1975 Kawasaki Bighorn 350

My buddy picked this up back when we were in high school and it's sat in his garage since he took it apart shortly thereafter. It was running at the time of purchase, mind you not all that well. My buddy doesn't have time or space to do anything with it and wants to have it on the road by spring so I'm back in grandma's garage for the winter to make it happen. Started today with putting everything together and seeing what was missing. It's mostly there but I will definitely be on ebay this winter to sort out some parts. The tank has to go, its rusted out inside and has a split at the front and back of the tunnel. The rest is pretty self explanatory from the pictures. Gonna be an interesting winter to say the least.

 

Bah! That is a day's worth of work at most!

 

Haha, ya putting all the pieces together was a days worth of work!

 

Well this looks like a lot of fun. Im going to subscribe to this. Cant wait to see what comes out of this. I imagine a soda blaster will be your best friend in this project!

 

Nice project. Way back in the day, my friends and I used to go up to Big Joe Haney's house to ride bikes. He rented a farm and had a barn full of bikes. Some were very, very hot to the touch, others not so hot. He had an interesting collection of dirt and street bikes, mostly all two strokes. He had a 350 Bighorn in that collection.

One weekend we ride up there and for some reason, I get stuck on the 350 Kaw. I usually rode his mild DT250 but figured with all my two stroke experience, a "little 350" couldn't be too bad.

We all saddle up for the ride to the rock quarry which was about 4 miles down the railroad tracks......we all start to head out and I wick the throttle. The Bighorn started to gather speed safely enough.....and then it came up on the pipe in 2nd or 3rd gear. Now before I go on to describe what happened, let me preface this with my 2 stroke experience at the time included my own stock 500 Zuk Titan and a half-season riding a full race GT750 water buffalo along with riding a couple of H1's that Ronnie owned occassionaly.

So anyway, that "little 350" comes up on the pipe and all of a sudden, I'm looking directly at Jesus's home while struggling to remain on the bike. The thing was a complete ANIMAL! It ripped and snorted like a bull trying to eject the rider, me. It took a good two hundred yards, wheel pointed straight up before I began to gain an ounce of control. That "little 350" had just made a p**** out of a road racer.....clean scared the crap out of me. I instantly gained a lot of respect for that "little 350" and with that respect came speed, lots of speed. Coming out of the corners at the quarry only took a thought to leap in front of everyone else. Going over the jumps, I could ride up on side, then twist the trottle to hoist the front end at will to the prescribed height to make the jump cleanly.

Have fun with that "little 350" but beware....satan lurks within that engine!!

jeff

 

Haha, love the story Jeff! Can't wait to see what this thing will do once it's running again!

 

I see a great rat bike.

 

In fact-punch that motor out until she glows red when
riding then smoke every thing on the road while
"looking" like you should be pushing it instead or riding.

 

Haha! Unfortunately this isn't my build to modify, I have to get everything checked over by my buddy beforehand. The main goal is to get the engine rebuilt right now, then we'll work on cosmetics and mods.

 

There is no point in making this a rat bike

 

A quick update: We got the engine split and everything looks good. Ran into a bit of a snag when we tried to get the crank out of the left casing. She's stuck in there real good. Took the rubber mallet to her but it wouldn't budge. Any hints or tricks to getting it to slide out of the bearing? Not sure how the hot/cold would work with the aluminum casings so any advice would be great!