Armen
Serious Thumper
Offline
Half-Witted Wrench-Jockey from Jersey
Posts: 1452
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So, with the 18" rear wheel and the Kawi front sprocket, the swingarm cross brace has to be chopped a lot. Kinda worried about how little metal would be left behind, and how flexi the S/A will become. Also worried about how much the whole gag will warp and distort between all the chopping and adding and welding. So, I figured I'd start by wiping off all the stuff I don't need. Not running a belt guard. Going to use a rod for the rear brake instead of a cable, and so on. So, 4 1/2" grinder, Zip Cut wheels, sanding pads, lots of sparks, lots of dust. Then I got a piece of rectangular tubing. Coped the ends to fit in the swingarm. Got some lengths of threaded rod (1/2" and 5/8"). Ran the threaded rod through the swingarm pivots, the axle slots, and the shock mounts. Double nutted them all. Figured that'd hold things a bit. Fit the brace in, and tacked it up. Production welded the top and bottom and let it cool. Figure the two horizontal welds will cause the least distortion. Once it cools down. I'll loosen the S/A threaded gag and preload the nuts against the inside faces of the S/A. The vertical welds are going to want to pull the arms together, so if I have them spread a bit, it should average out. If it is too wide, I'll just tighten the S/A pivot nut a bit more. If it's too tight, I'll put the threaded rod in there and tighten the nuts against the inner faces of the S/A and spread them out. For now, it all stays bolted together until I chop out a lot of the existing brace, make a plate to cover the new hole, and weld it all up. Somewhere in that all, I'll elongate the axle slot toward the front so I can get the belt on without a fight. Just bolts on! -Armen
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