Kawi2strokes.com Forum

Hello, excuse me if this has already been covered. I’ve searched google and found nothing... my H1 has a really big front drum break with air cooling vents and all. Where can I find parts for this thing? brake pads, rebuild kit etc? Is there a website, manual, or YouTube video on how to fix it, tune it rebuild it...
It’s hard to even find pictures of it online. Looks like most bikes have disk brakes or a smaller drum.
Thanks

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Answers are here: http://kawatriple.com/

brmarkey, maybe you'd better post some photos of this brake. From your description it's not a standard H1 brake.

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If it surges, that's normal, upshift.

Here’s a photo.

That looks like an H1R drum..very cool and rare if it is! Dave Tuner would know for sure.

Yes, maybe post a couple photos of the rest of this H1 too.

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If it surges, that's normal, upshift.

It is a H1R front brake and there are no parts or rebuild kits made or available for it.
It was fitted to the the H1R race bike ,approx 80 bikes produced and the H1R-A approx 42 bikes produced, but not to all of them as many bikes were supplied to the USA with no front ends especially the H1R-A as Kawasaki assumed they would be changed anyway for a better brake and forks . The bike in the picture has Ceriani forks.
Picture is me out on my own H1R which I still own today.

Very cool! I’m curious what the forks on this bike are.. the shocks are fox brand with an external reservoir. Im getting more and more excited to get this thing going and to race it in our clubs vintage 500 class!!

the first double leading shoe, dual panel drum front brakes were manufactur4ed by Fontana. The A1R/A7R and H1R setups were done by a Japanese company, not only for Kawasaki but for a lot of racer bikes of the era, and are a little intensive to get adjusted correctly when reassembling and fitting. Once done right, they are about the best you can get in a drum brake, but, still nothing to write home about compared to a well done disk brake. One found out instantly that you did not grab a serious full handful of brake with this setup, instantly, you'd be on the ground, wondering why it was trying to kill you.

Nice historical setup, though.

There are a fair amount of adjustments to get all 4 shoes to "hit" the drum at the same time, and even aligning the front axle to set the drum in the forks correctly.

One thing to consider, most of those setups used a glued on lining, but, if a good reline shop is used, they can be rivited and bonded (glued), with excellent linings, such as the old Raybestos shoes. Just have to find a reline'r that will still do them.

What parts do you need, pictures will help?

Forks might be very early Ceriani, wheel rims are Akront. Ceriani and Fontana were both Italian companies.