Friday Bike

A bit late but here's the Friday Bike. Its a Tony Foale Kawa, more details later..

This is one of my bikes that I built over 04/05. It started as a frame and some parts that I ended up buying while collecting a pair of silencers for the Kawasaki Avenger I had at the time, that would be 1999. The frame was built by Tony Foale some time in the late 70s early 80s and was originally designed to take a CB 750 sohc engine. It was basically taken home and put in the garage till the tail end of 04. Out came the the frame a bits to see what was what, followed by a few emails to Tony Foale for some info on the frame. He didn't have any real records of the early frames he built, but did remember the guys name that was in the log book (reg papers). Turns out that he had bought a complete rolling chassis and bodywork kit, that was the frame and swing arm, TF leading link forks, TF wheels, lockhead brakes and alloy tank. That would have been a fair amount of money back then.
So being more of a Kawa man the empty space in the frame would have to be filled with a Kawa motor. The dummy Zed motor was tried for size, and surprisingly the mounts all lined up, only needing a very slight tweak. So it looked like the project was a goer. Next step was to check what was in the boxes that came with the frame, there was a full set of brakes, most parts as new. I had the basic forks but no fittings, well they turned out to be in one of box all wrapped up... starting to look good. Time for a dry build, forks on frame, front wheel in and centre it in forks, work out spacers for wheel, spacers and bolts seemed to be missing for everything. A few more days work and the wheels were lined up, the dummy engine was in place bolted up with new spacers and even had the chain alignment spot on.
On to the next problem, what is the bike going to look like??? a Cafe racer, all in black to go with the chrome frame, or a style that I've liked for years, the "Endurance Racer" look. Well you can see from the pics what I went for. The twin head light fairing came from a mate, the seat was another problem as I needed the "look". On a trip to VJMC show at Donigton in Feb 05 my problem answered, there was a group of guys there showing their Classic Endurance racers. After a few hours talking to them a deal was done for me to borrow the seat off one of their bikes, and with in the week the mould was made, the new seats made and their seat sent back with two spares.





Time to strip it all down for welding, painting and polish. Next problem which engine to fit, after a bit of thought the engine came out of my No2 Rickman Kawa. It was a Z900 motor bored to 998cc with a Yoshi kit and some Yoshi fast road cams, topped off with a set of 28mm carbs off a MK2. Rebuild went well, everything fitted as it should and was starting to look good.







The body work just had to be Green, the paint work was carried out at the front of the garage in a make shift booth... I had green hair for weeks after that :-)
From buying a silecer to end up building an Endurance racer, thats the fun of old bikes, you never know were they'll take you...