Although the engine was worn out, even then, wheelies were easy in first. Hopping on, I decided to impress them with my skills. Grabbing a handful of throttle, I almost fell off, then ran over my left foot as she screamed forward - I just about managed to stay on. I was quite impressed. As the owner didn’t have a licence, let alone insurance, the bike wasn’t used on the road (not often, anyway) and it soon started to look like a rat bike.
He used to ride it everywhere with the lights on, but when the headlamp shell collapsed, shorting out the wiring, all the lights and indicators were stripped off. A few months later the bike was knackered. He couldn’t get it to fire at all. Getting astride, I fully opened the throttle and choke, eventually enabling it to struggle briefly into life before coughing, spluttering and dying altogether.
The bike was in a mess, although he had renewed the back tyre with one from a scrapyard, which was in amazingly good condition considering how he pulled on the front brake, knocked it into first then screamed the engine until the knobbly dug itself itself into the cinder and granite chippings.
Back on his pushbike now, he offered me the bike for forty pounds, one day when he was particularly low on funds. I tried for about an hour to knock him down but was unsuccessful. Thankfully, he had kept the lights, horn, indicators, etc., which pacified me a bit. Getting the bike home, finally, I began to wonder if I’d done the right thing, or had a mere sixteen year old taken me for a ride?
Back in the shed, I first stripped the engine completely to see if it was going to be worth tackling, or would I have to find a secondhand unit? Instead of oil there was this thick, sticky, smelly stuff that resembled treacle, in the gearbox. Amazingly, the gears were OK, with not one chipped or broken tooth in sight. Not so the gearbox bearings, everyone was shot and gritty, and all the oil seals were knackered.
Before stripping the box, I had, of course, taken off the head and barrel, finding the worst wear I’ve ever seen in any engine in my life. Instead of the ring having the same wear all the way round it was reduced to about five thou at one point - the ring fell in two when I tried to remove it - the other ring was already in two pieces. What a mess, I soon realised that despite the neglect, as long as I could get a new piston, the rest would be easy. I took the bearings and seals to Edmund Walker to buy similar items. Trying to save money, I took the barrel and old piston to my local engineering works.
There wasn’t a Hepolite equivalent, so it had to be a Kawasaki item at a Kawasaki price. I took the old piston to a local Kawasaki dealer who informed me he couldn’t order an oversize piston until the engineers had measured the barrel and he recommended that I give him the barrel to send off to their usual engineers who worked to very fine tolerances.
A month later the piston was there, along with the rebored barrel. The boss was out and I was served by a YTS trainee, who admitted that the rebore had actually been done by the same engineer I'd taken the barrel to in the first place! At least the guy gave me a slightly used small-end for nothing, after I’d asked if they had any in stock - the same reborers had taken too much metal off the cylinder, making it sound like piston slap or small-end wear,
I used petrol to clean up the crankcases, barrel, head, etc. Heating up the cases in the oven and cooling the bearings in the fridge, they just fell in. The big-end, for reasons that escape comprehension, was fine. I bought a tin of black spray paint meant for exhausts and manifolds,.to paint the head and barrels. Whilst waiting for the piston I hadn’t been lazy.
Once I had confirmation that a piston was available, I stripped the rest of the bike completely, even removing the swinging arm bearings which were in excellent condition. Paint stripper was used on the chassis, rust killer followed where needed. Three coats of zinc chromate were followed by three of enamel, and then two coats of varnish.
Building it slowly but surely, I didn’t miss out such things as fork seals or steering head races. New cables, a secondhand set of shocks (a bit on the soft side for my 13 stone) and exhausts that were burnt out and caustic soda’d, all helped to speed the rebuild along. When it was all back together, the bike started well but would not rev. Great dollops of oil kept flying out of the exhaust, all over the recently blacked back tyre and newly polished rim. Why?
The engine had to come out and be stripped eventually. I kept thinking about leaking oil seals or a leaking crankcase for some reason. These bikes have the carb mounted on the side of the engine inside the casing because of the rotary valve induction. With the air cleaner right under the seat the bike can be, and was, driven through water two feet deep without missing a beat.
Racking my brain for a complicated answer that was beyond me, I suddenly realised that I'd fitted the rotary valve on back to front - I soon had it running well, after putting in new oil seals in case any had been damaged in the strip. I took it gently, gradually building the work load up. It was soon apparent that the bike needed new clutch plates - all those wheelies had left them well worn.
At one time, I thought I wasn’t ever going to get any lights working. My brother, an electrician, helped me strip off and rewind the lighting coils on the stator. It was then that we found that the only wire we had handy was made out of aluminium; we carried on regardless, crimping the connections in place of solder. Because the voltage regulator was burnt out and a new one cost £36, we took off a few coils of wire from the stator to stop the bulbs blowing at speed due to voltage surge. It worked.
The old headlamp was beyond repair so I used one from a Yamaha 175, resprayed I could not tell the difference. A set of gaiters set the front end off a treat. The saddle was a rusty lump of soaking wet foam rubber and rotting plastic cover. An hour in the phone box soon convinced me that they were hard to come by. The base was almost split in half, I pop riveted the halves together then welded the crack, a seat cover was added to finish the job off. The chain and sprockets had been replaced by the previous owner, so that saved some money, but I had to buy a battery to make the horn work for the MOT.
I was finally satisfied. The bike looked good and ran well. I still don’t know why, but I tired of the bike. I hadn’t even run it in fully. I suppose I was trying for so long and working myself so hard on the project, that once it was finished it became an anti-climax - the bike having shown me all its hidden depths and secrets; there wasn’t anything else to discover. It became just another bike to me, I suppose.
Parts had cost me just under the two hundred mark, including the purchase price and all the legalities to put it on the road. I can’t now believe my slight relief at finally selling it for a hundred and eighty pounds.
David Dale