axle tool that holds the caliper in place

i'm wondering if there is a different size between 2nd and 3rd gen bikes?

Motorcycle Axle Hex Tool
says it is only for 3rd gen,


but at graves: Graves Motorsports Rear Axle Alignment Tool R1 R6
it has it for all gen

am I missing something here?


Also, I remember one of you guys making this out of pvc piping. What size did you use?

top link is for front axle.

bottom link is for rear axle. i used the graves and it's probably one of the better tools i've invested in with as much swapping back and forth between track and street tires.
tried the pvc way and just couldn't make it work, but i was lazy and didn't have much time to play around with.

I spun one up out of nylon for the CA State Championship endurance race last year for Brad's 08, but I can't for the life of me remember what the hell diameter I made it to be honest, so I'm really not answering your question tommy. I just want to ramble about our "quicker than stock" tire change parts we had.

Cool thing about my design over the Graves one is that mine had a boss on the end of it that went into the hollow axle so the caliper holder would align itself, so you spin the nut off the axle, then stick this thing up against the axle and the boss would locate on the hole that goes through the axle. Then, give it a push, and since it was already aligned and concentric to the axle, it would just slide right into place, pushing the axle out the other side and giving you a place to grab the axle and yank it out. The only other thing we had to worry about then was how to get the wheel out around the caliper, but it is possible to do, you just have to turn the wheel as you pull it out. Pull the wheel and the caliper stayed in place.

Some heavy chamfers on the rear edges of the brake pads, a wheel shelf system I built in conjunction to Attack GP stand hooks, and a bit of grinding of the caliper hanger made things even easier for it going back on the bike. Plop the wheel in there and it hit the shelf which I set to clear the wheel once the axle was installed, so the wheel wouldnt drop to the ground. The chamfers on the rear pads helped the rotor find it's home. Push the wheel forward slap the chain on, pull it back slide the axle through and it would push the caliper holder out.

Our tire change at the mid-way point of the race was still around two minutes, but that was because we had Murphey's law show up and put a stock sprocket on our 2nd wheel instead of the +2 520 that was supposed to be there. Could have cut that time in half!

^ I remember seeing that video haha. I really like the shelf idea, do you have any pictures?

the change you made to allow it to go into the axle, did it look like this?:

Originally Posted by natedogg624

top link is for front axle.

bottom link is for rear axle. i used the graves and it's probably one of the better tools i've invested in with as much swapping back and forth between track and street tires.
tried the pvc way and just couldn't make it work, but i was lazy and didn't have much time to play around with.

for the first link you need to scroll down a little nate. what was wrong with the pvc?

o fail on my part...odd that it's only listed for the third gen.

i think i got the wrong kind of pvc or something, i dont really remember i just know i got frustrated fast with school and final exams were going on at the same time with a race coming up that weekend. so i just ordered the graves tool from ridersdiscount and had it the next day.

Originally Posted by dzuyd

^ I remember seeing that video haha. I really like the shelf idea, do you have any pictures?

the change you made to allow it to go into the axle, did it look like this?:

Ya know that inner diameter might be what I did with mine, looks like the Graves one might be spring loaded or somethin so the boss retracts? I just designed it on the fly and made the boss static so I could build the whole thing out of one piece of nylon.

I dont have any pictures of the actual shelves I built, but here's what I designed in SolidWorks. The pieces in orange are what I built and attached to the Attack stand hooks, the Attack pieces are shown in red, & are what attaches to the bike. I just didnt bother drawing the actual hooks that bolt to that:



I made that big "pad" large enough to hang off the inside of the swing arm and hold the hub of the wheel where it could slide all the way forward so you could put the chain on. I then set the height of the pad to be about .030" low so when you push the axle through it would pick the wheel up off the shelf to keep it from dragging on the wheel. I think I could have maybe still used a tad more clearance though just to be sure it wouldnt drag on the wheel, but I didnt want to go too low and have it not work for us.

it's not spring loaded or anything fancy like that, all one piece CNC'd

damn Danny, that system is fucking genius. How do you think up of these things. doing all that, when you push the axle though, was it like smooth like butter?

Yeah dude, it worked really well actually. After practicing the tire changes a bit I had a rear change down under a minute without using an impact gun to loosen the axle nut. It was pretty good for us bunch of goons that were just out to run the endurance race for fun.

Ultimately it's just all about figuring out what about changing a tire is a pain in the ass, so you figure out how to keep that shit from happening. It's a bitch to put a rear on because the rear tire drops down and the caliper doesnt stay in place. So I made parts that kept that from happening. Just took a little prototyping and design on the fly to come up with something that worked, I just built the parts in a "stock-safe" condition that allowed me to build them as a prototype and adjust them as I went to end up with a final design that worked in the end. Also made the wheel spacers captive to keep them from falling out of the wheel when you toss it in place.

Front end was cool too, I ground the back side of the brake calipers to allow us to remove the front wheel without removing the calipers. we ran without a front fender to allow the forks to twist and I put a bit of a chamfer on the front pads to help the front wheel come off. Chamfered the wheel spacers a bit heavier to help them lead into the forks and made those spacers captive too. Luckily we were running the awesome Pirelli Superbike Pro slicks so we ran the whole 4 hour race on one front tire and didnt need to change it!

I think if it werent for that screw up with the sprocket, and if we could have had a "faster than normal" fuel jug, (read="Poor man's Home Depot Race Department dry break,") we could have taken 4th overall instead of 5th, hell or maybe even 3rd! TwinWorks completed 149 laps and Team Guardian had 150 where we were at 148! At lower 1:30's lap times we ran, I think we could have made nearly another 3 minutes in pit time over 4 hours on those two items alone!

I used a spark plug socket for the front end.
Fit perfectly.

Worked on my first gen. Never tried it on the 2nd or 3rd


Not sure why you would need any tool on the rear end.

It's one nut and then you push out the axle.