More H1b’ing….

Every time I make a little progress with this bike, I always seem to get kicked back   and today has been no exception.As you can see I have made some progress, and I think it looks pretty good for my first attempt at cleaning up a triple…

 

Kawasaki H1b

 

I have spent the best part of the weekend cleaning and degreasing my new motor, and today I thought I would get the bottom end in the frame, so I pulled the top end off the motor to go for vapour blasting and polishing, only to find that there are no small end bearings in the rods, no clips in the pistons, and the crank all rusty. I should have realised that something was wrong when every screw was loose, including the oil pump.

 

72 H1b

 

So are cranks interchangeable across the H1 range, I have a later crank here that came with the bike, will that fit the earlier cases?  and are all small end bearings the same?  as I will need to find some of those. Oh well, it looks like a full engine build now as well then.

 

Kawasaki Tripple

 

Who knows, I might even get it going this year.

Kawasaki H1b again

Kawasaki H1 500

I have my H1b frame back from the painters now, and it is sitting here in my living room! just need the weather to pick up a little, and I can start rebuilding it, lots of new old stock parts are here too, that I have collected over the winter months, so should be a fun rebuild when and if I can find the time, in what is already shaping up to be a very busy year.

 

 

Kawasaki H1b

Lately I have been thinking about my 1972 H1b, and thinking of getting it put back together for the road. I have started getting parts painted, and picking up some of the harder to find bits.  One of the parts I have just bought is a set of Allspeed expansion chambers, well I think they are allspeeds, they may of course be by someone else.

Kawaski H1b 500

 

Last Kempton Jumble for 2011..

Classic Japanese

So Saturday was the last Kempton Jumble of the year, and as such was fairly busy, despite the poor weather we have had in the last few days, a cold wind and heavy showers, but the sun did force its way through for a while, which made the day enjoyable.  There was plenty to see and buy, if you had the spare money, and I am sure some did, as I saw a few bikes heading for the car park where the vans are waiting to carry the prize find home.

French Fancies

All the stalls seemed to be busy throughout the day, with many new sellers this time, and some from across the channel, with some nice French bikes.

AJS Flat Tank

So there you are, another year of Jumbles over, Christmas is just around the corner and then we can start all over again..  I did of course buy something there, I picked up a Norton 500cc single motor for my new project. More on that later.

 

 

2 B’s

Kawasaki Z1b and Kawasaki H1b…

As the refurb of the Z1b gets closer to the end, my attention is drawn to the other bike in my lock up, a European model 1972 Kawasaki H1b 500 triple. I have had this bike a while now, since early summer or late spring. And have been looking for a replacement frame, and just this week I managed to find one, so the rebuild can get started in earnest.

Z1b and H1b

There was nothing structualy wrong with the old frame, but it had wrong frame number stamped on, for a different year! something that happened way back in its past, and something I never picked up when buying the bike, a silly mistake to make, remember reasearch is king.

Kawasaki H1b