Been a while since an update on this little jigger......and time is of the essence now
Last year I sorted out some new wheels for the S1. Darryl Groat from Moose Racing laced me up some nice ally rims - although it took some convincing to get them as fat as I wanted
Anyway they now have some nice Avon AM22/23 tyres fitted, the rear is a special construction especially for skinny rims, 130 section
can't go fast on skinny tyres someone told me, sounds like good advice....
Been busy over the last couple of weekends sorting out some mods to make sure these new rims fit, the old wheels were 70's-era OEM kawasaki mags from some unknown model, with a disc brake front and rear. So I had to modify the fork leg to suit the twin-leading shoe drum brake front end......and fit up a new swingarm to the back. The swingarm that was fitted, was too narrow for the new fat tyre
The replacement swingarm is from fuck-knows what, but it is steel and the right width
came with some spares when I picked up that GPz600R a couple of weeks agol.
So new shock mounts have been welded into place - and the back wheel now looks pretty good fitted up. Same with the front-end.....the spoke wheel and drum brake look much more period-specific....
One other interesting thing about these drum brakes.....I had to source them from ebay as I have only limited parts for these baby triples. The brake drums came with old fucked shoes as you can imagine. Today I was searching for replacement brake shoes for both ends, and found a few examples across the US for about $70 per pair delivered........hmmmmm. Maybe I should check that stash of NOS drum brake shoes in the 4th ?
Many years ago I picked up a stack of parts in Sydney really cheap - it was a bloke who used to own a shop, and had shut down some time earlier. His missus was sick of all the parts taking up room in the shed, so he cleared out the lot for SFA. All I was after was all the disc brake pads for Z1000 models - I think there were about 30 pairs of these in the original Vesrah packaging ? So I got those, together with a heap of other brake parts ( and other stuff
). .....today I went through that pile of brake shoes and found 5 sets of rear brake shoes for the S1/S2/S3 series ( also suit a lot of other smaller kwakka's from that era). These were still in the original Vesrah packaging. Win !!
But couldn't see any shoes for the front twin-leader. I did have some front shoes but they were marked for Suzuki T315 and T250 models.....well I grabbed a pair and sat them next to the shitty front shoes.......fark me they were identical ! There are about 6 pairs of these in the stash !!
So pretty happy with that outcome, I won't have to buy new brake shoes for at least 1 season
Will bung some pics up tomorrow, the bodywork was painted up in winning lime a few weeks ago and looks heaps better than the baby-blue paintjob that came with the bike. At this stage the frame and motor still have not been detailed but that will happen over the course of the season. All I need at the moment is some good log-book photos. First round is May 4th !!! FMD OMFG !!!!