things I have learned about Z1 swingarms so far

The stock metal on Z1 frames, is, well, pretty crappy by todays standards. It is NOT DOM metal- it is welded seam pipe/tubing- 1/8inch wall thickness, 1" 5/8" OD diameter.

I will be destroyings some pieces of it this week to tell the basic strengths and weaknesses.

Quite frankly- I did a little tig bead or two, and the metal is FULL of impurities.

I doubt seriously if it will even make the minimum standars of welded pipe out of a modern supplier of steel.

I heard most japanese bikes were made of really inferior metal- but this is the first time I have really put it to the test,

I have made my swing arm jig, and am ordering my chrome moly today to make a new swing arm. Ya!

I am using a GS 1100 E axle bolt and the axle plates off the stock swing arm, the rest is all chrome moly.

I am using stock diameter for the metal, so it visually looks very much like stock, except it will be reinforced with an upper tube, but only 3/4" OD Chrome moly.

You will be able to physicaly fit a 180mm tire in it, but I don't know if that wide will work to line up the sprockets or not- I know a 160 will.

I will post pictures and also the yield strenghts and ductility and all those kinds of tests, including, finally, melting it down and determining the actual chemical make up of the metal, and what % of impurities exist, but that will be towards april before that is all done.

Should be a fun project!

i will be eagerly awaiting your findings.i have built several swingarms for small roadrace bikes and quads.i found that on the ones that i tried to reuse the axle plates or pivot tubes that the impurities prevented me from being satisfied with the weld quality.i am in the process of building a +2 trellis type swingarm that will house the rear wheel off of an yamaha r1,for my z1r.i am using 1" chromo and built my pivot tube out of 1.5" chromo with bearing cups machined out of solid bar and pressed into the tubing and tack welded.light and strong.keep us updated as you proceed i love building everything myself.

All the CM I just ordered wieght just under 7 pounds and cost around 60 bucks, but I got extra, and that includes the 3/4" tube for bracing. I don't know what shipping will cost me yet! :ohmy:

For future reference for ordering custom cut lengths of aircraft quality steel-

check here:

www.aircraftspruce.com

p.s.- thanks for the heads up there bro on the axle plates! I was going to tig on the chromo, since I have done it several times in my metalurgy class, and it came up within spec. But after just burning up some of this metal- and your comments- I will be machining my own axle plates, but design it to use all the axle adjusters and make it look stock.

Post edited by: CruisingRam, at: 2008/02/06 15:25

While yer at it, how about poppin out some modern CM KZ frames for all of us? Braced and gusseted! :whistle: :woohoo:
You'll be done by sundown. Of course the sun never really goes down up there, does it?

Well, today I drew up the axle plates on autocad, ordered metal, with the exception of the part of the swingarm that holds the swing arm bolt- I am pulling the bushings out right now. I will post progress pics of what I have so far- it will be a couple of weeks before I get the CM, as air frieght is very expensive!

As far as the light goes- hey, we are up to 8 hours a day now, and adding a bunch of minutes per day! Won't be long before 18 hour days are the norm!

I went to the engineering/metalurgy part of my university today, and put my name on the waiting list for some of the tests I want done- on all the old metal- so really, it won't be until september of this year that I will be able to really get after the testing of the old metal. I just caught the semester timing wrong this time. There is no metalurgy class this semester in the welding department dammit! :laugh: