Stretching the swing arm on a Shaft driven bike??

Anyone heard of a way to stretch the swing arm on a shaft driven LTD

Possible, but not likely. Shafts are case hardened, if you have a way to make a new hardened shaft then it's do-able.

i saw a kz on ebay that was stretched and was wondering the same thing.

I'd go with induction hardening, or heat treat hardening, but case hardening just don't make sense in this application.

Case hardening is only a few thousandths thick, and is used to minimize wear, heat treat or through hardening is used to increase strength.

If you have the equipment you can make one yourself, otherwise you can spend a truckload of cash having one made.

I think 4140 pre-hard would work, that's commonly called chrome moly steel and it's already hardened to the point you really want carbide tooling to cut it. 4140 pre-hard is also commonly used for barrels and receivers in high power hand guns and rifles. Strong stuff

Cool i have been thinking about doing it for along time because it would look awesome but didnt know if there were any kits available (didnt figure there would be) but would it be possible to just add a section and it still be strong enough?

if anyone has a picture of a shaft out of the case they could post it would be greatly appreciated

why challenge an already challenged design....is the handling not bad enough for you now...????

it has been done on guzzi's and bmw's,and it works.it is scarier to think about than to actually do.i have seen shafts cut in two and chro-mo tube slipped over and welded back.
if you want to do it,you better be ready to either do the fab work or pay someone who knows what they are doing.
not for the faint of heart.:laugh:

leon

The bike handles fine but i have all the tools to do the work so i might just tear it down this winter and get to work

I did it once on a chopped Guzzi. Extending the drive shaft was pretty easy, machined up an extension and welded it on. Had to make a fixture to hold the swingarm true when adding to that. It has been holding fine for 15 years, i stopped worrying about a failure a long time ago.

I'm going to start stretching my KZ1000 December 2014 (after this riding season). I have never welded before, but have already purchased a second shaft swing arm, and will be contacting a local drive shaft fabrication company very soon. I have been trying to collect information on it from various websites. I see a lot of info. on stretching bmw's, and guzzi's but not KZ's. I have seen a KZ1300 shaftie, stretched (and I have a pic of it) but not a 1000.

Here's a pic of a STREEEEETCHED BMW. How would you like to ride through a few fast sweepers on that puppy - especially with 10 or 12 passengers onboard? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: It's amazing what some folks will do. Ed

Nice pic! I can't tell you how many guys I know that have built a copy of this one!!

Les