The Harley WLA at the National Infantry Museum was a lot prettier than any other WLA I had ever seen, but I wasn’t impressed. It was way over-restored, finished in gloss OD green (something I had never seen on a WLA before). I couldn’t find anything in my research to show that any World War II Harleys might have had such a paint treatment. I found a reference that indicated Army administrative vehicles were sometimes painted gloss OD, but nothing about motorcycles.
Can you say over-restored?Fancy leather. I doubt anyone ever sat in this saddle.The port side of the Harley 45.
I once saw General William Westmoreland’s Cadillac Sedan de Ville in Washington, DC, and it was gloss OD. But WLAs had been out of service long before that, and in any event, when I spoke with General Westmoreland he didn’t mention anything about riding motorcycles. If anyone out there knows anything about WLAs with glossy paint, please leave a comment.
Boy oh boy oh boy! Talk about an interesting barn find! We all have regrets filed under “I shoulda bought that when I had the chance,” and in my case, one of those items is the Harley XR1000. I did a Dream Bikes feature on it a ways back, and as soon as I did, Joe Gresh let me know that he had been planning to do the same (I beat him to it).
I always thought the Sportsters had a cool look, and to me, the XR1000 was cool raised to an exponent. It did what it was supposed to in my mind: It evoked images of Bart Markel drifting around a half mile dirt track (which I actually saw many times at East Windsor Speedway when I was a teenager), and it made me want to be that guy.
On a whim, I typed “XR1000 for sale” on Google, and this popped up. Wow, talk about a barn find!
The ad text says it all:
2,486 ORIGINAL MILE INCREDIBLY ORIGINAL BARN FIND!!! Untouched “barn find” condition very original XR1000 in absolutely amazing condition! Although I am using the term “barn find,” this bike was properly stored in an attached climate controlled garage after being completely serviced and prepared for long term storage, including cylinder fogging, fuel draining, oil change, battery removal, and a full check over and service including: head and valve spring check by the Harley-Davidson dealer race program lead technician (back in the day), fork seals, brake fluid, chain lube, etc. We have tested all non-running systems including front and rear brakes, turned over the engine, lights, starter operation, horn, tires holding air, suspension compliance, etc. and confirmed all to be in proper working order. If the new owner would like us to fill the fuel tank and get the bike running, we would be happy to do that as well, or we will leave it as it is in “barn find” condition. It is up to the buyer’s preference. The condition of all the paint, chrome, and metal is excellent with only dirt and dust covering, no corrosion. The only slight surface corrosion I see is limited to the exhaust heat shields only and could easily be remedied. The rest of any “rust colored” things you may see is simply dirt that I have confirmed in a couple small spots will clean off. Of course, I can’t say the bike will look like brand new with a simple wash after sitting for 20 years, but I am saying the chrome and trim IS NOT corroded. The bike does come complete with 2 keys (one ORIGINAL Harley key), books and manuals, and some records from the Harley Dealership when it was gone through and fully serviced and readied for storage in 2005. The bike also comes with the original longer black mufflers, while the optional accessory shorter less baffled mufflers are currently installed on the bike. We purchased the bike directly from the previous older collector owner as part of a seven Harley-Davidson collection and rolled it out of his garage into our enclosed trailer and brought it here for inspection. I have described everything to the best of my ability and provided lots of detailed photos and information for your consideration. Please feel free to contact Jason for any intelligent unanswered questions if you are interested in purchasing the bike. Without a doubt an incredibly rare opportunity to own a piece of Harley-Davidson history, and the only one like it for sale nationwide.
Wow! Somebody buy this before my “Want” overcomes my “Need.” Will it get away? Man, $27K sure is a lot of money. But how much is $27K these days of $4/gallon gasoline and runaway inflation, anyway?
Like I said: Wow! Will there ever be another opportunity like this?
Check out these photos of this incredible find:
A special thanks to Jason for allowing us to use these photos and the description above. You can reach Jason at The Auto Livery (telephone 513-738-1115).
I like to think of myself as handy with a wrench. I try to fix most things even if I have no clue and oftentimes succeed. This Kawasaki 900 though, this Zed has been giving me fits. It almost makes me question my do-it-yourself mantra. Almost…
After initially getting Zed running a few years ago I enjoyed 4000 relatively trouble-ree miles. Zed had a slight hitch in its giddy-up right off idle but otherwise it ran fine. Then the bike started fouling spark plugs and missing. Occasionally gasoline would pour out the carb overflow tubes and a sharp rap with a screwdriver handle was needed to stop the flow.
So my first line of attack was the float needles because they were original and came out of corroded carbs. I went online and bought some cheap carb kits that included needles and seats.
Setting float height on carbs using plastic hose screwed into float bowl drain.
On a 1975 Z1 Kawasaki the carbs sit up high off the engine block so you can do a lot of tinkering without removing the carb bank. I changed all the needles and set the float height using the clear tube tool that screws into the carb bowl drain.
New fuel tees @ $26 each!
This didn’t really cure anything. Plugs were still fouling. I started to suspect an ignition problem. After messing with the points and several test runs I was getting nowhere so I purchased a new, aftermarket ignition system. They’re cheap, like $90 or so.
Carbs removed from Zed. A scene I got accustomed to. After the 4th round trip I decided to look elsewhere.
The new system came complete with new coils and wires. This was nice as the old coils were butchered by the previous owner. I installed the new ignition system and the bike still ran terrible and fouled plugs.
I rechecked the aftermarket floats and upon examination I found the needle seats miss-punched with what looked like lettering for the needle size. This caused a wrinkle in the exact spot the needle needed to seat.
.030 tool for setting baseline carb slide height.
Next, I bought new Mikuni needles and seats. I put the Mikuni stuff in and re-set the float levels. The bike ran like crap and foiled the plugs. At least I knew the ignition system was ok.
I was at my limit of understanding, my attention went back to the carburetors. I pulled the carbs, dismantled them and cleaned everything.
Zeds carbs sat like this for 2 years. I was befuddled, vexed, stressed right the “F” out.
I bought another, more expensive carb kit and new Mikuni enrichener plungers. The carbs were in a million pieces on my bench and I lost interest. Other things were happening, concrete need pouring and the carbs gathered dust for two years.
A few months ago I decided to get Zed running for the Motorado vintage motorcycle show up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Buckling down, I reassembled the carbs and using new rubber manifolds (the others had dry rotted in only a few years!) I slid the carbs back into Zed and the bike ran like crap, still fouling plugs.
I couldn’t get the bike running well enough to sync the carbs. A bad condenser was messing up two cylinders.
I took the carbs off the bike and went through them again making sure everything was spotless. And the bike ran like crap. Again, I took the carbs apart racking my brain over the flooding issue. And the bike ran like crap. I changed jets, I changed float heights, I swapped pilot air jets, I swapped emulsion tubes. The third time I took the carbs apart and triple checked everything the bike still ran terrible.
I was in the weeds bad-like and decided to think hard on the situation. I told myself that carbs aren’t all that complicated and that even if I didn’t get them perfect it should still run. And that the bike ran fine for 4000 miles with those carbs. That was when I decided to go back to the new ignition system.
One of the new points had a whitish coating. I thought maybe the bike sat so long the points corroded. Then inspiration hit me: the condensers! I checked the condensers with an ohm meter and found one of the two condensers bad.
Bad condenser from new kit.
I had started with one problem: fouling plugs and by using aftermarket needles I installed a worse set of needles. By removing the original ignition system I installed an entirely new problem with the bad condenser.
These two errors were compounded by my inability to believe that the new parts were bad out of the box so I kept rebuilding the carbs over and over.
The condensers on the old ignition system tested ok and I swapped them into the new plate. And the bike ran. Not perfectly because I had all the jets wrong in my attempts to make the bike run.
I walked the carbs back to their original settings. First the old slide needles and emulsion tubes went back in. Then the main jets, then the pilot jets until finally everything was back to where I started from two years ago.
Zed was running pretty good so I took a little 300 mile test loop. No fouled plugs. Stupid hurts and I was so damn stupid chasing gremlins that I was creating even as I was installing new gremlins.
Home built replica of the official Kawasaki carb sync tool.The business end of the carb sync tool.
Next up is a good carb sync and since parts are so crappy now I will try an electronic ignition system just for fun because I haven’t screwed things up enough yet. Stay tuned.
New electronic ignition. Only $68 on Amazon. Cheaper than points! What could go wrong?
Want to follow the initial resurrection of Zed? It’s right here!
Harley-Davidson built four military motorcycles during World War II: The WLA, the WLC, the Knucklehead EL Overhead Valve, and the XA. The 45-cubic inch V-twin WLA was the preferred US Army motorcycle, and it was the motorcycle Harley-Davidson produced in mass quantities. We recently visited the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, where I was able to grab most of the photos you see here.
The WLA
The WLA Harley-Davidson (if you haven’t tumbled to it yet, the “A” in WLA stands for Army) used a detuned 750cc air-cooled engine. The motorcycle had a springer front end and a solid rear (there were no springs or shocks in the rear, other than the spring beneath the seat post). The WLA, like other Harleys of that era, had a foot-operated clutch on the left and a hand shifter on the fuel tank’s left side.
The Harley- Davidson WLA. This 45- cubic-inch V-twin was the U.S. Army’s principal motorcycle during World War II (photo provided by the American Motorcycle Historical Foundation). This photo is in my book, Police and Military Motorcycles.
Simplicity was the WLA’s defining theme. Its flathead engine could be disassembled using only hand tools. At the army’s request, Harley built the WLA with a carburetor that had nonadjustable needles and jets, a configuration Harley used on some of its police motorcycles. The idea was to prevent soldiers (or police officers) adjusting the carb. The WLA didn’t even have a key. A trooper just had to kick-start it and ride.
A US Army WLA on display at the Harley Museum. It’s authentic.
The Army quickly found WLA improvement opportunities. Travel on dusty roads tended to accelerate engine wear, so Harley added a monstrous oil-bath air filter. The second improvement was the headlight location. WLA headlights were initially above the handlebars (like on the civilian models). Part of the Army’s tactical doctrine, though, included a move that required the rider to use the motorcycle as a shield. The drill in that move involved skidding the rear wheel, flipping the rear out, and then laying the bike down to form a barricade…you know, so you could shoot at the bad guys from your now-prone motorcycle (thus giving new meaning to the time worn “I had to lay ‘er down” and similar expressions). The problem here was that the above-the-handlebars-headlights often broke during this maneuver. Harley remounted the headlight just above the front fender to better protect it.
The Army started buying WLA Harleys even before the United States went to war. In 1940, the Army ordered 16,000 WLAs to be delivered in 1940 and 1941, and then after Pearl Harbor, the pace increased. Harley won contracts for 13,000 WLAs in 1942, 24,000 in 1943, 11,000 in 1944, and more than 8,000 in 1945.
A United States Navy WLA in Navy gray. Note the headlight location above the handlebars.
Even the Navy got in the act with a WL variant painted sort of a battleship gray. The Navy used their motorcycles for shore patrol duties (the Shore Patrol was the Navy’s Military Police function). I saw one with a sidecar at the Harley Museum in Milwaukee. It was a sweet-looking motorcycle.
Harley-Davidson sold 88,000 military motorcycles during the war to the United States, England, Canada, China, India, and Russia. Many were eventually sold to the public. Most are in collections; some are still ridden today. In addition to the 88,000 complete motorcycles, Harley built enough spare parts to build 30,000 more motorcycles.
The WLC
During World War II, the Canadians also bought Harleys for their army, as did many other countries. The other countries used the standard WLA, but Canada had its own unique requirements. These included an auxiliary hand clutch, interchangeable front and rear wheels, and a front wheel stand (the U.S. model had the traditional Harley side stand). Harley-Davidson built 18,000 WLC motorcycles for Canada.
The 61 EL
Harley had introduced its 61-cubic-inch EL Knucklehead engine to the civilian market in 1936. The Knucklehead and its overhead valve engine offered better performance than the flathead 45 W-series Harleys. Harley-Davidson delivered a small number of military motorcycles based on the 61-cubic-inch Knucklehead engine. Man, that must have been a good gig…being an Army dispatch rider and drawing a Knucklehead for your ride. The military Knuckleheads are rare (no jokes needed here, folks). I can’t remember ever seeing one. But, I found a video of one that was for sale in 2017. Enjoy, my friends…
The XA
The Army preferred the Harley WLA to the Indian 30-50, but it had problems with both motorcycles. In addition to the engine wear and broken headlight problems mentioned above, the rear chain had to be adjusted and replaced frequently on both motorcycles. Engine overheating was another problem (the Harley and the Indian both had V-twin engines, and with a V-twin, the rear cylinder runs hotter than the front cylinder). The rear cylinders could seize because of this.
None of the XA Harleys saw active duty in a war zone. This one looks ready, though, with a .45 ACP Thompson in a scabbard on the right and a .30-cal M1 Carbine in the scabbard on the left. Check out the tires!
When the British captured BMW R 12 motorcycles in North Africa and provided a few to the United States, the German machines appeared to provide the answer to the U.S. Army’s major concerns with the WLA. The BMW had a relatively maintenance-free driveshaft to provide power to the rear wheel. The BMW’s horizontally-opposed twin cylinders were both out in the airstream, and as a result the BMW engine ran about a hundred degrees cooler than the Harley and Indian engines. The shaft drive did away with the chain and its wear and adjustment issues. The giant oil bath air cleaner was in a great location. And the BMW had a foot shifter and a hand clutch, a much easier to operate arrangement.
The Army asked both Harley-Davidson and Indian to develop prototypes based on the BMW R 12. Harley-Davidson’s answer was the XA, which looked, for all intents and purposes, as if the BMW engine and shaft drive had been grafted into a standard WLA. In reality, what had happened was very close to that. Harley reverse-engineered the BMW drive train and mated its version into the WLA chassis. The first few, including the prototype, even had the Harley springer front end.
A closeup of the 750cc flathead Harley boxer twin.Another view of a non-sidecar-equipped Harley XA. Note the twin carbs, the air cleaner location behind the generator, and the foot shift.
The Army was impressed with both the Harley and Indian BMW clones, and they gave both manufacturers production contracts. Harley and Indian each built 1,000 machines based on the BMW design. Harley’s XA was more of a direct copy; Indian’s design had the cylinders tilted up like a modern Moto Guzzi. But while the Harley and Indian development work was under way, the army had been experimenting with other transportation concepts and found that the 4WD Willys (the Jeep) was a much better all-around military vehicle. The Army shifted its resources to Jeep acquisition and did not take delivery on the motorcycles Harley and Indian had already produced. The Army can be fickle like that.
Both Harley and Indian did not pursue BMW clones, since neither company saw any significant civilian demand. Both manufacturers sold their machines to the public and walked away from further development. Today, both the Harley XA and its Indian counterpart are highly collectible.
The Real Knuckleheads?
On that topic of knuckleheads mentioned above…no, not the EL model mentioned several paragraphs up, but the guys running the show in the War Department and over at Indian. You see, the War Department’s spec for their desired military motorcycles called for a 30.5 cubic inch motorcycle (a 500cc twin). Indian snapped to and developed the Model 741 you see in the video below. Harley thought about things for a minute and told the Army they didn’t make a 500cc motorcycle, and they let the Army know they weren’t about to start. Harley further informed the, er, knuckleheads that they made a very good 45 cubic inch motorcycle, and if the Army wanted Harleys, that’s what they could buy.
The knuckleheads (the ones in uniform, not the EL motorcycles) quickly found out that Harley was right. The troops let the brass know that Harleys were better motorcycles, and that’s why the Army ordered many more Harley WLAs than Indians.
There’s one more area in which Harley had to set the knuckleheads straight. During the war, the Army told Harley and Indian to cancel all civilian motorcycle production and make only military motorcycles. Indian saluted and executed. Harley let the War Department know they could go pound sand. By keeping their civilian production going, Harley preserved their customer base. After the war, Harley prospered. Indian? Well, you know how that story ends.
I wrote a story for Motorcycle Classics magazine about the Indian 30-50 (Indian’s World War II workhorse) a few years ago. You can view it here. I also have a video of that bike you might enjoy:
As you’ll recall from the Oxilam headlight review we published on ExhaustNotes a while back, I loved the thing. It gave a much brighter view at night and the light source was positioned in the correct spot for the reflector on the ZRX1100 Lawsonsaki. Low beam was wide and had a sharp cutoff so as to not blind oncoming drivers, and high beam lit up the dark New Mexico roads nicely.
Unfortunately. the bulb burned out on my bike after only 3000 miles. Considering the original halogen bulb lasted 35,000 miles, 24 years, and was still going strong, I was disappointed.
Taking the bulb apart revealed a neatly constructed circuit board, a cooling fan, heat transferring grease to the large aluminum heat sink, and broken solder connections at the main board/plug connector junction.
The board connections are tiny and I may try to re-solder the connections (there are four of them broken: two on either side of the circuit board) but I don’t hold out much hope.
The Oxilam kit came with two bulbs, and I’ll pop the other one in to see if my failure was just a fluke. I do like the quantity of light produced and riding with a plain old halogen seems dark now.
My new, revised rating on the Oxilam LED headlights is: Don’t buy them just yet. Wait until the second Oxilam has proved itself for 24 years. I’ll be sure to report back here if I’m still alive.
Astute readers will remember our post on Shinya Kimura, an artist who works with metal and motorcycles to create motorcycle art. I was both pleased and surprised to see one of his creations at the Harley Museum during our recent Milwaukee content safari.
“Spike,” Mr. Kimura’s custom Knucklehead, was in a Harley museum hall that focused on custom motorcycles, and even before I saw his name, I knew whose work it was.
I believe “Spike” is the very same motorcycle featured in this video:
The Shinya Kimura shop, located in Azusa, California (not far from CSC Motorcycles) is one of the more interesting places I’ve ever visited. I think you would enjoy it, too, although it is not open to the public. I was there on business reasons, and I captured some great photos. If you have a chance, check out our earlier blog.
I’ve been a motorcycle guy nearly all my life and I’ve owned several motorcycles. Only two of them were Harleys; the first was beautiful but terrible in many ways (a ’79 Electra Glide Classic). The second was beautiful and it was a great machine (a ’92 Heritage Softail). I think Harley’s styling on past models has been awesome. Bottom line? I’m not a Harley fanatic and I’m not a hater. It’s not likely I’d ever buy another Harley, unless I came across a cheap XR-1000 (and that’s probably not in the cards). All that said, I can tell you that the Harley-Davidson Museum is the best motorcycle museum (and maybe the best anything museum) I’ve ever visited (and I’ve visited a lot of them).
First, a bit of logistics about the Museum and our upcoming blogs. We were in Milwaukee specifically to visit the Museum along with a few other Milwaukee highlights. The Harley Museum is too much to take in with just a single visit, and it is definitely too much to cover in a single blog. Our Milwaukee schedule allowed only one Harley Museum visit, but I’ll cover it in three or four blogs. This is the first.
Sticking to the logistics for a moment, the Museum is easy to get to. Plug it into Waze and you’ll drive right up to their front door. There’s plenty of parking, and we snagged a handicap parking spot right at their front door (my handicap tag is the silver lining to a 2009 motorcycle accident). We visited the Museum on a weekday, so it was not too crowded. I’m guessing that’s not the case on the weekends.
Admission is reasonable at $24 per person; for us it was a little less because we qualify for the geezer discount (that knocks it down to $20 per person). Knowing Harley’s customer base, I think a lot of folks get in for $20.
The interior lighting was subdued. Flash photography is allowed, but it’s hard to get decent photos with flash. Nearly everything you see here is with ambient lighting. I had to crank up the Nikon’s ISO, so you may see some graininess in my photos. Mea culpa.
The Museum has three floors, and the building is huge. There are several permanent exhibits and a few special exhibits (ones that change from time to time). The exhibits (both permanent and special) include:
Motorcycle Galleries.
Mama Tried.
Mi Papi.
The Engine Room.
The Archives.
Military Motorcycles.
Clubs and Competition.
The Tank Wall.
Art and Engineering.
Motorcycle Galleries
The Motorcycle Galleries are on the first and second floors, and they dominate the Museum. The Motorcycle Galleries is an appropriate name. The first part is a 180-foot, three-motorcycle-wide display of motorcycles from Harley’s first 50 years, starting with their very first model. The second part features later Harleys.
It was a well assembled exhibit and the motorcycles are beautiful. As I walked the line and took in the motorcycles, I realized I had seen more than a few of these bikes in books. Seeing them in person was special.
Mama Tried
Mama Tried was a custom bike exhibit, containing all sorts of custom Harleys (not the wigged-out choppers you see at the motorcycle shows). I’m not sure what the name (Mama Tried) is supposed to mean, but I thought the exhibit was good. I was liked seeing the Knucklehead customized by Shinya Kimura, whom we’ve written about before.
Mi Papi Has A Motorcycle
You may remember that Joe Gresh wrote an ExNotes review a few years ago about the Spanish language kid’s book, Mi Papi Has A Motorcycle. The book impressed Gresh; apparently, it had the same effect on the Museum staff. There’s an entire hall with large storyboards taken from the book.
The Engine Room
The Engine Room was enlightening. I always found the history and names of Harley engines confusing. VL, UL, flatheads, you know…what do all those designations actually mean? I’m a mechanical engineer and I never could follow it all. The Engine Room made it all clear. We’ll have a future blog on it. This was one of the best parts of the Harley Museum.
The Archives
The Archives were something I’d read about before. An elevator takes you to the third floor. The archives are not open to the public, but you can peer in through a double wire fence. One of Elvis Presley’s motorcycles was near the fence.
Military Motorcycles
The Military Motorcycles exhibit features the Harleys used in World War II and it was the best exhibit of its type I’ve ever seen. This is a topic I’ve been interested in for a l0ng time, going back to before I wrote The Complete Book of Police and Military Motorcycles. There will be a separate blog on this exhibit. It was awesome.
Clubs and Competition
The Clubs and Competition exhibit features a board track with vintage race bikes and projected images of motorcycle racers (and accompanying engine sounds), vintage Harley hill climbers, and Joe Petrali’s land speed record Knucklehead. The Petrali streamliner was awesome.
The Tank Wall
The Tank Wall and the tank exhibits were intriguing. I’ve seen photos of it many times, but to see it in person had more of an impact. To me, the tanks and the engine are what make a Harley. It’s well done. I felt like a kid in a candy store more in this part of the Museum than anywhere else.
Art and Engineering
The Museum has a relatively new Art and Engineering exhibit, which is intended to show how art combines with engineering at Harley-Davidson. I was disappointed, especially because it was one of the main reasons I visited. I felt it was superficial and that it was basically a Harley-Davidson commercial, with almost nothing beyond a very light explanation of how Harley engineering is influenced by art. I get it; they go from sketches to clay mockups to metal, and they select colors along the way. Got it. They use CAD. Got it. Willie G is a wonderful human being, and so was an earlier designer/stylist named Brooks Stevens. Got it. I kind of knew all of that before I got on the airplane to go to Milwaukee (except for the part about Brooks Stevens; that was new to me).
When the motorcycling world discovered Willie G 50 years ago (in the days of the Super Glide, the XLCR Cafe Racer, the Electra Glide Classic, the Low Rider, etc.) there were lots of stories about how Harley went to motorcycle events and studied how riders customized their motorcycles. That was good stuff and those were good creativity inputs, but there was none of that in this exhibit. I was hoping to understand how Harley selected the style and the performance parameters for the new Sportster (a nice-looking motorcycle) and the Pan America (an ugly motorcycle, but all ADV bikes are), and maybe gain some insights into where Harley might go in the future. There was none of that.
I’m probably not a fair judge in this area. I taught engineering for 27 years at Cal Poly Pomona, I’ve had motorcycle engineering assignments related to Harley and other companies, and I wrote a book about engineering creativity. To be fair to Harley, they weren’t targeting retired engineering professors when they created the Art and Engineering exhibit. The exhibit had nice visuals, but for me it was devoid of any meaningful content. That said, we took in nine exhibits at the Harley Museum and only this one didn’t measure up to what I expected. The rest were all outstanding, and 8 out of 9 wins is a pretty good score in anybody’s book.
So there you have it: My Harley-Davidson Museum impressions. Sue and I had a good time. We were there for about three hours, but it would have been easy to spend the entire day. My disappointment in the Art and Engineering exhibit notwithstanding, I strongly recommend that anyone who rides or has even a passing interest in the American icon that is Harley-Davidson visit the Museum. It’s a bucket list destination. I’m glad I went.
At the tail end of our path through the Harley Museum, there’s an area with current model Harleys where you can sit on the bikes and take pictures. A nice guy from the Czech Republic offered to take a picture of Susie and me with my cell phone. It looks good. Our smiles are real.
Zed has been dormant for a few years. The bike has a running issue that has eluded my best efforts to remedy. But this story isn’t about my mechanical incompetence. This story is about Zed’s gas tank.
Back in the Zed’s Not Dead series I cleaned the tank fairly well using the apple cider vinegar method. The cider/baking soda trick works well but Zed’s tank was looking a little crusty after sitting two years with alcohol laced fuel inside.
I decided to give the tank a second cider session. All went well and the tank was spotless inside. I installed the tank and filled it with fresh gas. Checking the tank for leaks revealed none so I closed up the shed and retired to dream big dreams of fun motorcycle rides to come.
The next morning when I opened the shed a strong odor of gasoline hit my nose. Fuel was everywhere under Zed. The right side tank bottom was soaking wet. Apparently only the paint was covering pinhole rust-through spots. After draining the remaining fuel I ran a wire brush over the bottom of the tank, which revealed a ton of tiny holes.
My initial plan, because I can’t let it go, was to cut out the bottom of the tank, fabricate a new sheet metal piece to fit and then braze the new bottom into the tank. It’s a good plan and it might have worked.
Instead, I went with Plan B: a new set of painted bodywork from Doremi (a Zed parts supplier out of Japan). Doremi is resold by several different companies in the US. I chose Cycles R Us, an eBay seller because they had the correct year and color in stock and their shipping was only $39. Prices for the body set are mostly the same (around $1500 with some outliers at $1700).
I know what you’re thinking: that’s a lot of money for a cheap bastard like me. It killed me to spend the money but used tanks are going for $500 and new, unpainted reproduction tanks are $400. Not to mention a professional paint job on my repaired stuff would probably exceed $1200.
One of the good things about the soaring value of Z1 Kawasaki’s is that you can spend money restoring them with a good chance of getting your investment back (minus your labor)
Enough of the rationalizations: let’s get into the product. Opening the well packaged box from Doremi was breathtaking. The paint is stunning. I cannot find a flaw anywhere and I don’t think the factory Kawasaki paint looked this good back when the bike was new on the showroom floor.
For 1975 Kawasaki’s Z1 had two color choices, a metallic aqua-blue that was pretty and my bike’s color, a dark burgundy that looks almost brown in low light. The color pops deep red metallic when a single photon from the sun strikes the paint surface. The stripes are perfectly applied and I cannot fault the quality of Doremi’s product.
My kit came with new tank badges and a new gas cap, some resellers break these parts out of the kit and sell them separately.
The tank badges are flat when you get them and require gentle bending by hand to fit the curvature of the gas tank. This is kind of a trial and error thing. I got the badges pretty close but they still need a little tweaking near the front. I stopped bending them mostly because I was worried about messing them up.
The gas cap comes loose in another bag. Putting the cap on was pretty easy once the roll pin was test fit into the tank.
The gas cap latch was a little harder to install. The instructions were oddly worded and there are some notches you are supposed to file into the underside of the latch. The photos aren’t super clear and I could find no reason to file notches so I ignored the instructions and did it the way I wanted.
The main issue with the gas cap latch is getting the little torsion spring inside the latch then holding it concentric while the pivot shaft is slid into place. The instructions recommended using a small, flat blade screwdriver, I tried that but it was fumbly and the spring never ended up in the correct location.
The method I settled on was to compress the torsion spring and capture the two ends with a small tube (the interior metal barrel of a wire crimp connector) once you have both ends of the spring under control it’s easy to insert the spring and line it up with the pivot shaft.
The latch’s pivot shaft is sort of a rivet. After it’s in place you have to peen over the end. This is a two-man job as you’ll need to hold a weight against the pivot head on one side while rolling the other end. I’ll get CT to help me with this step.
The new side covers arrived without badges so I used the original badges. The old badges were in fair condition but I suspect the reseller removed the new badges from the Doremi kit.
The new tail section was a bit fiddley in that the bolt holes didn’t quite line up perfectly like the original tail. You reuse the original Kawasaki grommets and spacers with the new tail. Maybe new grommets would be softer and have more give. It took a little aggressive tugging to get all four bolts lined up and in place. I imagine the plastic will take a set in its new position and future fitting will be easier.
Zed’s original paint was in horrible condition, the bike had sat outside for an indeterminate length of time. Talk about patina. I cleaned up the old paint as much as I could but it was tatty and dead. The Doremi body kit transformed the bike: it looks like a new, 1975 Kawasaki Z1-B. The bike is beautiful in the sunlight with the perfectly smooth surfaces changing color as you move about. Damn, this bike looks good.
Is the Doremi body set worth $1500? If your old stuff is rusted, yes. Even if your old stuff is in good shape you’d be hard pressed to find a painter who could lay down a beautiful job like Doremi for $1500. It’s like you’re paying for a paint job and the bodywork is free!
I recommend the Doremi highly. If we had a rating system at exhaustnotes it would get top marks. If you want your Z1 to look like a new bike get the Doremi.
We’ve got a bunch of good stuff coming your way, my friends. I just finished a whirlwind week in New Jersey, we hit some of the Sopranos film locations, I grabbed a bunch of very cool Norton P11 photos, we saw where Bruce Springsteen was setting up for a concert in Asbury Park, I have a review on the new Garmin chronograph about to go live, Mike Huber (aka Mike Nelson) is down there in Indonesia and Thailand becoming one with the sea turtles, I’ve got a review on Ruger Customer Service and my revamped .357 Bisley, Joe Gresh has his Z1 Kawi all dressed up with lots of new places to go, and lots, lots more.
Andrew Capone, Isle of Man impresario and British Motocycle Gear CEO, with an unknown paparazzi reflected in a Norton Scrambler fender at an undisclosed location in New Jersey.All dressed up with lots of places to go…Joe Gresh and the Z1…the gift that keeps on giving!How fast is fast? Stay tuned, and we’ll tell you!Scuba Southeast Asia with Mike Huber!Bisley mania! Plinking at 100 yards with a handgun? You bet!Andrew, Harry (aka “the Norton Whisperer”), and what is unquestionably one of the most beautiful motorcycles ever made!There’s ink, and then there’s Sopranos ink. Oh, do we have a story for you!
You know, we blew right by 1500 blogs some time ago, and I started to wonder if we were going to run out of things to write about. Nope. Not gonna happen. It’s like when one of my geezer buddies told me he didn’t know what to say at a lunch gathering, and another of my geezer friends told him, “Don’t worry…you’ll keep talking until you think of something.”
Well….we’ve been having a little heat wave here in SoCal and I have been hanging around the house too much, so it was time to take the Harley Low Rider out for a little run.
My Low Rider when it was at the dealership in Minneapolis. I bought it about 4 years ago with 4,000 miles on the odometer.
I couldn’t do my usual run around the Palos Verdes peninsula due to the highway being closed to two-wheeled traffic. So I instead went the short way across the peninsula and then through the beach cities where it was nice and cool compared to the rest of Los Angeles.
I got through them all and was coming out of El Segundo and towards the airport and Westchester. On Sepulveda there’s a tunnel that goes under a runway at LAX and we call it, of course, the airport tunnel.
Some guys on bikes think of it as a tunnel and some think of it as a concert hall. Well, I kinda go both ways on that. But every time I get near it, I harken back to a memory of New Year’s Eve in 1972. I was a teenager at the time and my best bud Dave Reimer called me at home and told me he was at a great party in El Segundo. He offered to come by and pick me up (I had no wheels at that time). Dave showed up at my pad on a BSA 650 motorcycle he had borrowed from a friend. I jumped on and we headed out.
As we approached the tunnel from the Westchester side going to El Segundo Dave yelled back to me to hang on. He kicked it down a gear into 3rd and hit the throttle hard. We entered the tunnel going about 60mph and he banged 4th and hit the throttle hard and we were flying. The support columns just turned into a blur. There was a lot of great engine noise too. We came out the other end doing about 110mph!
What a kick! The things you do and get away with when you are young can be amazing. It was a great party and it is a favorite memory.
Today, in honor of my buddy Dave who left us about 15 years ago, I entered the tunnel in 3rd and laid down a little sweet Harley music with lots of throttle. It was about as much as I could get away with considering traffic.
So, Dave, wherever you are just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you.
Thanks, Bob. That’s a great story and we enjoyed reading it. Remind me never to lend my motorcycle to any of your friends!
