state. Nevertheless, it WAS definitely a big Kawa triple so I had to at least go and take a look. Now of course, me being an “expert” I knew all about Kawa triples, didn’t I. After all, I’d successfully rebuilt a KH250 from boxes of bits. How could this be any different? Not only that, this was an H1, a MACH 111 500 no less, and these were very rare and sought after i was told. Hmmm, interesting. I did a quick perusal of the internet and to my amazement found that these particular bikes were being advertised for as much as £15K! Holy Schmoly! This was my chance to finally own a bike I’d hankered after since I was sixteen AND potentially make a fortune in the process. With that in the back of my mind and after a bit of haggling I did the deal and snapped it up for what Neil the dealer said was “a paltry £2,500". He was also quick to mention that it had "quite a few hard-to-find parts on it." I couldn't really see what he was on about. It didn't appear to have many parts at all but I humoured him anyway. “The wheel rims are fairly clean and the clocks too. I think the tank is from a later model though.” he added. No problem I thought. I’ll have this baby put together, running and on the road in no time. I even persuaded him to deliver it for me! If these bikes were going for fifteen grand in good nick, even if I spent as much as £2,500 on it I’d still make at least 10K profit. The engine looked like it only needed a few parts to get it running. They couldn't be that hard to find. (It all seemed too easy. Was this guy stupid or something?) Ok, it had a blue petrol tank when it should be red but that shouldn’t be too hard to resolve. How little I actually knew! In fact it was VERY incomplete and most of the missing parts were nigh on impossible to find (well they were for a novice, erm, I mean “expert” like me). For starters, it had no airbox or manifold, only one carb, no ignition stator or distributor, no outer engine cases, the seat was knackered, the cables were frayed and black – they should be grey, the handlebars were the wrong type, the front forks and rear shocks were rusty. The swinging arm was moving okay, only it was swinging from side to side as well as up and down. The headlight was off a later model. It had no indicators and there many other things that were missing or incorrect for this particular bike. It was only when I started looking for the missing parts online that I soon realised what I was up against. Pretty much everything I needed, IF I could even find it, cost an arm and a leg and hardly anything was available in the UK. Virtually everything was in the States. The list of impossible to find parts began to grow exponentially and I was beginning to feel a bit queasy. When I phoned Simon at Tripleparts and gave him my wish list his response unnerved me a bit. “You’re after what everybody else is after, he chuckled. Might be a bit of a struggle.” Undaunted I continued scouring Ebay to the point of obsession and began to make a little progress but after a month or so the costs were escalating. it was when I realised that the correct petrol tank for this model was not only nigh on impossible to find but that it would set me back £400 or more for a dented rusty item, plus shipping and customs charges, that it finally hit home. This was going to be a mission and a bloody expensive one at that. If I was lucky I might get my money back. But only IF I was lucky!
So what did I do? I went and bought another one! This time it was white 1969 H1 located about a hundred miles away from me. In the advert the pictures showed it to be pretty much all there save a few bits and pieces. It was also a runner and apparently roadworthy. To me, that meant the engine was in good condition and wouldn’t need anything doing to it. Well, that’s what I thought anyway. The seller, a guy called Simon, was asking £5,000 for it. My wife said I was mad but I “knew” I’d struck gold, after all, these early H1’s were very sought after and valuable. After a bit of spit and polish I’d easy make fifteen grand on this one, so I phoned the guy up and asked a few questions and all seemed well. “I’ll ride it back home,” I said (after all, if I was paying 5 big ones for a bike it HAD to be rideable – didn’t it?). There was a brief silence after I uttered those words. “Well you can try if you like,” he replied, but something in his voice told me that might not be a good idea. “I tell you what, I’ll come and pick it up in a van instead,” I suggested. “Good idea,” he hastily agreed. When I got there I have to admit I didn’t really look too closely at it. I was just glad the tank had those scallops on the side! It was a bit grubby but it appeared to be a complete bike, at least to me it did. “Starts first kick” he exclaimed. And true to his word when he kicked it over it burst into life. I’d never actually heard an H1 running before and that raucous crackle and clouds of noxious blue smoke emitting from the three exhausts had me spellbound. “I’ll take it,” I said.
I was grinning all the way back home in the van but when I started stripping it down I realized that I might have just jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. The tinware had been painted with what appeared to be Dulux gloss paint and the fuel tank was so rusty inside that the petrol slushing around inside it resembled strong coffee. There were lumps of brown crud floating around in it too. It was more like a cesspit than a fuel tank. How this engine ever ran at all with all that brown muck in there was anyone’s guess. Then again, it had inline filters on the fuel lines; maybe that’s how? Draining the mud, I filled the tank to the brim with Vinegar and left it for a week. After a blast through with my pressure washer it came up fairly clean. Result! Then I started dissecting the engine. After removing the outer engine covers I discovered that the ignition system had been pretty much glued and taped together. It was also caked in muck and rusty as hell. The distributor was in similar condition with the HT leads held into the cap with bathroom silicon because the small screws that are supposed to secure the copper wire in were rusted in and wouldn’t budge. How this engine had managed to produce a spark at all was another mystery that I just couldn’t fathom. The frame and wheels were just as bad. The front brake hub had several chips out of it where someone had at one time tried to crowbar it off. The front wheel bearings were seized, the front brake lining had come off the shoe, the swing arm was sloshing around in some kind of plastic goo, the shocks were shot and the forks leaked like a sieve, the headlight bulb had been plastic welded into the back of the rusty lens, the rear brake hardly worked at all. And to think I was going to ride this hunk of junk home! I’d probably have gotten no further than the end of his street – if that! No wonder he sounded relieved when I said I’d pick it up in a van.
Because the engine actually ran when I bought it I figured the main internals must be okay so I didn’t strip it any further. Instead, I removed it from the frame, cleaned it up and left it on the bench. Then I sat back and took stock of the situation. Here I was now several thousand pounds worse off and the only thing I had to show for it were two very incomplete Jap junkers in bits. My wife told me I was mad – yet again, and to be honest I was starting to think the same thing. However, I wasn’t going to let a few minor setbacks like this get the better of me, after all, I was a triples “expert” and so the long and arduous haul to restore them began in earnest.
The list of NOS & OEM parts I bought to carry out the restoration of these two bikes fills three pages. By the time I’d pulled both bikes apart there were so many unfamiliar parts scattered around that even the shed poltergeist (that mystic entity who secretly moves things you put down so you don’t know where they are) must have been getting confused. My first ray of sunshine was when I found a company in Canada called Diablo Cycle who appeared to have most of the parts I needed in stock and as luck would have it my wife and I were about to visit my sister in Toronto. Diablo Cycle was situated in London, Ontario, only 100 km away from where my sister lived! So instead of ordering them online, then getting shafted by Customs for another several hundred quid when they arrived in the UK I’d be able to go there and pick them up. And that’s exactly what I did. Andre, the proprietor was a nice little guy and very helpful. He found it intriguing that I’d come all the way from London England to London Ontario to buy Kawasaki parts from him so he gave me a nice discount. After parting with a handful of Canadian dollars I filled a whole suitcase with parts. Me and the missus then had a great holiday in Canada and returned home with great memories and a suitcase full of bike bits. Things were looking up.
The next right move I made was signing up for membership in the Kawasaki Triples Club. There I found solace with other poor souls who, like myself, all seemed to have contracted this strange triples disease and were either long or short term addicts. (You know, there is actually a medical malady called Kawasaki Disease. It has nothing to do with motorbikes in any way shape or form, but it should.) I learned a great deal from the forums and came into contact with some very useful and helpful people, amongst them Gary Clarke, the crank king; Tangoman, the carb maestro, Dave Howard, the hard-to-find parts finder, and many others who offer invaluable services and helped to steer me in the right direction. It was via the club that I came upon the Triples resources website, a vital conglomeration of incredibly useful data for anyone attempting to restore old Kwackers. Don’t forget, I was still a real novice at this stuff despite my self-proclaimed “expert” status. In truth I was floundering around in the dark, doing things arse about face and deep down I knew it, but slowly, albeit unsurely, I felt like I was now getting somewhere.
After splitting the engine of the 1970 bike I got the crank restored by Gary and the carbs restored by Tangoman. With Gary mentoring me via Whats-App I managed to put it all back together without breaking anything. Even the kickstart spring went in without drama. I still hadn’t worked out how I was going to get a spark though. There was no ignition system to speak of on either of the bikes. Trying to source original rotors, stators, distributors et-al on the internet was a soulless and frightening endeavour. I was beginning to panic. But then I found a company in Germany called Powerdynamo who had just what I was looking for; a simple two part rotor/stator that bolted straight on and eliminated the need for the original rotor, stator, CDI boxes, regulator, rectifier stuff. It was also reasonably priced - £340 delivered. It only took a couple of hours to install it and now at last one of the bikes was ready for its first start up. Bringing it out into the light I was a bit nervous as I primed the carbs and flicked the ignition switch on. This was it, do or die, but after three prods of the kickstart the beast roared into life. I quickly primed the oil pump then stood back to listen to that mean growling engine ticking over. I was a happy chappie indeed. I nearly asphixiated myself and everyone else in the house with the plumes of blue smoke but I was too preoccupied fiddling with the engine to notice that. After a couple of road tests and quite a bit of adjusting and fettling I was satisfied it wasn’t going to blow up on me.
I then started working on the ’69 bike. I’d already pretty much finished restoring the wheels and frame so all I had to do now was reinstall the engine, fit a Powerdynamo and she’d be ready to go. To my utter delight it fired up on the second kick. On its first road test it seemed to run fine but then the right cylinder head gasket blew. No problem I thought; simply fit a new head gasket and we’re all good again. (Remember, this was the bike that was running and “roadworthy” when I bought it) Unfortunately it wasn't that easy. The head was a pig to get off and when I did part it from the cylinder I found that the studs were caked in rust. The liner was scored too so I figured I’d better have a look at the whole top end. I got the other two heads and cylinders off okay but the right hand cylinder just wouldn’t budge no matter how hard I pulled on it. It took a lot of plus gas and some clever jimmying to prize it off those four rusty studs. With it removed I could now see the right crank flywheel which was literally sloshing around in a mixture of oil and wet rust. Oh oh! How DID this bike ever run? A couple of hours later the engine was out on the bench again and as I began dismantling it I uncovered a multitude of horrors and anomalies. The clutch cage was rattling around and about to part company with the cush drive, the pistons were scored and two of the cylinders had a strip of metal across the middle of the inlet port whilst the centre one didn’t. Very odd I thought. (I had no idea what a Bridgeport cylinder was at the time). Gary Clarke explained to me that they were rarer than hen’s teeth. To cut a longish story short, he rebuilt the crank and put the engine back together for me and it ran good.
So, it was now time to get the tinware on both these bikes painted. From what I could glean from the triples website the ’69 bike should actually be Peacock Grey but to be honest I didn’t like the look of that much. You could hardly see the decals on it. I preferred the white colour with the blue stripe. The ’70 model would be Candytone Red with a white stripe – very snazzy! Initially I considered respraying them myself. RS paints could supply the paint but not in aerosols and as I didn’t have a spray gun or compressor that put the kybosh on that. I started looking around for someone local who could do it and through a mate of a mate I found a chap just down the road from me who was apparently the “dogs bollocks” at resprays. Sounded just the ticket. He was cheap too, quoting only £270 for each bike. All I had to do was supply the decals. I couldn’t pass up an offer like that so I gave him one set to do, bought the decals from Graham at Imageworks (very nice they were too) and gave them to him. 3 months later he finally finished the white set and despite the length of time he took doing them I have to admit they looked pretty darn good to me. £270 well spent I thought. A few weeks later I took the tinware for the red bike round to him. It took him a further two months to do these ones. When they were finished they looked amazing, trouble was, they weren’t Candytone Red, they were more of a metallic purple. “That’s the wrong colour,” I said. “That’s the only red that Kawasaki lists for 1970,” he replied. “It’s the wrong bloody colour, Dale,” I repeated. The hurt look on his face and the fact that I didn’t want to wait another two or three months to have them done properly put paid to any more discussion and I took them away.
The exhaust system on both bikes proved to be a bit of a conundrum. I’d already taken one set of mufflers to get stripped and chromed but the chromer didn’t want to plate them because they weren’t in good enough condition. I searched high and low for someone who could repair them to a standard where they could be plated but drew several blanks. One company, Heritage Motor Works, said they could do it but the cost would run into several hundred pounds. In the end I bit the bullet and bought a set of brand new Doremi’s from Phil at Z Power. They cost £1,150. Ouch! But they were a beautiful piece of kit and bolted straight on. They made the bike. The red bike had the same problem but I couldn’t afford another set of Doremi’s. Fortunately, I found a set of three into one chromed Pipers for sale no more than two miles from me, care of Dave Hogan, a new triple mate I’d come into contact with. They bolted straight on and looked the bollocks. They also made the bike sound like a V12 Ferrari. Dogs and old lady's tended to bark and shake their fists at me as I passed them by. I felt like I was 15 again. I was well pleased.
Several weeks later both bikes were nearing completion and looked great but I wasn’t happy with the engine characteristics. The incredibly peaky powerband made them hard to ride. It was either not much at all - or hang on for dear life when the tacho hit 6000 rpm. Gary mentioned a guy he knew in the States called John Aylor who custom makes reed valve modifications which he said would smooth out the power delivery. Sounded like a good idea to me, so I contacted John who duly produced a set for me within 3 weeks. I decided to fit them to the ’69 bike but once I’d taken the top end off Gary told me it would be “sacrilege” to modify the Bridgeport cylinders and kindly found another set for me. Gary did the porting and piston modifications and skimmed the heads. He also supplied thicker copper base gaskets. I wrapped up the Bridgeports and tucked them away for a rainy day. Once the bike was running again the transformation was immense. The engine now had tons of low down torque and the annoying mid-range flat spots were gone. I could actually pull away out of a slow corner in fifth gear and even change UP a gear to overtake! This was now not only a tasty looking bike, it rode great too. The South of England classic bike show was coming up so I decided to enter it and to my delight it won 1st place!
I now had two nice looking early H1’s on the road but realized that I’d been at it for a whole year, spent literally hundreds of hours and a LOT of dough on them and they were still giving me problems! They both ran pretty good but the plugs kept fouling every ten miles or so – on BOTH bikes. I tried everything but just couldn’t stop the plugs coking up. I must have bought at least 30 different plugs while I was trying to figure out what was going on. I took the carbs off a couple of times but they were perfect inside. One of the fuel petcocks had gotten clogged up and fixing that made a slight difference but still didn’t fully resolve the plug fouling problem. Eventually I discovered that the Powerdynamo rotors had slipped on the tapered shafts and had radically advanced the timing. Powerdynamo’s don’t come with a slot in the rotor for the woodruff key so you have to time it and then tighten it up and hope it stays there. I guess I just didn’t tighten them up enough. Mercifully, no pistons were holed in the process. Anyway, with that sorted out the reliability factor was rising. I could actually travel twenty or more miles now without having to change a plug. However, I still couldn’t get either bike to rev past seven thou without the engines stuttering and bugging out. It was as if they had a rev limiter fitted. I was getting really irritated by this. These bikes should rev to ten thou, so what the hell was up with them? It was Pops on the forum who enlightened me as to what I was doing wrong. He advised me to ditch the NGK’s and fit Bosch plugs gapped at .045mm. I did just that and wow what a difference! Now both bikes rev freely and cleanly all the way to 10 thou, don’t foul plugs and are a joy to ride.
To cap it all off, I was upgraded in status on the Kawa Triples website forum to “expert”
I knew I’d get there one day!
Cheers guys.
It was 1974. I was 16 and had pulled up at a set of lights on my Fizzie. As I sat there with to its little two stroke engine burbling away underneath me I was well chuffed. I’d actually made it go right to get on the road - legally! From the tender age of thirteen, me and my mates had been hacking around the local cowfield on much bigger and more powerful bikes than this little tin pot. We started off on Bantams. They were ten a penny in those days and it was a good thing too because we kept seizing them up, most likely because one ever told us that you had to put oil in the petrol. From those little smokers we progressed to an AJS 500 which we picked up for a fiver from some old boy who lived down the road. Stripped to the bone, that old thumper gave us hours of enjoyment - till the conrod snapped that is. That went to the scrap heap. Next up was a 350 Trumpet which we found dumped in the bushes next to my house. (If only something like that would happen today eh!) Somehow, we figured out how to get it running but soon tired of just hacking it round the fields. It was my best mate Gary (nicknamed Gooz) who came up with the illustrious idea of venturing out onto the roads. However, we knew we’d have to get it roadworthy first, so that’s what we did – well, as far as we were concerned anyway. The lights didn’t work, nor did the horn, and the tires were a bit worse for wear but little details like that weren’t going to deter us. It was dangerous, exciting and bloody stupid but we were fifteen years old and it was 1973 and there wasn’t much else to do. We kept to the B Roads where there wasn’t much traffic. That didn’t last long though – the big roads beckoned and sure enough, just our luck, the local plod spotted us thrashing it down the A 21 at over 80mph, which was pretty much flat out for that old twin pot junker, and we were nicked. The local magistrate took a dim view of our antics and banned us from driving for 6 months. Neither of us were even old enough to have a driving licence so we were a bit confused as to how that worked. Then we were told that the ban would start on our 16th birthdays. Oh no! That meant we wouldn’t be able to get a moped like all our mates would. I almost cried. That also put paid to any more hacking round the fields on motorbikes too. My Mum confiscated the old Triumph and sold it to a scrap dealer and me and Gooz were relegated to pushbikes for the next few months.
My sixteenth birthday came and went. The months rolled by very slowly after that. As my “driving ban” entered its final month and the big day neared I was gagging to get on the road and I yearned for a Fizzie. I’d been doing some window cleaning and had save up some money. Three weeks before I was eligible to receive my provisional licence I came upon a used one going for £60. I only had £40 so I pestered my Mum till she gave in and loaned me the rest. On my first ride out on the road, all taxed, insured and best of all replete with my coveted provisional drivers licence tucked away in my lapel pocket, I had a grin so wide you could've slipped a double decker bus through it. That very same day, I was sitting there at a set of lights when I spied a dude at the other intersection on a spanking new Kawasaki triple. It was brand spanking new and its chrome twinkled and glistened, while it's engine smoked and burbled. What an awesome machine I thought. Then he clicked it into first gear and took off and man and bike disappeared into the dusk at an extremely rapid rate. I think it was a 750 but can’t be sure but I clearly remember it was very exotic and VERY fast and I wanted one!
Well, time went by. The Fizzie survived (just) and on my 17th birthday I spent all my hard earned savings on a Yamaha YCS3. It was an extremely clean and tidy two stroke twin and a steal at just under £200. Unfortunately it turned out to be a gutless pig and although my Dad had advised me not to buy it I didn’t listen to him. I eventually took it to a local Yamaha dealer who frowned, shook his head and informed me that the crank seals had blown. Worst of all it was going to cost £200 to fix it. Almost in tears I accepted scrap money for it. Sod two strokes I thought. What’s a crank seal when it’s at home anyway? My next bike was a Triumph TR25W and it took me all of two weeks to blow the big end out of that. I just wasn’t having much luck with these darned road bikes. Undeterred, I took my test but I had to borrow my mates 250 Suzuki to do it on cos I didn’t have a bike of my own. What a revelation that bike was. It was such a blast that I nearly missed my appointment with the tester because I went the long way round. I passed the test and went for an even longer way round run home. It was such fun I didn’t want to give it back. Two strokes were again back in favour, so what did I do? I bought an MZ 250 – one of those monstrosities with the headlight/tank setup that looked like a cross between a massive timing light and a great white shark. It was also a non-runner but I was virtually broke and it was a clean looking machine and he only wanted fifteen quid for it. It was also butt ugly but it would have to do. I never did get it running though and eventually sold it for scrap. Back to four strokes again and a second hand Triumph TR6 became my next victim. When it ran properly it was a blast but somehow the sump plug wriggled loose while I was thrashing it down the M25 on Christmas Eve and that was the end of that. After that a bought a nice Norton Commando Roadster and then a Harley, a Honda 400 four, and so on and so on. However, I still hadn’t even got my leg over a Kawasaki triple, let alone ride one.
Time marched on. I got married, had kids, and basically dropped out of biking for several years. It was a Yamaha Tenere, the big bulbous blue Dakar rally thingy that got me back onto two wheels again, then after that a TDM 850 for getting to and from work. I still liked the idea of tinkering with old classics though and went through a progression of them; a rusted out Triumph Bonneville, GT125 & 185, even an old Fizzie! All good fun and believe it or not I actually made a profit on each bike when I sold ‘em on. Still no Kawasaki triple though. Then Gumtree came up with what I’d been looking for, well almost. It was a KH 250 in bits and not a million miles from where I lived. I was down there like a shot and paid £1,100 quid for it. A bit risky I thought but then again it was mostly all there, albeit in an assortment of boxes. “I know how much these things are worth mate, so this is a good deal,” the guy informed me. I had no inkling of “what they were worth”. I was more interested in simply getting my hands on my very first kawa two stroke triple and here it was in all its dismembered glory, so I parted with the cash and stuffed the whole lot, frame, wheels and boxes of bits into the back of my Jeep.
Eventually, I pieced it all together and even resprayed it lime green in my back garden using aerosols bought from RS paints. When it was finished I thought it looked pretty damn good. The engine was virtually complete when I bought it and after fitting the carbs and exhausts to my utter amazement it fired right up. After a bit of fettling with the points (actually a LOT of fettling) it ran fine. What a luvly little machine that was. I intended to keep it but after one rideout where I rang its neck I came back without the side panel. I was really miffed. I’d painted that all on my little own-some. Anyway, I thought I’d post an ad to “see what it was worth” It didn’t take long before some eager chappy came round and gave me just under three grand for it. Wow, what a result! These old triples really were actually worth a bit! Bolstered by this turn of events I was now (in my mind) a Kawasaki Triples expert and on the lookout for another.
Eventually, a 1970 Kawasaki H1 500 Mach 111 came to my attention, again via Gumtree. I wasn’t even aware that they made them that long ago. It was incomplete and a non-runner and the guy advertising it, a dealer near Brighton called Neil, promoted it as “the holy grail of H1’s” and it piqued my interest. The pictures didn’t portray it that way though. It looked in a sorry old state. Nevertheless, it WAS definitely a big Kawa triple so I had to at least go and take a look. Now of course, me being an “expert” I knew all about Kawa triples, didn’t I. After all, I’d successfully rebuilt a KH250 from boxes of bits. How could this be any different? Not only that, this was an H1, a MACH 111 500 no less, and these were very rare and sought after i was told. Hmmm, interesting. I did a quick perusal of the internet and to my amazement found that these particular bikes were being advertised for as much as £15K! Holy Schmoly! This was my chance to finally own a bike I’d hankered after since I was sixteen AND potentially make a fortune in the process. With that in the back of my mind and after a bit of haggling I did the deal and snapped it up for what Neil the dealer said was “a paltry £2,500". He was also quick to mention that it had "quite a few hard-to-find parts on it." I couldn't really see what he was on about. It didn't appear to have many parts at all but I humoured him anyway. “The wheel rims are fairly clean and the clocks too. I think the tank is from a later model though.” he added. No problem I thought. I’ll have this baby put together, running and on the road in no time. I even persuaded him to deliver it for me! If these bikes were going for fifteen grand in good nick, even if I spent as much as £2,500 on it I’d still make at least 10K profit. The engine looked like it only needed a few parts to get it running. They couldn't be that hard to find. (It all seemed too easy. Was this guy stupid or something?) Ok, it had a blue petrol tank when it should be red but that shouldn’t be too hard to resolve. How little I actually knew! In fact it was VERY incomplete and most of the missing parts were nigh on impossible to find (well they were for a novice, erm, I mean “expert” like me). For starters, it had no airbox or manifold, only one carb, no ignition stator or distributor, no outer engine cases, the seat was knackered, the cables were frayed and black – they should be grey, the handlebars were the wrong type, the front forks and rear shocks were rusty. The swinging arm was moving okay, only it was swinging from side to side as well as up and down. The headlight was off a later model. It had no indicators and there many other things that were missing or incorrect for this particular bike. It was only when I started looking for the missing parts online that I soon realised what I was up against. Pretty much everything I needed, IF I could even find it, cost an arm and a leg and hardly anything was available in the UK. Virtually everything was in the States. The list of impossible to find parts began to grow exponentially and I was beginning to feel a bit queasy. When I phoned Simon at Tripleparts and gave him my wish list his response unnerved me a bit. “You’re after what everybody else is after, he chuckled. Might be a bit of a struggle.” Undaunted I continued scouring Ebay to the point of obsession and began to make a little progress but after a month or so the costs were escalating. it was when I realised that the correct petrol tank for this model was not only nigh on impossible to find but that it would set me back £400 or more for a dented rusty item, plus shipping and customs charges, that it finally hit home. This was going to be a mission and a bloody expensive one at that. If I was lucky I might get my money back. But only IF I was lucky!
So what did I do? I went and bought another one! This time it was white 1969 H1 located about a hundred miles away from me. In the advert the pictures showed it to be pretty much all there save a few bits and pieces. It was also a runner and apparently roadworthy. To me, that meant the engine was in good condition and wouldn’t need anything doing to it. Well, that’s what I thought anyway. The seller, a guy called Simon, was asking £5,000 for it. My wife said I was mad but I “knew” I’d struck gold, after all, these early H1’s were very sought after and valuable. After a bit of spit and polish I’d easy make fifteen grand on this one, so I phoned the guy up and asked a few questions and all seemed well. “I’ll ride it back home,” I said (after all, if I was paying 5 big ones for a bike it HAD to be rideable – didn’t it?). There was a brief silence after I uttered those words. “Well you can try if you like,” he replied, but something in his voice told me that might not be a good idea. “I tell you what, I’ll come and pick it up in a van instead,” I suggested. “Good idea,” he hastily agreed. When I got there I have to admit I didn’t really look too closely at it. I was just glad the tank had those scallops on the side! It was a bit grubby but it appeared to be a complete bike, at least to me it did. “Starts first kick” he exclaimed. And true to his word when he kicked it over it burst into life. I’d never actually heard an H1 running before and that raucous crackle and clouds of noxious blue smoke emitting from the three exhausts had me spellbound. “I’ll take it,” I said.
I was grinning all the way back home in the van but when I started stripping it down I realized that I might have just jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. The tinware had been painted with what appeared to be Dulux gloss paint and the fuel tank was so rusty inside that the petrol slushing around inside it resembled strong coffee. There were lumps of brown crud floating around in it too. It was more like a cesspit than a fuel tank. How this engine ever ran at all with all that brown muck in there was anyone’s guess. Then again, it had inline filters on the fuel lines; maybe that’s how? Draining the mud, I filled the tank to the brim with Vinegar and left it for a week. After a blast through with my pressure washer it came up fairly clean. Result! Then I started dissecting the engine. After removing the outer engine covers I discovered that the ignition system had been pretty much glued and taped together. It was also caked in muck and rusty as hell. The distributor was in similar condition with the HT leads held into the cap with bathroom silicon because the small screws that are supposed to secure the copper wire in were rusted in and wouldn’t budge. How this engine had managed to produce a spark at all was another mystery that I just couldn’t fathom. The frame and wheels were just as bad. The front brake hub had several chips out of it where someone had at one time tried to crowbar it off. The front wheel bearings were seized, the front brake lining had come off the shoe, the swing arm was sloshing around in some kind of plastic goo, the shocks were shot and the forks leaked like a sieve, the headlight bulb had been plastic welded into the back of the rusty lens, the rear brake hardly worked at all. And to think I was going to ride this hunk of junk home! I’d probably have gotten no further than the end of his street – if that! No wonder he sounded relieved when I said I’d pick it up in a van.
Because the engine actually ran when I bought it I figured the main internals must be okay so I didn’t strip it any further. Instead, I removed it from the frame, cleaned it up and left it on the bench. Then I sat back and took stock of the situation. Here I was now several thousand pounds worse off and the only thing I had to show for it were two very incomplete Jap junkers in bits. My wife told me I was mad – yet again, and to be honest I was starting to think the same thing. However, I wasn’t going to let a few minor setbacks like this get the better of me, after all, I was a triples “expert” and so the long and arduous haul to restore them began in earnest.
The list of NOS & OEM parts I bought to carry out the restoration of these two bikes fills three pages. By the time I’d pulled both bikes apart there were so many unfamiliar parts scattered around that even the shed poltergeist (that mystic entity who secretly moves things you put down so you don’t know where they are) must have been getting confused. My first ray of sunshine was when I found a company in Canada called Diablo Cycle who appeared to have most of the parts I needed in stock and as luck would have it my wife and I were about to visit my sister in Toronto. Diablo Cycle was situated in London, Ontario, only 100 km away from where my sister lived! So instead of ordering them online, then getting shafted by Customs for another several hundred quid when they arrived in the UK I’d be able to go there and pick them up. And that’s exactly what I did. Andre, the proprietor was a nice little guy and very helpful. He found it intriguing that I’d come all the way from London England to London Ontario to buy Kawasaki parts from him so he gave me a nice discount. After parting with a handful of Canadian dollars I filled a whole suitcase with parts. Me and the missus then had a great holiday in Canada and returned home with great memories and a suitcase full of bike bits. Things were looking up.
The next right move I made was signing up for membership in the Kawasaki Triples Club. There I found solace with other poor souls who, like myself, all seemed to have contracted this strange triples disease and were either long or short term addicts. (You know, there is actually a medical malady called Kawasaki Disease. It has nothing to do with motorbikes in any way shape or form, but it should.) I learned a great deal from the forums and came into contact with some very useful and helpful people, amongst them Gary Clarke, the crank king; Tangoman, the carb maestro, Dave Howard, the hard-to-find parts finder, and many others who offer invaluable services and helped to steer me in the right direction. It was via the club that I came upon the Triples resources website, a vital conglomeration of incredibly useful data for anyone attempting to restore old Kwackers. Don’t forget, I was still a real novice at this stuff despite my self-proclaimed “expert” status. In truth I was floundering around in the dark, doing things arse about face and deep down I knew it, but slowly, albeit unsurely, I felt like I was now getting somewhere.
After splitting the engine of the 1970 bike I got the crank restored by Gary and the carbs restored by Tangoman. With Gary mentoring me via Whats-App I managed to put it all back together without breaking anything. Even the kickstart spring went in without drama. I still hadn’t worked out how I was going to get a spark though. There was no ignition system to speak of on either of the bikes. Trying to source original rotors, stators, distributors et-al on the internet was a soulless and frightening endeavour. I was beginning to panic. But then I found a company in Germany called Powerdynamo who had just what I was looking for; a simple two part rotor/stator that bolted straight on and eliminated the need for the original rotor, stator, CDI boxes, regulator, rectifier stuff. It was also reasonably priced - £340 delivered. It only took a couple of hours to install it and now at last one of the bikes was ready for its first start up. Bringing it out into the light I was a bit nervous as I primed the carbs and flicked the ignition switch on. This was it, do or die, but after three prods of the kickstart the beast roared into life. I quickly primed the oil pump then stood back to listen to that mean growling engine ticking over. I was a happy chappie indeed. I nearly asphixiated myself and everyone else in the house with the plumes of blue smoke but I was too preoccupied fiddling with the engine to notice that. After a couple of road tests and quite a bit of adjusting and fettling I was satisfied it wasn’t going to blow up on me.
I then started working on the ’69 bike. I’d already pretty much finished restoring the wheels and frame so all I had to do now was reinstall the engine, fit a Powerdynamo and she’d be ready to go. To my utter delight it fired up on the second kick. On its first road test it seemed to run fine but then the right cylinder head gasket blew. No problem I thought; simply fit a new head gasket and we’re all good again. (Remember, this was the bike that was running and “roadworthy” when I bought it) Unfortunately it wasn't that easy. The head was a pig to get off and when I did part it from the cylinder I found that the studs were caked in rust. The liner was scored too so I figured I’d better have a look at the whole top end. I got the other two heads and cylinders off okay but the right hand cylinder just wouldn’t budge no matter how hard I pulled on it. It took a lot of plus gas and some clever jimmying to prize it off those four rusty studs. With it removed I could now see the right crank flywheel which was literally sloshing around in a mixture of oil and wet rust. Oh oh! How DID this bike ever run? A couple of hours later the engine was out on the bench again and as I began dismantling it I uncovered a multitude of horrors and anomalies. The clutch cage was rattling around and about to part company with the cush drive, the pistons were scored and two of the cylinders had a strip of metal across the middle of the inlet port whilst the centre one didn’t. Very odd I thought. (I had no idea what a Bridgeport cylinder was at the time). Gary Clarke explained to me that they were rarer than hen’s teeth. To cut a longish story short, he rebuilt the crank and put the engine back together for me and it ran good.
So, it was now time to get the tinware on both these bikes painted. From what I could glean from the triples website the ’69 bike should actually be Peacock Grey but to be honest I didn’t like the look of that much. You could hardly see the decals on it. I preferred the white colour with the blue stripe. The ’70 model would be Candytone Red with a white stripe – very snazzy! Initially I considered respraying them myself. RS paints could supply the paint but not in aerosols and as I didn’t have a spray gun or compressor that put the kybosh on that. I started looking around for someone local who could do it and through a mate of a mate I found a chap just down the road from me who was apparently the “dogs bollocks” at resprays. Sounded just the ticket. He was cheap too, quoting only £270 for each bike. All I had to do was supply the decals. I couldn’t pass up an offer like that so I gave him one set to do, bought the decals from Graham at Imageworks (very nice they were too) and gave them to him. 3 months later he finally finished the white set and despite the length of time he took doing them I have to admit they looked pretty darn good to me. £270 well spent I thought. A few weeks later I took the tinware for the red bike round to him. It took him a further two months to do these ones. When they were finished they looked amazing, trouble was, they weren’t Candytone Red, they were more of a metallic purple. “That’s the wrong colour,” I said. “That’s the only red that Kawasaki lists for 1970,” he replied. “It’s the wrong bloody colour, Dale,” I repeated. The hurt look on his face and the fact that I didn’t want to wait another two or three months to have them done properly put paid to any more discussion and I took them away.
The exhaust system on both bikes proved to be a bit of a conundrum. I’d already taken one set of mufflers to get stripped and chromed but the chromer didn’t want to plate them because they weren’t in good enough condition. I searched high and low for someone who could repair them to a standard where they could be plated but drew several blanks. One company, Heritage Motor Works, said they could do it but the cost would run into several hundred pounds. In the end I bit the bullet and bought a set of brand new Doremi’s from Phil at Z Power. They cost £1,150. Ouch! But they were a beautiful piece of kit and bolted straight on. They made the bike. The red bike had the same problem but I couldn’t afford another set of Doremi’s. Fortunately, I found a set of three into one chromed Pipers for sale no more than two miles from me, care of Dave Hogan, a new triple mate I’d come into contact with. They bolted straight on and looked the bollocks. They also made the bike sound like a V12 Ferrari. Dogs and old lady's tended to bark and shake their fists at me as I passed them by. I felt like I was 15 again. I was well pleased.
Several weeks later both bikes were nearing completion and looked great but I wasn’t happy with the engine characteristics. The incredibly peaky powerband made them hard to ride. It was either not much at all - or hang on for dear life when the tacho hit 6000 rpm. Gary mentioned a guy he knew in the States called John Aylor who custom makes reed valve modifications which he said would smooth out the power delivery. Sounded like a good idea to me, so I contacted John who duly produced a set for me within 3 weeks. I decided to fit them to the ’69 bike but once I’d taken the top end off Gary told me it would be “sacrilege” to modify the Bridgeport cylinders and kindly found another set for me. Gary did the porting and piston modifications and skimmed the heads. He also supplied thicker copper base gaskets. I wrapped up the Bridgeports and tucked them away for a rainy day. Once the bike was running again the transformation was immense. The engine now had tons of low down torque and the annoying mid-range flat spots were gone. I could actually pull away out of a slow corner in fifth gear and even change UP a gear to overtake! This was now not only a tasty looking bike, it rode great too. The South of England classic bike show was coming up so I decided to enter it and to my delight it won 1st place!
I now had two nice looking early H1’s on the road but realized that I’d been at it for a whole year, spent literally hundreds of hours and a LOT of dough on them and they were still giving me problems! They both ran pretty good but the plugs kept fouling every ten miles or so – on BOTH bikes. I tried everything but just couldn’t stop the plugs coking up. I must have bought at least 30 different plugs while I was trying to figure out what was going on. I took the carbs off a couple of times but they were perfect inside. One of the fuel petcocks had gotten clogged up and fixing that made a slight difference but still didn’t fully resolve the plug fouling problem. Eventually I discovered that the Powerdynamo rotors had slipped on the tapered shafts and had radically advanced the timing. Powerdynamo’s don’t come with a slot in the rotor for the woodruff key so you have to time it and then tighten it up and hope it stays there. I guess I just didn’t tighten them up enough. Mercifully, no pistons were holed in the process. Anyway, with that sorted out the reliability factor was rising. I could actually travel twenty or more miles now without having to change a plug. However, I still couldn’t get either bike to rev past seven thou without the engines stuttering and bugging out. It was as if they had a rev limiter fitted. I was getting really irritated by this. These bikes should rev to ten thou, so what the hell was up with them? It was Pops on the forum who enlightened me as to what I was doing wrong. He advised me to ditch the NGK’s and fit Bosch plugs gapped at .045mm. I did just that and wow what a difference! Now both bikes rev freely and cleanly all the way to 10 thou, don’t foul plugs and are a joy to ride.
To cap it all off, I was upgraded in status on the Kawa Triples website forum to “expert”
I knew I’d get there one day!
Cheers guys.
