Kawasaki - 1966 W1s

I somehow missed this thread. Really happy to see this bike has found a good home and will be brought back to glory. Really enjoying your work and can't wait to see if back together, I love these bikes.

Now that I have the swing arm and steering head sorted out, the next major goal is to get to a rolling chassis. In order to do that I need to rebuild the front forks and the rear shocks (I plan on using the original rear shocks, even though Hagon units look much the same an would probably be better). The main thing is really to get them apart so they can be rechromed.

Here's a few pictures of the rear shocks...



After taking out the roll pin, and using a strap wrench the top cap comes off.



Then using a cap nut and the strap wrench, the top shield comes off



Then, after a little more work, the springs etc. all come off too.



I have to make a spanner to take apart the damper unit, then it'll be off to the chrome shop to be stripped and copper plated so I can fix any issues. Then back to the chrome shop for final chroming. I did something similar on the front forks... I have so far managed to get 4 out of six apart....




These forks are about as primitive as you can get. The damping just via a little orifice at the end of the tube... I can't see any valving in there at all. I'm not sure yet whether I will replace the tubes, but if I do, I may look into fitting something else... perhaps off an H1 or some such.

If the rear dampers can be dismantled you can probably modify the damper rods/pistons to make them work as well as modern shocks
Won't have variable damping but, majority of bikes don't have it either

I didn't show a picture, but yes, the rear dampers can be dismantled. I have to make a proper spanner for it, but that's about it. How would you do the upgrade?

Depends whats in there now.
I'm still toying with the idea of getting the cartridges out of a GSXR fork and making new pistons to hold the valving or modify to fit inside the damper body
Use Silkolene RST suspension fluid