Swingarm bracing and notching-DIY

[Rusty McNeil]

It can't be that hard can it?

Last weekend I did this project, took alot of measurements and spent some time at work with some mild steel tubing and a conduit bender and fabbed up the pieces, using a picture off the internet and my already removed swingarm, and mostly just "eyeballed" it into it's final form as far as the bracing went.

If I had to do it over again I would have had the center vertical strut between the swingarm and the brace leaning so that the brace was closer to the tire, I think it would have looked better that way......

I used the tubing from an old 55 gallon drum dolly I cut up for the bracing and some 12 guage plate from and old 480 volt starter bucket for the notch since it already had a nice 90 degree bend in it and all I had to do was shape it.....

I took it over to a friend of mine and he gas welded it for me, his welding isn't perfect but it's structuraly sound and after grinding with a grinder and then a die grinder it's gonna be fine when I have it powder coated.....

He's the guy I mentioned built the 113S&S powered fat bastard custom chopper from the frame up.....Nice bike, fast too

The notching was actually more complicated as far as figuring out how deep you can go without getting into the driveshaft....All that is explained in my recent post in Suspension so I won't repeat it here....

The swingarm comes off the bike ridiculously easy, never knew that.

I screwed my rattlecan paintjob up putting it all back together, but that's just temporary until it gets too cold to ride again and I'll pull it off and either have it powder coated or chromed.....Probably Powdered since I don't think I can get the welds to look good enough to chrome.......

If I powder coat it that'll be the only money I have in this except for the spray paint and the gas to get to his house...he wouldn't let me pay him, not even for c-25 gas and wire, but he's putting down wood floors in a couple of weeks and I got a feeling he's gonna call

The last pic was my backup beer go getter while the Max was down

 

[one2dmax]

Looks pretty good to me.

Sean

 

[shawn kloker]

Looks good Rusty! Would have been an ideal time to flip your rear caliper to up under the bottom.I like how doing this opens up the rear rim.

 

[Rusty McNeil]

Thanks!

Looks good Rusty! Would have been an ideal time to flip your rear caliper to up under the bottom.I like how doing this opens up the rear rim.

I really thought about that too, I like how it looks on your bike and others, my only holdup was not having a brakeline to fit, plus I forgot to bring the axle and caliper bracket with me to the guys house.

When I take it off to have it powder coated I'll probably do it then.....

 

[hubeerjw]

Looks sweet! Can you tell any difference... was it worth your time?

 

[Rusty McNeil]

Look sweet! Can you tell any difference... was it worth your time?

The notching was worth my time 'Cause I wanna stick a 200 tire in there.


I haven't really put the bike through any good sweepers to feel if any things changed in the handling; it handled fine before except for an occasional slight wallow in bumpy high speed sweepers.....

 

[Hulign]

Looks cool... I was going to do that once upon a time...back when I had a shop with a welder.


Now figure out a good way for the average joe to stretch one 3 inches and I will be your new best friend :worthy:

Frank