Where to look for '79 SR400 (Kawa) swingarm?

[John Orchard]

Anyone have any idea's where I could start looking for a 1979 Kawasaki SR400 works bike swingarm?

[Tahitian_Red]

1979 SR works bikes were single shock right?

[JohnnyO]

Most 79 SR's were single shock except the very early 79's, 78 SR is what you need. I know someone with a 78 SR380 and was looking at it 2 weeks ago, you can make a swingarm exactly the same using 2 std 78 arms.
You won't find an SR arm

[John Orchard]

Early 79 SR's had twin shock like the KX250A5, later 79 SR's had the shocks moved further up the swingarm, I think I might try and make one from scratch.

[JohnnyO]

Later 79's were single shock.. The production 80 model was single shock and they always tried things on works bikes before going into production.
Brad Lackey raced the 79 GPs on a single shock.

[JohnnyO]

Holly in Japan made a SR swingarm from 2 std 78 arms..

[John Orchard]

Yeh they ran at least three styles in '78/79 but there were two versions of twin shock that I have seen.  Yeh I already asked Holly san.

[Husky500evo]

I believe that this is a picture of Gaylon Mosier's '79 SR400 (380 ?) and would have been one of the last of the twinshock Kawasaki works bikes. Jim Weinert would have had one of these to ride as well. I have been told that the Weinert bike was later shipped to Europe for Dave Thorpe to ride and it now resides in Australia.   

[John Orchard]

That's the swingarm I want  :-)

[Slakewell]

There is allot of work in fabing that up. 

[JohnnyO]

The Weinert bike is the one I looked at a couple of weeks ago and was later used by Thorpe in 79.
The swingarm is the same as this one and can be made by cutting up 2 78 KX swingarms as Holly did.

[GMC]

Why do you need to chop up 2 arms?
Is the SR arm longer than the 78 arm?

[JohnnyO]

Why do you need to chop up 2 arms?
Is the SR arm longer than the 78 arm?

Yes the SR arm is longer than the stock 78 KX arm, the 78 KX arm has the shock mounts in the same position as the SR.
The 79 KX arm is the right length but shock mounts are in the wrong position. .

[rob]

That is one of the last open class SR390's built by Kawasaki - they built two or maybe three  for the 1978 Trans AMA series at the back end of 1978. They were ridden by Jimmy Weinert and Gaylon Mosier.  The interesting twist to the story, is that in 1978 Dave Thorpe, at that time a 16 year old schoolboy star in the UK , was riding Hondas.  He wanted to switch to the open class in 1979 to ride the British Support Championship.   Honda could only offer him a 360 Mugen, and he wanted a full works ride.   Team Kawasaki boss Alec Wright wanted him on his team,. so he bought Jimmy Weinerts SR390 over from Kawasaki USA after the Trans AMA series and gave it to Thorpe to ride for the 1979 British Support Championship.  Thorpe rode it from January till late April 1979 when his works Unitrak arrived. He won the British Support Championship riding the SR390. 

Hope this helps with your project Johnny Orchard.

Regards
Rob.

[Husky500evo]

I pinched this picture a couple of years ago from either the MX-Trax or Le Guide Verte forums, thinking that it was a very works looking 250 Kawasaki. But I think that it is a bitsa A5, with some different parts like a Mr Holley tank, Z spoke Yamaha front hub, 43mm forks and a fabricated swingarm that looks to have similar specs to the works item. I don't think you would get away with racing it in Evo class here, but the Poms don't seem to have a problem with stuff like this. I think it looks cool.