Reader Ride. An Oregon S2 Daily Rider!

Alex Neun sends in his S2 Daily Rider!


Well the seat is torn but its my transportation on a dry day! best sounding bike in town.
Cheers
Long live kawi triples!

Nice rider Alex.  Doesn't need much at all and seat covers are available!  Take care of those pipes.  They're not exactly common!

Fantastic S2 Triple...

Kawasaki S2 Race Bike

Finally! Getting the S2 on the bench and back together!

Well it took longer than I thought But I'mfinally getting her back together. So far so good. the transmission seems to be behaving and no surprises have popped up. I'm sure I'll have some tuning to deal with especially with those chambers an I think my ignition is acting up a bit. We'll see soon enough. Got a brand new battery in there so I may get her started tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Oh and I'll be "reuniting" the S2"s engine back to the chassis tonight..... Finally... Seems that on the one down and 4 up transmission there are some small ball bearings between 1'st and 2nd gear to "float" the tranny in nuteral. Well turns out these little fuckers WILL get grimed up and just lock you transmission between gears. Exactly like what happenned to me a while back. Problem solved. Engine Re-re-re assembled and a shot at a running bike before long... hopefully. Here's the culprits..

OK. Life is getting back on track! I'll be attacking that pain in the ass S2 that has been giving me so much misery. I will finish this bike or destroy it in my efforts!!

Here's the little bitch before I started.

Awsome little S2 Racer from down under...

S2 Engine Teardown Pics!

Oh this pic shows a crankcase full of injector oil that had seeped past the pump into the cases. Good thing I never tried to get her started like this. It would have bent a rod (at a minimum) for sure!



So far so good. Tore down the engine last night (See Part 1 here). Before I started I did a leakdown test on the crankshaft seals and it was possibly the worst leaking crank I've seen yet. It went to 7 psi and held for about 10 seconds. Just awful. Should have held 6 PSI for 6 minutes. When I tried pulling the crank out of the block the rubber seals held on a little bit from suction and the crank moved inside them about 1/4 inch. Yikes! No wonder I could never get her to run worth a flip. The topend is essentially brand new. It's wierd working with such tiny parts after building 750's and 500's. This stuff is like jewelry compared to the bigger bikes. Hard to believe that 60+ Hp is fairly easily attainable.

S2 Rebuild Part 2: The Teardown

Going!












Going!













Gone!










!!!










So Far so good. No Major Surprises!
Stay Tuned!!! Engine teardown on it's way soon!

Another Possible Project for sometime in the next year or so...

My first street legal 2 stroke. A 1972 Kawasaki S2 350. I rode the stink out of this bike for a few months till the crank seals went out. I didn't know much about them at the time so I had the top end rebuilt with NOS kawasaki pistons Igot offf E-bay for a LOT of $$. So It already has a fresh top end and some brand new Pro-Flo expansion Chambers (on the shelf) and some S3 carbs (a little larger but bolt-on). Need to get her apart and get the crankshaft off to Damon Kirkland (The Kawi Triple Crank GOD) for a rebuild. After that its lots of love and cosmetics really is all she'll need. Soon......

I did a lot of things wrong early on with this bike. I owe it to her to at least get her back on the road again. Even got me to Daytona once back in 99 or 2000 or... about 25 pounds ago :)