Thread: Kawasaki A7 Avenger

You have done a great job restoring the bike, looks fantastic. Would be a lot of fun to ride on the twisties!

A friend and I were riding home from a classic bike rally decades ago on the hume. Up ahead we saw someone on an old bike. It was flapping in the breeze and we were sure it had a broken frame. As we got closer we saw it was a kwaka triple, concern over.

You needed to be a lot braver than me to ride those things. The 500's had a powerband about as wide as a human hair, more power than a fleet of 747's and a frame made of half set jelly.

I miss the 70's...

As a teenager I drooled over the Avenger myself

What a stupid comparison( worked Harley).

The Avenger when released was a bike to have, fast, like the X6 Suzuki Hustler, left British bikes behind in a cloud of blue smoke. A worked Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10RR would leave a Harley behind yawing on corners and wobbling on the exits.

DD

Very nice restoration, you mention it was in boxes, did you own one in the sixties? If you didn't, then your restoration is even more impressive.

The A7 (Avenger) was a pretty good motorcycle, one that a very close friend purchased. At the same time, I had the Suzuki Cobra (500 twin first model only) both were reasonably thirsty, but the Cobra was incredibly thirsty if really pushed; the A7 was only moderately more thirsty when really pushed. Sometimes stuff got in the system and the A7 would backfire, causing those neat rubber tops to blow off the crankcase housing. This usually necessitated a stop to fix things up, my friend got quite good at re-inserting those rubbers.

The Kawasaki H1 (500cc Mach III) which I first saw and rode at the end of 1969, was so quick in a straight line, many of us mentioned that one needed to wear a jock strap to keep things from being left behind. The Kawasaki A7and H1 along with the Suzuki Cobra had drum brakes, which in general were reasonably good if your weren't savage on the brakes. However if you really slammed the brakes on repeatedly, then brake fade could be a real concern.

At Calder race track, which was effectively two drag strips where terminal speed braking for a 180º tun twice a lap, often meant brake fade from around 5-7 laps. By 10 laps, which was an often chosen race length, you would be fading badly. Interestingly, Amaroo Park, which was also very short, was quite kind to drum brakes, it was more like a normal mountain road, up and down as well as around, compared to the stop start Calder track.

The culmination of the Kawasaki two stroke machines was the H2 Mach IV, now that was impressively fast, really fast.

The only thing that could beat the H2 Mach IV, was the Kawasaki Z1, which was a 903cc four cylinder four stroke. This machine literally re-wrote the record books on what a production machine could do. Day in, day out, one could ride your Z1 to work and back during the week, then on the weekend, ride it to a race track, remove the glass, then go production racing quite successfully with the only major modification being worn foot pegs being put on to give greater cornering clearance. Then, the go fast people started to warm them up.

Kawasaki were pretty much the front line, in many aspects of competitive road motorcycling in the late sixties through to almost all of the seventies. A bit like Seiko watches, which were all the rage in the pit lanes.

Mick.

Originally Posted by Optimark

Very nice restoration, you mention it was in boxes, did you own one in the sixties? If you didn't, then your restoration is even more impressive.Mick.

No I did not own one in the sixties, six was as old as I got in that decade.
The bike was completely in pieces when I bought it. Was looking at another bike at an elderly chaps place and saw the tank sitting in a corner of his garage. Ended up buying three bikes off him that day for a song. A BSA B33 also in bits with a little fire damage and a swag of spares and a Suzuki GT 550 that only needed a coil.

Originally Posted by damian

A friend and I were riding home from a classic bike rally decades ago on the hume. Up ahead we saw someone on an old bike. It was flapping in the breeze and we were sure it had a broken frame. As we got closer we saw it was a kwaka triple, concern over.

You needed to be a lot braver than me to ride those things. The 500's had a powerband about as wide as a human hair, more power than a fleet of 747's and a frame made of half set jelly.

I miss the 70's...

A mate of mine Had a Kwaka 1000 ex cop bike and he used to give me a lift home some days after work. Sydney siders will know the level crossing just before the National Park turn off at Loftus, it is a fairly quick bend complete with level crossing bumps and I swear the front turned in and there were hinges in the middle of the frame it flexed so much through that bend.