Cracked swingarm
- Thread starter kulit
- Start date
Well the quality has been declining for decades, since the 1970's by my measure. I think a lot of it has to do with depleting mines, expensive oil. Covid was probably used as a cover to do a massive downgrade, who knows. One thing I know though is the world is running out of cheap metals etc. Did you know that there is a big problem now with recycling steel? Seems all the alternators/motors that have been tossed into the furnaces have polluted the brew with copper and that makes steel brittle. The amounts are small but building and by 2050 odd (which probably means sooner) the recycled steel will be of no use in structural applications. The best laid plans of mice and men again.
It's so bad that the Chinese have resorted to deep see salvage of sunken ships, any sunken ship regardless of who it belonged to or who died on it...
There was a video that eludes me which depicted a Chinese dredging ship with a huge grappler bringing bits of a ship to the surface.....
Rojo
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So the year is 2050, let's share some predictions so this thread can be brought back up to the top by Redbull later :) 1. Manual/Stick Shift vehicles are a thing of the past and no longer exist. They have been phased out and new one's are no longer in production. Still available in the used...
It's funny, I posted a thread about chinese product on another forum, nothing too derogatory, just stating the facts and pointing out that the Chinese culture was based on profit first and foremost whereas the Japanese culture is steeped in honor and doing it right. Of course some young man was offended and accused me of racism basically. Come back and tell me that in 20 years I say to myself.
Rojo
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Just kind of cracked me up. I opened the org and there was a ad with a bunch of Chinese bikes from the scooter depot on the header up top. I don't think anyone here would ever suggest one of those bikes to anyone. Kind of a misplaced marketing decision in my opinion.
Berlin Germany
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hey dudeDude, you just necromanced an almost 18 year-old thread. That guy could be a grandpa by now!
i am at the grandpa´s age - i´m 65running up to 66
currently, because with gen1 '99-'07 - in general - exactly this damn bul lshit can still occur.
and
If I'm not mistaken and I remember correctly, I changed a Gen1´s swingarm about a year ago precisely because of such a crack
in the swingarm head - LH only.
that's why I always have an intact swingarm on the shelf as a reserve.
but you can only discover the crack if you pull the swing arm to relubricate the bearings and look very closely.
_______________________________________________________________
relubricating the swing arm´s head bearings:
anyone who looks at this page and pictures
should tremble with horror, because this is what the inner ring/spacer/shell of the left needle bearing on my gen1 looked like with around 40,000 km of mileage.
as we here suppose it is caused by condensation water collected at LH only when bike is on its side stand.
and - one can´t avoid that collectioning, if a main stand isn´t mounted.
so every time u leave the bike on its side stand the water drains into the bearing - LH only !
Why do you think the cracking occurs , is it over tightened by mistaken heavy handed re fitment ?
Berlin Germany
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man ?
by tightening the nut of the swing arm´s axle you bring only an axial force into the entire assembly,
but never a radial force that would then more or less blow up the bearing seat.
there never ever can't happen an over tightening the way u think about.
before that, the internal thread of the nut or the tool with its 4 teeth would give up, i.e. break/tear or something like that.
something else about the statics of a pipe (here - the swing arm head).
this tube is pressed in its maximum load direction by tightening the axle (its nut).
if a pipe were to deform under axial load, it would be compressed, i.e. shortened, and the degree of compression (the shortening grade) would be indicated by waves on the surface.
Must be a flaw in the metal or fatigue......
Berlin Germany
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yes i suppose so too
or it is something totally different what , til today , no one of us expected .
i myself simply have put in a new (pre owned) swingarm. ;-)
if i count right - 12 times now.
Man , so possibly flawed aluminum , in construction of swingarm .
100% agree with you. I used to buy certain parts at the local auto store but is not worth the risk anymore. A $250 dollar fuel pump may get you 3 days of driving before it quits and you have to do the job again. I’m even buying my oil filters from the manufacturer these days.
Tony Nitrous
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It’s not that rare. I’ve seen another Busa arm the same and a couple of GSX1400 ones all fracture around the pivot tube.
Well it's a 1/4 century old isn't it? That's a long time for a load bearing element like that I would think. And then there are the miles ridden, which I think would be the major factor. Airplanes and their frames are retired after so many hours in the air and they are built to much higher standards. It's probably unrealistic for us to assume our bikes parts will last as long as us
Where is this water coming from, is your bike left out in the rain?
I've never heard this happening very often even with older bikes that have been abused somewhat....Well it's a 1/4 century old isn't it? That's a long time for a load bearing element like that I would think. And then there are the miles ridden, which I think would be the major factor. Airplanes and their frames are retired after so many hours in the air and they are built to much higher standards. It's probably unrealistic for us to assume our bikes parts will last as long as us
Might even be a flaw in the design if this is happening on a few Hayabusas maybe that area is too thin...??
What other bikes share the Hayabusa swingarm....any?
Berlin Germany
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how did i write above ?
we here in europe suppose ! that it is a kind of condensed water .
Yeah it could be a flaw in the design, that would make more sense. Perhaps due to excessive pressure on one end, due to the torque from the chain? I'm sure Suzuki engineers did a good job back in the day designing it, but how you test for something like that, cumulative forces year after year? I wouldn't want it to happen to me but I don't push my bikes and typically offload them around 50,000km.
Once I had a ZZR11 and it was about 12 years old, I bought it then with low kms. at 45k I noticed the swing-arm had some sideways movement in it. This was back in the days of grease nipples, I think it had 4 down there and one was for the swingarm shaft. Anyway no one has lubed it since the factory, it was dry as a bone in there and all the bearings in the swingarm had collapsed basically. 2 sets of needle bearings and one roller on the end. The shaft in there was ok so I just replaced all the bearings. What a prick of a job getting those needle bearings to stay in place for reassembly.
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