Kawi2strokes.com Forum

Today I fired up my H2B for the first time. It's been a couple of years in the making, being that I started this as a Covid project. I couldn't find a bike to restore so I built this bike from parts gathered from across the country/continent/world. Motor from Florida, roller from California, parts from everywhere else. Rebuilt crank from Dave Singleton, new Wosner pistons. All the electric components were new; Lakeland CDI, new wiring harness, rebuilt stator and new controls on the handlebars. I had been having trouble getting reliable spark and had tripled checked everything is the system.
I finally felt it was ready to fire up. I rolled the bike out of the basement and primed her with some starting fluid. 2 kicks and she was running!
She wouldn't run without a little choke but she was alive. Had to restart her a few times but she kept going. Without air filters she was loud too.
I was tweeking the throttle a little to keep her going, running about 1500 to 2500 rpms.

Then the trouble started. With no warning the bike went to full throttle, WTF! I turned off the key and then realized I had disconnected the black/white wire to the CDI unit when I was diagnosing a no spark problem. With the bike screaming I had to frantically pull the key, unlock the seat and reconnect the black/white wire to shut her down. All in all it was only about 30 seconds but what a scary 30 seconds it was.

With the bike off I started looking for the cause and the only thing I found was the slider on the right carb was wide open, it didn't return to the idle position. I guess that was enough to cause the bike to rev up. I never looked at the tach, don't know how high it was running. I'm not sure but I think the right carb throttle cable had gotten out of position at the one to three splitter and wouldn't let the slider come back to idle position.

When the bike was revving it was spewing a heavy cloud of blue smoke out the back. Since it was a fresh start I was using premix and the pump was working, the smoke was heavy. Unfortunately when I rolled the bike out of the basement I forgot to close the door and guess what the exhaust was pointing at? In those 30 seconds I completely filled the basement with blue smoke. I didn't even notice this until I heard some weird beeping sound coming from the house. The smoke was so thick it set off my smoke alarms!

All in all I was pretty happy that she was running and didn't blow up. I'm just glad there were no witnesses to my escapade.

But she's running! I have all winter to iron out the issues and get her on the road this spring.

Dave

Good post

cliff

What ratio were you running premix at if I may ask? I am yet to run my new motor. Last bike years ago I just ran premix completely in it. Would like some premix in mine as well while the oil lines fill again. Rather foul a few plugs than ruin a motor. Glad you got it running

Rust proofing what is in the basement!

cliff

I was running 50:1 Lucas oil. I mixed up a gallon to get the bike started. I'm pretty sure the pump was working too so I was definitely over oiling. I'm going to double check all the carb adjustments before trying again. She didn't want to idle, need to figure out why. It's been an unusually warm winter here so I hope to fire her up again before the snow flies.

By the way, does anyone have some pictures showing the correct routing of the throttle and starter cables? I'm mainly interested in where they run from the 3 way split to the carbs.

Thanks,

Dave

Have you looked at the "cable routing" page of the resource site? It's under "restoration and how-to".

_________________
If it surges, that's normal, upshift.

Thanks Jim. I regularly look through the Kawasaki Triples Resource pages, but there's a lot there. Sometimes it's hard to find what I'm looking for.

I have new aftermarket cables and they seemed a little short. I think my problem with the motor over-reving was caused by the throttle cable sheath coming out of the three way splitter to my right carb pulled out of the splitter housing and wouldn't let the slide go back to idle. That's just a guess but I've taken measures to make sure it doesn't happen again. I will go back through all the carb settings and make sure everything is correct before I try to start it again.

Close, so close.

Dave

Be aware that carb settings when changing from premix will also change.

_________________
Answers are here: http://kawatriple.com/

Thanks for the heads up. I only started out with premix because I was not sure how well the pump would work and with new pistons, rings and rebore I didn't want to take any chances. I've only put about a quart in and, now that I know the pump is working, I'll stop the premix. Should dilute right down when I fill the tank.

Dave