AL's Thunderace Swingarm Conversion
Start from the base up, very useful info...
With new rear disc ...
Voila, an extremely mucho sexio FZX with a Thunderace rear end conversion
and some mental cans of outrageousness.
The back end is now 2 inches higher than before, there's some serious
strength in the back end now and it feels really firm and rigid.
Have still got to properly align the wheels for true, but that's something
i can play about with.
Total cost for the Thunderace conversion was about £55 .
£25 of that was the TIG welding that John did for me, obviously if your
going to put on a Thunderace wheel as well then your gong to incur
more expense with new chain , but generally speaking these Thunderace
arms and bits and pieces are very cheap to buy at the mo, so well worth
hunting on ebay to get a really good deal.
Have polished the massive great cans to be the same colour as the FZR
front fork tubes and whilst i was at it i re sprayed the whole bike to a
metallic red.
AL.
Thunderace torque arm with the can removed,
Its a bit hard to see in the photo, but the swingarm
positioning plates are home made from 4 mm steel
to take the FZX rear wheel spindle.
The back brake torque arm is the next job, I'm going to use the
Thunderace one and have had the torque arm bracket welded on
slightly further forward ( just behind the big can ) so that i can
have the FZX caliper still mounted on top.
You have loads of room to play with for the torque arm now as
there is now a wider gap behind the VMax shocks, or whatever
shocks you've got on yours, to fit your arm and line it up.
The FZX wheel goes straight back on if you use the FZX wheel position
marker plates to hold the wheel instead of the Thunderace ones ( too big )
You will need to space the wheel equally either side and line up the
chain of course.
The FZX chain will go straight back onto the wheel with no need for a
longer chain, so if you want to just change your arm, you can....cool.
You can also fit the FZX chain guard back on if you want by mounting
the guard holders where you need them on the arm.
I'm going to use a nice looking trials bike one off a Honda XL though
as it will work with the look of the whole thing .
The bearing pivot shaft and spindle needs to be changed from the FZX to the
Thunderace arm.
Slight problem though with the width of the arm itself.
Its 6 mm longer than the FZX arm so you have to push back the bearings
by 4mm each side and lop off 3mm each side in order that your caps will
fit and the arm will then fit into the recess.
This is the only problem i have found with this conversion and this is not
much to sort out really, just be sure to clean out ( or change ) your bearings
after cutting the sides off the arm
Bits now in place, the welds and arm just in need of a clean up
Here's the two shock brackets that i've now cleaned up and the small
end bracket for the torque arm which is going on the top of the arm
for my wants, i don't always like to have a rear caliper mounted at the
base of the disk, they can sometimes fill up with crap that way up.
I've got to MOT my bike this week, so might get a little held up with
the swingarm, but will see if i can get it to John for TIG welding.
The dirty great Thunderace swingarm that i got off ebay for £10
Next one.
The mono shock block needs cutting off, ( you can leave it if you like )
and the torque arm needs to go onto the other side to fit the caliper
as i want to use the FZX one.
This is the GPZ donner arm that i'm cutting the damper clamps off to
get TIG welded to the Thunderace arm to take the V max shocks.