I learned the hard way not to ride it to the skate-park with my skate-board strapped long ways across the handlebars... the crazy thing lifted up off the ground like an airplane and it took me 15 minutes to find a safe place to land!!! : )
three of us bought 3 1970 Kawasaki 350's .... New in the box for $350 each. Dan Gurney had tried to start American Eagle motorcycles. it didn't work. It's still one the quickest bikes I've ridden up to 60mph. WIth 10,000 miles on it I traded it for a 1964 Triumph Spitfire,
Just pulled one out of a barn I found..1969 thought it would be a neat project. I know nothing about the bikes or small motors. Was cool to see one in action.
Awesome bike. You don't see those everyday. I personally think the rotary valve 350 is one of the very best of the 2-stroke motorcycle engines. Good job getting it running.
Thank you. I agree, the Rotary valve is brilliant engineering and the Twin Rotary valve used in this bike and also used in Bridgestone Twins was truly magical.
My Dad owned one of these and I rode the wheels off it. The handling was a little spooky in fast curves. The air filter was a bit restrictive. (maybe just too old) Pull up those rubber carburetor covers a few inches and the intake would howl like mad. It would also smoke any other 350 and a Honda CL450, Triumph Trophy 500 in a drag race and easily wheelie. Sadly, that modification would also let the engine ingest sand. I wish I could buy it.
I had an a7 SS in the day. Don’t miss any shifts, and then jam it into gear quickly. You will break the rotary valve off at the shaft. I broke about a half dozen rotary valves. And don’t buy aftermarket aluminum rotary valves as replacements for the fiber ones. The aluminum ones will self-destruct and destroy the cases on the engine at the same time. You can’t run aluminum on aluminum..There were after market Straigjt cut primary gears and a fiber straight cut alternator drive gear Available. That would give you a fractional increase in power, but you would hear a whine of the street at gears meshing.. now that I think of it, Eric Buell borrowed my straight cut gears, and never returned them. Wait till I see him again. The avenger on paper had the most horsepower of any of the 350 motorcycles available. I think it had 42 HP... I was actually on a first name basis with my dealer and the parts man at the dealership. It seems I was always buying pistons and rings and head gaskets and bass gaskets and rotary valves.. Right after I had the Avenger, I got myself a Bridgestone 350 GTR. In my opinion, that was the best 350two-stroke twin available from Japan. The bridge stones has chrome bores, The first six speeds, a dry clutch, a 6 gallon gas tank, it also had rotary valves that didn’t break. The Bridgestone would start in any gear if you pull the clutch lever in and just kick it, and it would also start without a battery. What happened to Bridgestone? The Longshoremans union destroyed the Bridgestone motorcycle. There was a longshoreman strike that lasted for months. The ships were sitting offshore loaded with all the bridge stones for the next season. They sat offshore for a couple months past the buying season, and that ended the company. Their smaller bikes were better than Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki. They were just a cut above. I really believe that it would be Bridgestone at the top of the heap right now if that longshoreman strike never happened.. When I sold my 350 Bridgestone to a friend of mine, he wrote that thing for years. He had actually driven it to California two times and back to Pennsylvania, with no major problems. The avenger was soon replaced by the three cylinder S1 and S2. I never had an S1, but I had three S2s.. Kawasaki also had the 500 Mark one, and the 750 two-stroke triples. They were fast for their day, but they were horrible handlers, and very hard to start. The first few years had that horrible Kawasaki front drum break, combined with the wiggly wobbly frame, and you could see them at the race tracks shaking their tail light as they would enter high speed turns. You can compound the horrible brakes, and horrible handling, with the fact that the engine was so wide, that road race crashes and street crashes almost always resulted in broken off oil pumps, or damaged cases, and even damaged crankshafts...The 500 and the 750 might’ve been fast in the quarter mile, but a 400 Kawasaki triple always had quicker lap times at the Road race tracks because they didn’t handle badly. They could actually go around corners fast.. But then Yamaha introduced the RD 250 and 350. They were the kings of the Road race track. Not only were they fast, and could stop, but they handled, and they could survive being tossed down the track crash after crash without damage to the engine.. Back to the A7 Avenger. I also had a 250 A1.. It must’ve been unremarkable because I don’t remember anything about it. Actually started road racing on my Suzuki X6 hustler 250.. I always liked how Suzuki and Kawasaki injected undeluded oil from the oil pump directly into the main bearings of the crankshaft, and then it got mixed with gasoline to lubricate the cylinders. That’s probably why the crankshaft in the X6 lasted forever it seems. Yamaha just had a banjo bolt on the intake manifold, and the Oil got mixed with the gas on the way into the cylinder so the crankshaft got lubricated with diluted oil, but it worked. I rode raced an RD 250 for seven years on the same crankshaft, won 6 Championships, and two national championships on that machine. Same crankshaft. The avenger was not a great handler, it had bad brakes, weak rotary valves, but it was fast
@@JayWCase I had trouble with my rotary valves because I was hammering the snot out of that bike every time I rode it. The best thing I ever did was start road racing at sanctioned road racing tracks. once I started riding on real road racing tracks, and saw some real crashes, I realized how stupid it was to go fast on the street. Which wasn’t really fast. In comparison with a road race track. those rotary valves are like a 4 1/2 inch cut off wheel that you see on those little grinders. They look very similar except they have about 120° of the valve removed for the intake stroke. The axis of the valve is just fiber material with a metal spline mashing the fiber material to the keyed in her collar. When you miss a shift, you get that rotary valve on the end of the crankshaft spinning real fast, and if you click it into gear before the rpms drop, The crankshaft will stop, and those rotary valves will keep spinning and sheer off the fiber valve from the metal collar. My local Kawasaki dealer often had those valves on backorder, because they were kind of fragile. there were aftermarket all aluminum one piece rotary valves on the market, but the engine cases and the rotary valve covers are also aluminum. You cannot run aluminum on aluminum, just the same way you can’t run steel on steel, cast-iron on cast-iron, they will Gauld..I saw it happen on my own engine. It was a good idea buy some aftermarket company, but they did not have the resources to test long enough to find that out. You think that their resident engineer would know the basics about running aluminum on aluminum
good reminiscing - i had a 250 samurai ( had my first road race on it ) wish i still had it ...moved onto RD350's to race - used to race against a guy on a 400 Kawa triple, could usually beat him due to RD being better handling iirc. Have an opportunity to view and buy a 350 avenger shortly ..am pretty sure I will buy it.
" What happened to Bridgestone?" They were (are) a tyre manufacturer. They just decided to concentrate on their core business, Maybe the strike you mention caused them to do it, and very well they have done too. 🙂 They had rotary gearshifts too, 1-2-3-4-5-1, well at least the 175s had.
In 1978 i bought the same bike when i just turned 18 . It would pull wheelies shifting from 2 to 3 .It had a full fairing , clip- on's , i remember it had the odometer and rev counter combo and 2 stinger pipes without dampers. I rode with it about a half year before it got stolen.
Brother Darryl, You will be pleased and relieved to hear that i removed the clutch and replaced it with a thermal detonator as a way to increase the plasma output from the flux capacitor. Keep the shiny side down my friend.
Barry, The turn indicator are not harvested from a later model. It was very common for Kawasaki dealers to install turn indicators at the dealership. If they look like what you have seen on other Kawasaki motorcycles, perhaps that is not a coincidence.
Yes, you could put it in a dirtbike, but there would really be no reason to do that. If you had a running avenger engine you could sell it for enough to buy a better dirtbike than you could build around the avenger engine.
Dearest Adrian, I am sad to report that i do not understand your question. Is it actually a question? I'm not even sure its a question. It sure has a surplus of question marks! You might want to back up a little and take another run at it there guy.
I am 66years old, and one of these was my second bike, an awesome machine, beautiful and very quick.
my first bike, bought second hand from a friend in the summer of 71.
I had a red one in 1969. In the powerband the Speedo rose faster than the rev counter. Sounds incredible I know
I learned the hard way not to ride it to the skate-park with my skate-board strapped long ways across the handlebars... the crazy thing lifted up off the ground like an airplane and it took me 15 minutes to find a safe place to land!!! : )
2 strokes revs are an unique thing 😍
So sharp I bet she's quick and powerful high rev
It's not raining but very cool,brings back memories when I worked on these at kawi shop.....
three of us bought 3 1970 Kawasaki 350's .... New in the box for $350 each. Dan Gurney had tried to start American Eagle motorcycles. it didn't work. It's still one the quickest bikes I've ridden up to 60mph. WIth 10,000 miles on it I traded it for a 1964 Triumph Spitfire,
Just pulled one out of a barn I found..1969 thought it would be a neat project. I know nothing about the bikes or small motors. Was cool to see one in action.
Awesome bike. You don't see those everyday. I personally think the rotary valve 350 is one of the very best of the 2-stroke motorcycle engines. Good job getting it running.
Thank you.
I agree, the Rotary valve is brilliant engineering and the Twin Rotary valve used in this bike and also used in Bridgestone Twins was truly magical.
My Dad owned one of these and I rode the wheels off it. The handling was a little spooky in fast curves. The air filter was a bit restrictive. (maybe just too old) Pull up those rubber carburetor covers a few inches and the intake would howl like mad. It would also smoke any other 350 and a Honda CL450, Triumph Trophy 500 in a drag race and easily wheelie. Sadly, that modification would also let the engine ingest sand. I wish I could buy it.
I had an a7 SS in the day. Don’t miss any shifts, and then jam it into gear quickly. You will break the rotary valve off at the shaft. I broke about a half dozen rotary valves. And don’t buy aftermarket aluminum rotary valves as replacements for the fiber ones. The aluminum ones will self-destruct and destroy the cases on the engine at the same time. You can’t run aluminum on aluminum..There were after market Straigjt cut primary gears and a fiber straight cut alternator drive gear Available. That would give you a fractional increase in power, but you would hear a whine of the street at gears meshing.. now that I think of it, Eric Buell borrowed my straight cut gears, and never returned them. Wait till I see him again.
The avenger on paper had the most horsepower of any of the 350 motorcycles available. I think it had 42 HP...
I was actually on a first name basis with my dealer and the parts man at the dealership. It seems I was always buying pistons and rings and head gaskets and bass gaskets and rotary valves..
Right after I had the Avenger, I got myself a Bridgestone 350 GTR. In my opinion, that was the best 350two-stroke twin available from Japan. The bridge stones has chrome bores, The first six speeds, a dry clutch, a 6 gallon gas tank, it also had rotary valves that didn’t break. The Bridgestone would start in any gear if you pull the clutch lever in and just kick it, and it would also start without a battery.
What happened to Bridgestone?
The Longshoremans union destroyed the Bridgestone motorcycle. There was a longshoreman strike that lasted for months. The ships were sitting offshore loaded with all the bridge stones for the next season. They sat offshore for a couple months past the buying season, and that ended the company.
Their smaller bikes were better than Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki. They were just a cut above. I really believe that it would be Bridgestone at the top of the heap right now if that longshoreman strike never happened..
When I sold my 350 Bridgestone to a friend of mine, he wrote that thing for years. He had actually driven it to California two times and back to Pennsylvania, with no major problems.
The avenger was soon replaced by the three cylinder S1 and S2. I never had an S1, but I had three S2s.. Kawasaki also had the 500 Mark one, and the 750 two-stroke triples. They were fast for their day, but they were horrible handlers, and very hard to start. The first few years had that horrible Kawasaki front drum break, combined with the wiggly wobbly frame, and you could see them at the race tracks shaking their tail light as they would enter high speed turns. You can compound the horrible brakes, and horrible handling, with the fact that the engine was so wide, that road race crashes and street crashes almost always resulted in broken off oil pumps, or damaged cases, and even damaged crankshafts...The 500 and the 750 might’ve been fast in the quarter mile, but a 400 Kawasaki triple always had quicker lap times at the Road race tracks because they didn’t handle badly. They could actually go around corners fast..
But then Yamaha introduced the RD 250 and 350. They were the kings of the Road race track. Not only were they fast, and could stop, but they handled, and they could survive being tossed down the track crash after crash without damage to the engine..
Back to the A7 Avenger. I also had a 250 A1.. It must’ve been unremarkable because I don’t remember anything about it. Actually started road racing on my Suzuki X6 hustler 250.. I always liked how Suzuki and Kawasaki injected undeluded oil from the oil pump directly into the main bearings of the crankshaft, and then it got mixed with gasoline to lubricate the cylinders. That’s probably why the crankshaft in the X6 lasted forever it seems. Yamaha just had a banjo bolt on the intake manifold, and the Oil got mixed with the gas on the way into the cylinder so the crankshaft got lubricated with diluted oil, but it worked. I rode raced an RD 250 for seven years on the same crankshaft, won 6 Championships, and two national championships on that machine. Same crankshaft.
The avenger was not a great handler, it had bad brakes, weak rotary valves, but it was fast
Very interesting information.
I had no trouble with the rotary valves in this bike.
@@JayWCase
I had trouble with my rotary valves because I was hammering the snot out of that bike every time I rode it. The best thing I ever did was start road racing at sanctioned road racing tracks. once I started riding on real road racing tracks, and saw some real crashes, I realized how stupid it was to go fast on the street. Which wasn’t really fast. In comparison with a road race track.
those rotary valves are like a 4 1/2 inch cut off wheel that you see on those little grinders. They look very similar except they have about 120° of the valve removed for the intake stroke. The axis of the valve is just fiber material with a metal spline mashing the fiber material to the keyed in her collar. When you miss a shift, you get that rotary valve on the end of the crankshaft spinning real fast, and if you click it into gear before the rpms drop, The crankshaft will stop, and those rotary valves will keep spinning and sheer off the fiber valve from the metal collar. My local Kawasaki dealer often had those valves on backorder, because they were kind of fragile. there were aftermarket all aluminum one piece rotary valves on the market, but the engine cases and the rotary valve covers are also aluminum. You cannot run aluminum on aluminum, just the same way you can’t run steel on steel, cast-iron on cast-iron, they will Gauld..I saw it happen on my own engine. It was a good idea buy some aftermarket company, but they did not have the resources to test long enough to find that out. You think that their resident engineer would know the basics about running aluminum on aluminum
good reminiscing - i had a 250 samurai ( had my first road race on it ) wish i still had it ...moved onto RD350's to race - used to race against a guy on a 400 Kawa triple, could usually beat him due to RD being better handling iirc. Have an opportunity to view and buy a 350 avenger shortly ..am pretty sure I will buy it.
" What happened to Bridgestone?" They were (are) a tyre manufacturer. They just decided to concentrate on their core business, Maybe the strike you mention caused them to do it, and very well they have done too. 🙂 They had rotary gearshifts too, 1-2-3-4-5-1, well at least the 175s had.
Wow, I currently have a 71 A1SS , the 250 Scrambler high pipe version. Still looking for parts to do a restoration on it.
Wow !!!!! Lucky guy !! Good luck with your bike !! Just sold my 1966 YAMAHA YDS3C big bear scrambler!!! 😁😁😁🏍🏍🍺🍺🍺
It was my first bike😃
It would make an amazing and terrifying first bike!
In 1978 i bought the same bike when i just turned 18 . It would pull wheelies shifting from 2 to 3 .It had a full fairing , clip- on's , i remember it had the odometer and rev counter combo and 2 stinger pipes without dampers. I rode with it about a half year before it got stolen.
wow!! what a sweet machine! im not that jealous. ok I am
Legendary bikes
I agree with your assessment.
Keep it alife - superb bike!
I appreciate the kind words.
How much did it sell for in the end, understanding that was 2017?
Did you receive a lot of interest in it?
Thanks, very cool bike, 🙂
Hope you got that clutch adjusted.
Brother Darryl,
You will be pleased and relieved to hear that i removed the clutch and replaced it with a thermal detonator as a way to increase the plasma output from the flux capacitor.
Keep the shiny side down my friend.
かっこいい!!
そして綺麗!!
優しい言葉をありがとう。
日本は真の職人の故郷です。
how much did it sell for?
Curt MX, it sold for a little over 4 grand.
Nice!
nice
indicators are a later model [pos S2]
Barry,
The turn indicator are not harvested from a later model.
It was very common for Kawasaki dealers to install turn indicators at the dealership.
If they look like what you have seen on other Kawasaki motorcycles, perhaps that is not a coincidence.
Could you put that engine on a dirtbike?
Yes, you could put it in a dirtbike, but there would really be no reason to do that.
If you had a running avenger engine you could sell it for enough to buy a better dirtbike than you could build around the avenger engine.
No never do that, you don't destroy this unique piece of history 😮😊
I've never seen one.
rare bike
That is a fact.
There are not many surviving in nice original condition.
Thanks for the comment.
be nice if you could change gear?????????????????????
Dearest Adrian, I am sad to report that i do not understand your question.
Is it actually a question?
I'm not even sure its a question.
It sure has a surplus of question marks!
You might want to back up a little and take another run at it there guy.
You may want to check everything rubber because rubber can and will fall apart. Other then that nice job ,gear bike.
Thanks Ron.
You talk to much. Start it up and ride the damm thing. God dam.