Whitbread Posted July 16, 2009 Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 (edited) I'm a fabricator by trade and I'm sure I'm one of many that hates the non replaceable ball joints, idiotic chain adjustment system, and the short range of a banshee with a stock fuel tank. I was planning to do this all much later but had an encounter of the bush covered stump kind over the weekend of the 4th. It bent my left upper and right lower a arms and steering stem when it tumbled on it's side after. Amazing the damage a 15mph crash can do . Anyway while inspecting the damage back at home, I noticed the swingarm pivot bearings and carrier bearings were shot in addition to 2 of the ball joints . So I figured what better time to break out the tig welder and grinder. I started all of this sunday night and the goal is to have it all done by 6pm friday as that's when I'm heading out for a riding trip to Indiana. I modified my front A arms very similar to the way RegalRocket did his in this thread. No need to cover things twice. I ride extremely tight trails and don't want the thing any wider. I'll make nice new ones when I reconstruct the front of my frame in the next year or two. The threaded pieces I lathed up are 1.125" OD and tapped with M16x1.5 threads for the Moog ES2074R tie rod ends. The spindles do have to be reamed to recieve the much larger taper. After annoying the living hell of the guy at the industrial tooling store mearsuring every reamer I could find, I finally found a 535R 3/4" reamer made by Michigan Drill that had the correct taper. Darn thing was $58 :mad: . What you pay for buying american made I guess... A arms are all done though, just need a quick spraybomb tomorrow. I'll get them powdered after the riding trip. For the swingarm fix, I picked up a carrier tube from JJ&A Racing products and a pruple billet carrier from their garage sale section ($99!) to match. Only $65 more than new carrier bearings for the stock carrier would've run me. I'm going to be grafting it into the stock swingarm since I'm on an extremely limited time frame. I'll build a pretty one another day. By my measurements, I'll end up at about -3/4" on the overall lentgh which is what I want for the tight trails I usually ride. The parts from JJ&A should be here thurs so I'll hopefully have this done the same day. Reason the swing arm got pulled out. Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away, these were swingarm bearings... Since this is a budget mod session after all, I was originally going to use a heiniken mini keg but it prooved to be too thin to weld fittings in to . So, I rolled an aluminum tank instead. My plastics are painted anyway and don't want to deal with painting a tank to match. I used a 11"x25" piece of .125" AL to form the main part and english wheeled some ends out of .100" AL. I machined a o-ring sealed fill cap and a drain fitting out of some bar stock that was laying around. The cap is 1 1/16"-12 straight thread and the drain is 1/4" NPT. Accoring to my math, it should hold a little over 2.5 gallons. Probably a little overkill, but oh well. More pics to come tomorrow. Edited July 16, 2009 by Whitbread Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitbread Posted July 16, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 Reconstructed rear grab bar. Still have to weld the rings on that will hold the tank. It wouldn't be complete without the skull vent. A little teaser of what's to come this winter :wink: . $1.25 and $10 shipping. Courtesty of E bay! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeamRealtreeHD Posted July 16, 2009 Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 Good work Sir... way to use your imagination. Yamaha sure didn't when they thought of non-removable ball joints and the chain adjustment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitbread Posted July 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2009 Got the swingarm done, fuel tank done, and right side front suspension all together. Just waiting on the other 2 joints to come in at o'rieley's tomorrow morning and the new chain and sprockets to get in at the local motorcycle store in the morning also. It'll be riding around the yard by noon :smile: . Backstrap 2 carrier tube from JJ&A. Only took 5 minutes with an angle grinder to get it to fit perfect. Measured 10 times and welded it. Tank installed. All plumbed up and filled with 2.5 gallons of fuel ready to go. Doesn't look as goofy as I thought it might. Right side A arms installed Just have to do an alignment after I get the last 2 joints in the morning and she'll be good to go! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XxMeltIcexX Posted July 17, 2009 Report Share Posted July 17, 2009 Nice work man! :cool: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitbread Posted July 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2009 Thanks. Just don't look at the tank too hard. It's slightly higher on the right side. The bottom of the hoop needs to be tweaked a little bit. But it's going to have to wait until I pull the arms and swinger off to get pc'ed. It'll work just fine for riding this weekend which was the whole goal of these last minute fab projects. I'll make it perfect later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flash and Flare Posted July 17, 2009 Report Share Posted July 17, 2009 simply awesome ! Those sure are some purdy welds, must from all the downpipe fabrication...........long live the CLUB ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry's Shee Posted July 18, 2009 Report Share Posted July 18, 2009 Ok, I give. What is this in previous answer? I sure don't give a flip about China. But those are nice welds, good work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert0762 Posted July 21, 2009 Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 great work wish I had a garage with enough tools to do that shit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwistedSheeRida Posted July 21, 2009 Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 nice work so you run the regular tank and that other tank? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AWR Posted July 21, 2009 Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 i just ported 2 sets of cylinders for two guy's who were at haspin last weekend.they saw your a-arms and said they were cool.if you went to the drag strip you saw them.one was blue with rocket pipes not sure about the other one...how much for a set of a arms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommy346 Posted July 21, 2009 Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 i just ported 2 sets of cylinders for two guy's who were at haspin last weekend.they saw your a-arms and said they were cool.if you went to the drag strip you saw them.one was blue with rocket pipes not sure about the other one...how much for a set of a arms. that other banshee would be me lol. i agree he did a sweet job on the stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry's Shee Posted July 21, 2009 Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 You using tig welder? Would a person have to get one that is water cooled? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitbread Posted July 22, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 Thanks for the compliments . Post ride report: After some minor font end adjustments, it goes straight down the trail :beer: . It was launching crooked at the drag strip but a tire pressure check back at camp explained it with 2psi difference between the rears. Aired the left up and it launched straight as an arrow. Twisted - Yep, I run both tanks. When the normal tank is almost at reserve, I open the ball valve on the rear tank and run both. Otherwise, with the height difference between the two, the normal tank would overflow if I opened both valves when they're full. Worked great at haspin this past weekend. Rode for a solid 9 hours before I had to refuel. AWR - Yeah, I talked to BansheeBen (I think that's what he said his name was on here) and Tommy. Cool dudes with some fast bikes. As for a price, I think I'd do the mod for about $100 with me machining the threaded pieces. If I made a clamp in jig and found the right hole saw, I could probably do a full set in 2-3 hours. Where are you located at? Larry - It's all tig'ed. You could use an aircooled torch easily. You'd just might have to stop once or twice to let the torch cool. I use a miller synchrowave 180 converted to watercooled with a weldcraft torch. Total cost for me to build the watercooler was $175. Miller can kiss my arse if they think I'm going to pay $500+ for thier unit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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