soft tail conversion ??

pardon if this has been asked
I want to swap the swing arm on my '91kz1000 for a soft tail. anyone got any ideas?
would it be easier to get a soft tail frame metric or whatever or try to modify a softie from another frame like a verigo or such??

it is technically a softtail now as opposed to a rigid. but if you mean a fat tire kit you would have an easier time with a sport bike swingarm.

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in my understanding there are 2 types of rear ends ,rigid and suspension. of the suspension type there are the swing arm and what was branded the soft tail. the type I was looking for is the soft tail that is more of a triangular shape rather than the swing arm that is straight. the soft tail that looks like a hard tail but has the suspension hidden.
I got an im from a friend who pointed out that with saddle bags on it you can't really see it... good point..
still I really like the hard tail look ,but after riding a 48 panhead for 20+ years my kidneys are not in the rigid mood any more..:blink:
I see that some of the older viragos have a mono shock soft tail.
looks like I will be trying to modify a 81 or 82 kz1100 b1/b2..mcdroid informed me that those were the fuel injected models.I really like the kz but have enough of the 4 carb poop..
I thought of the sport bike rearend also because I can run a 170 and move the rear axle back some as to stretch out some..
what is that rear in the pic?? I like the mono shock. did you mod that onto a kz?

its a 93 gsxr swingarm with an air assisted monoshock from an 83 venture royale on a 76 kz 900

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"Softail" is just a Harley term for the FLST or FXST series. what they did is have the triangle swingarm to resemble a hard tail and the shocks lay flat under the transmission. i think on a KZ you would have better luck with a monoshock rather than the softail idea, if you were to put the shocks under the engine you would lose the centerstand,also most of the room for the exhaust would be gone and the shocks would sit pretty close to the ground.

yeah flht1997 I think you're right about the clearances and all.will probibly go with a swingarm from a sport bike like btchalice did.
hey bt how much farther back is that than a kz 1000 swing arm??

i think its 4.5 or 5 over

I think it just depends on the look you want. The softail is a trade name for a rear end that looks like a hard tail but has a hidden suspension. If you want the hardtail look you'll need that triangular shape you mentioned so it looks like it's tied into the frame.

On btchalice's bike, the shock is barely visible and looks awesome that way too. Actually fitting a harley softail suspension would be really cool but probably a lot harder that a sport bike conversion. Keep us posted on what you decide!