Swingarm help urgent!

I have a 78 c2 I just droppped off to get the frame, swingarm and wheels powdercoated. Soon after dropping them off the guy called me back saying my swingarm is trashed, so I went back and sure enough it looks like the needle bearings were so wore out that they ae into the swingarm itself.
So since I have to get a new swingarm I want a little longer one. I understand the GS100 is the hot ticket but what do I need for my bike to make this happen. I have searched and all of the info is related to 1000s and 900s. I am 17 and this is my first bike so I am pretty new to all of this. Will a 900 or 1000 swingarm fit? I am under a deadline because the powdercoating guy is going on vacation in a few weeks so I would like to get the ball rolling!Please help!

I do not understand how the needles could be into the swing arm, since they have an outside race. If they were that bad the bike would have been unrideable. The back end would have been shimmying so much, you would have been throwing a chain at every turn. Knock out the outside race and press in a new bearing. The guy dose not know what he is talking about and you do not know what you are looking at.

Wow otakar thanks for keeping an open mind and analyzing the situation! First off I could not tell you how it rode since it was a basketcase bucket of parts when I got it. Second I "dose" know what I am looking at and I can tell you I would not ride a bike with a swingarm like this one!

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That was harsh Okatar! Next time try asking a couple of questions instead of jumping the gun. Us young guys may not know it all, but we doos know some.

The only way the arm could look like that is if it got hit. That is not just simply "warn out". Other swing arms will fit the bike. All the early KZ650 and KZ1000 will fit. The differences are in the chain guard mounts. Also make sure it is from a bike with a rear disc brake. Not a drum brake. The GS1100 swing arm works with some shimming. I did it on my GPZ1100 which actually started out life as a CSR1000. You will have to shim both the pivot bolt and the axle spacing. Even though I may not know the difference between "dose" and "does" I did become a senior project engineer without a collage degree. I think that is not bad for a guy who learned his first English word at the age of 10 and survived in the Marines for thirty years, and three wars.

wrangler615 wrote:

That was harsh Okatar! Next time try asking a couple of questions instead of jumping the gun. Us young guys may not know it all, but we doos know some.

Sorry, Bad day. :huh:

wrangler615 wrote "That was harsh Okatar! Next time try asking a couple of questions instead of jumping the gun. Us young guys may not know it all, but we doos know some."

I didn't think Otakar's response was harsh at all! It was simply factual. The powdercoat guy may certainly be correct about the swingarm being trashed, but the previous owner couldn't have driven the bike with the swingarm like that because the bike would have been flopping around like a live tuna on a pier. He would have stopped riding long before the swingarm pivot deteriorated to the condition shown or he would have wrecked. Also, if you look carefully at the damage, it looks like it took a pretty hard shot toward the rear of the swingarm tube; that's no normal wear pattern. Maybe somebody (the previous owner maybe?) whacked the outer race with a BFH trying to drive it out of the swingarm. Ed

650ed wrote:

wrangler615 wrote "That was harsh Okatar! Next time try asking a couple of questions instead of jumping the gun. Us young guys may not know it all, but we doos know some."

I didn't think Otakar's response was harsh at all! It was simply factual. The powdercoat guy may certainly be correct about the swingarm being trashed, but the previous owner couldn't have driven the bike with the swingarm like that because the bike would have been flopping around like a live tuna on a pier. He would have stopped riding long before the swingarm pivot deteriorated to the condition shown or he would have wrecked. Also, if you look carefully at the damage, it looks like it took a pretty hard shot toward the rear of the swingarm tube; that's no normal wear pattern. Maybe somebody (the previous owner maybe?) whacked the outer race with a BFH trying to drive it out of the swingarm. Ed

im gonna say he was a little rough on the kid,i know a member here from missouri that put a truckload of miles on his freshly ground up restored 900 that didnt remember to install the steering head races in the steering head before assembling the front end .he put a lot of hard miles on that poor bike before i drove down from nebraska and figured out the problem for him! :laugh: so anything is possible!

Kind of hard to tell.... Is it just the inner sleeve end that's mashed or the swing arm pivot tubing itself as well....?

either way the poor kid never said it was ridden like that,he was convicted before anybody even let him present his evidence of a trashed swingarm .how it got that way really doesnt matter to me,what matters is that it is as he stated

Well if not reapirable... anyone here able to help the kid out?

or e-bay maybe....