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Hi Gram,

good to have you on board!

Not sure if I still qualify… I came out of Perth but now live in Switzerland.
When my A1R build if finished, I will have TONS of spares to go at enthusiast's price.

Early A1R had a kickstart fitted, a good thing since I don't have starter rollers!

Chrome guard is a try-out (from a S1) don't think I'll need one with the fairing fitted.

Good work looks really good

Well it's certainly taken a lot longer than I thought and cost more than I'd care to think about but she's finally running as she should and back on the road for what's left of the summer.
Thought I'd be sorted by the spring but the carbs still weren't right (so much for keyster carb kits) So off with the carbs and away to Steve at Motocarb for a full Mikuni spec clean & rebuild. With that sorted, got her running to find the oil pump not feeding enough to the r/h side. Finally managed to source a new nos oil pump & banjo and with more than a little help from a local bike mechanic, finally got her back on the road yesterday. So now it's out in the Suffolk sun as often as possible to get those 300 miles on the clocks, so I can really relive that authentic screaming 2 stroke experience. I have to say that having not ridden one of these since 1977 and my last bike being an R6, it handles a lot better than I expected 
 

Are there any aussie members here that would like to make contact re parts advice and surplus bits for the A series twins. I have a few spare bits that may be good for local swaps etc.

I used to have a Kawasaki Agency from 1973 till 1979 and worked on these bikes and other kawa twostrokes for many years.

Graham

grahamvk4sg@gmail.com

Good stuff Spike keep us up to date with the progress - was that put on the road at some point in it's life I see it's got a kickstart and a chrome mudguard?

I have just located a couple of piston kits for a DS7(1972)....the last pre-reed yamaha and the pistons will do nicely.

the DS7 piston crown is 2mm lower than the A1 so I will remove 2mm from the cylinder base, to restore the port timing. The crown shape is within a degree or two of dome angle so the squish should be ok but I will check this after the barrells are bored and pistons fitted.

The DS7 piston is longer in the skirt so I will be taking 4mm off the skirts.

The ring pegs are not quite as wide spaced as the A1 pegs but they are still quite a distance away from the rear transfer port window.

A good solution in the end, and they are easily obtainable at half the cost of A1.

Graham

Have had a rotten year so far and it doesn't look like it's about to change 

So I decided to kickstart my A1R– a pet project if there was one!

I will try to update my site with all details but suffice to say that a racing bike is really special - everything needs hand fettling - but very interesting discoveries while doing it.

So far we are stuck with a gear selection problem, very puzzling, but m sure we'll sort it out.

here's a pic of it at the moment:

Sadly the crown height is different… I've updated my site with the info.

You could work around it though.

You should look into Yamaha R5 or DS7 (the piston port predecessor of the air cooled RD)

I compared 350 LC pistons with A7 pistons and there is a crown height difference, not sure yet about pin location though.

The R5 piston is actually quite close to the A7R pistons… hint.

I think the will be useable with a base plate in my case, I am not sure squishing will work, 3 mm is a lot to remove on a head.

I will try and make a post about it on my site.