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Hello KZ'ers. Two years after making me promise to stop restoring bikes my wife goes and buys me a 1980 KZ750 H1 LTD project for our wedding anniversary. The poor thing is a little the worse for wear as she was stolen some 2 years ago and recovered a few hours later having been vandalized by the frusrated theives who were unable to start it. Thereafter it was covered in a plastic sheet and left in the owners garden until it came to my attention. The dear wife got it for £150 (roughly $225).

The reason for her extracting the promise to cease with these restorations was the simple fact, that when it comes to these things, that I am a perfectionist. Naturally as such I spend far more in the restoration project than the restored bike is ever going to be worth in any market

I can't really say why Kawasaki air cooled fours do it for me but they do. In the pst 6 years or so I have restored 1 GPz1100, 2 750 Turbo's and another 750 LTD. I could go on but wouldn't want to bore you.

I am hoping to have it finished for the BMF rally in May. For you friends accross the pond this is arguably the UK's biggest biking event in the calender. Of course this means that the Mrs is going to have to make do with the bare minimum to keep the household running but she knew what she was letting herself in for when she bought the bike!

Anyway enough! I look forward to involved chats with fellow entusiasts. Best regards, Alistair

Welcome home, Alistair! You will not bore us with stories about restorations...many of us on this forum are doing exactly that and we will need the benefit of your experiences. So what other bikes have you been involved with besides those mentioned? Pictures please!...even of those bikes long gone.

Thank you for your kind welcome. Bikes restored? Wow Im not certain that I remember them all but those I do remember are as follows. A very old Moto Guzzi V50, which was purchased many years ago to facillitate my fledgling career as a dispatch rider. Unfortunately a main bearing gave out after a couple of weeks and being flat broke I had to do it myself. That one took a while because the aforementioned pursuit of perfection and the being very short of money weren't compatible. But once you've got it apart you have to renew all the bearings, rings etc, dont you think. Once back on the road and run in it went back to work as a dispatch bike. Sadly upon returning to my parking spot after making a delivery in London I discovered my bike very mangled having just been run completely over by a garbage truck. Naturally in those days dispatch riders simply could not afford anything but the legal minimum insurance (Third Party Only over here) and the council resonsible took a "Sue and be damned" attitude knowing full well that there was no way I could not afford to persue a lawsuit. In desperation to get back to work, I bought a non running Honda VT500E. On opening it up I was delighted to find that the cause of this bikes reluctance to run was a burned out exhaust valve in the front cylinder, easily replaced. I was then lucky enough to be T-boned by a white van man. This resulted in some cosmetic damage particularly to the exhaust system. As this was a OE Honda system it cost white van man's insurance a bundle but what I did was do a deal with the insurance company whereby I offered to provide the labour gratis in exchange for them covering the cost of parts. Since they paid out for a genuine Honda exhaust system (2 into 2) and I fitted a 2 into 1 aftermarket Motad item I was left with sufficient cash to buy a complete set of Nonfango hard luggage. The carrying capacity this gave me virtually doubled my earning potential. This turned out a very good thing and I treated her to a professional paintjob.

That's enough for one installment, more later.

Best regards Alistair.

Hi Alistair, and welcome, where abouts are you in the UK? You can enter this info in your signature line.
Have you posted pics to the gallery yet?

Post edited by: rede4u, at: 2005/12/07 22:45