Do you like watching bike restoration videos and custom build time-lapses? Obviously, we do around these parts. So, what do you look for in a good video? If your favorite types of restoration vids are the ones where a) someone clearly knew how to edit and keep things moving along, and b) it’s basically just moto-building ASMR, then we’ve got a video you’re going to love.
Folks, the 1972 Kawasaki 100 you see in this video starts out rough. If you’ve spent enough time looking at bike classifieds and sorting by price from lowest to highest, we guarantee you’ve seen a bike very much like this before. Granted, it’s nearly 50 years old, but you can still clearly tell that it’s seen far better days. It’s never a good sign when your duct tape looks tired and worn out, and also somehow like the adhesive managed to turn equal parts brittle and insanely tacky at the same time.
Yet, that’s exactly what you see here. Is said duct tape on the saddle? Nope, it’s on the forks. At first, it’s not clear why that might be the case, but you later begin to think that maybe it was a sign of the horrors found within. Friends, I am honestly not sure if that fork oil was ever changed in that bike’s entire life—at least, not until YouTuber Doctor Motorcycle got his hands on it. (Also, if some weird, filthy, fork-oil-looking slime monster shows up in my dreams tonight, I will absolutely know where it came from.)
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Anyway, if you’re thinking it’s a little weird that the engine teardown doesn’t come until about 17 minutes into a 22-minute video, so was I. Although it needed a little cleanup and the cylinder got sent off to be bored out to 104cc, what we saw in the very quick teardown didn’t look too bad, considering. The time not spent on the engine was instead spent on prepping and painting the frame and tank, and you know what? Watching the process was well worth it.
At the end, Doctor Motorcycle shows us a brief glimpse of this great Green Goblin-esque paint scheme, together with a custom saddle from a local shop that fits the build perfectly. When the good doctor kick-starts the Kawi 100 and rides off at the end, it may not be into the sunset—but it still feels unmistakably like a win.