Kawi2strokes.com Forum

My friend Leroy called me a couple of months ago and told me he bought a 1972 H2 on ebay and he started it up and went for a ride and made it half a block before the transmission locked up and it quit. I went up to Mandan and picked it up and brought it back to my garage. It wasn't in very nice shape and as I looked at it I noticed the engine number was H2E-12321 and it seemed familiar. I looked at my photos and sure enough it was the bike I bought way back and dug out of the frozen tundra behind a guys farm. I couldn't believe it was the same bike that I sold on ebay in the condition I found it in. I was afraid to restore it because I figured the engine would just be too hard to take apart without damaging things. The guy I sold it to had a bunch of engine work done including replacing all of the cylinder studs and putting new liners in the cylinders. The upper case got broken in at least 5 places as far as I can tell by the aluminum repairs. They did a reasonable job fixing it. Even though they did a half-assed job on all the rest of the bike, such as all hardware store nuts and bolts and screws and all of the plated parts(chrome and cadmium)were coated in a wierd silver stuff that I had to take off with the wire wheel. It was very tedious and sucky. The pipes were from an H2C or D and they were replaced with reproduction pipes. The gas tank is a factory replacement H2C or D tank with the "72 paint job(you can see it is the same one in the before photos). The clutch cover is also a C or D cover that I re-shaped to be correct. I went through the carbs and set things the way they should be. I also re-routed all the cables so they would be in the right places. One of the chain guard mounts was broken off and the rear wheel was a disaster. There was part of a mounting boss on the lowere case broken off so I had a friend put a gob of weld on and I shaped it. The wiring was so bad just stood there and shook my head. I did a bunch of re-wiring including the stator. The sheath was gone from the stator wiring as well as the 2 grommets that should be there. I made a new sheath and tidied up the stator harness including the 2 grommets. I had to replace 2 of the cdi's because each one had a pole broken off. One was just shoved back in and one had a hole drilled in the back and the wire attached with a screw. I completely disassembled it and replated all the hardware and made it look nice again. The transmission had a very bad, bent #3 fork and a beat up output shaft high gear. I replaced the output shaft(becuase it was slightly galled), the output shaft high gear and the output shaft low gear. The transmisson spaced out very well. I replaced all the hardware store hardware with Kawasaki hardware. I also re-wired the aftermarket blinkers so their bodies are grounded and only 1 hot wire comes out like it should be. All of the electrics work now and when I started it up it fired off on the second kick and sounds strong. The tins were painted and there is some other stuff I did to the old girl but I can't list it all because I'm lazy. I can't believe this is the same bike but I am very pleased it is back to life. Leroy is selling this one at the Mecum in January.

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1969 H1, 1971 G3SSA, 1974 G5, 1973 H2A, 1975 S3A, 1975 H1F, 1973 Z1, 1988 HD FLTC, Captain America chopper, 2000 Excelsior Henderson, 1965 Bridgestone BS90

Beautiful!

(but someone got the horn on the wrong way)

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If it surges, that's normal, upshift.

Huh, I never even looked at it, I was too busy with the rest of the mess.

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1969 H1, 1971 G3SSA, 1974 G5, 1973 H2A, 1975 S3A, 1975 H1F, 1973 Z1, 1988 HD FLTC, Captain America chopper, 2000 Excelsior Henderson, 1965 Bridgestone BS90

And tomorrow the tail piece trim will be here.

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1969 H1, 1971 G3SSA, 1974 G5, 1973 H2A, 1975 S3A, 1975 H1F, 1973 Z1, 1988 HD FLTC, Captain America chopper, 2000 Excelsior Henderson, 1965 Bridgestone BS90

Wow that's a helluva story!

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This is true. Where I grew up the hills were so steep and long, when your ball rolled down the hill you just said "screw it"...

Beautiful work!!!

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I Love the Smell of Blue Marble in the Morning!!!
Tim Steele in Front Royal, VA
Home of the Phoenix Project
Stay in it when it comes on the pipe, no need to be scared...