Hi, everybody my name is Simon and i live in the UK.
I had always wanted a pilot ever since i first saw them in the early 90's, trouble is here in the UK they are few and far between and if you can find one it's usually been well abused. I made the decision last year that i would get myself one so the hunt began, months of scouring Flea-bay and others finally turned up this.




A bit of bartering later and i was on my way home with my new toy, first things first and its off for a blast around the local bike track just to make sure that bits don't fall off. All seems good so now the serious job of restoring everything back to its former glory, so over the last few days this happened.




Its never obvious at first glance what sort of condition everything is in and pulling everything apart revealed a lot of worn out, badly repaired or mismatched parts, so far i need to replace or repair.

piston and rings on a standard bore, barrel seems good and measures well.
lower left A arm as a poor repair had been carried out.
front wheel bearings both sides.
front brake pads both sides.
tie bar ends as rubbers are split.
steering column shaft and bushes as is rusted beyond a servicable or repairable point.
rear brake caliper is completely shot and will have to be replaced. (that will be a challenge!)
parking brake cable.
choke cable.
a new carb top, as some muppet had glued on a mikuni version as it would'nt fit properly.
a new ignition switch, probably going to have to adapt a 350 version as the 400 version is dis-continued.
fixed and movable clutch plates, badly worn.
exhaust muffler.
battery.
i had lots of electrical bits not working which was traced to a point in the loom where they had joined all the positives with solder, remade the joint and everything fired up.
all new plastics will be fitted to complete the new look, i have found some and have ordered, the old ones are still solid but quite scuffed and scratched so i will use them for the dirt and keep others for best.
lots of paint.
a large bucket of elbow grease, at least that's free!!!!



looking at the roll bar i noticed that the upright tubes had bends in them just below the diagonals, it was in both of them and they were even, after a bit of photo hunting on here i realised that the whole machine had been put on its roof in a big way at some stage. so out came the big heat gun and with a little bit of effort it all came straight.



Its going to be a labour of love, but i'm not afraid of hard work and i'm going to enjoy every minute of the whole project and using it afterwards, but i won't be looking forwards to the first scratch or crash that i will put on it after all my hard work.

The chassis and a lot of other bits are off being sandblasted and powder-coated at the moment, when everything comes back i will post up as i put it all back together, the idea is to make it as original as i can, so if anyone has anything lurking in the back of the garage that i might need and wants to sell let me know.

looking forward to chatting to all you folks and hopefuly using all your years of combined knowledge about the pilot.

Simon L