what's the lowdown on buying swing arms?

**natedogg624** · 10-05-2011, 09:53 PM

i'm 90% sure i need a new swing arm. long story short the bike was up on stands and fell off without the wheel in (n00b error) - ever since it's been literally impossible to change the rear wheel without getting a flathead to pry out the swing arm ever so slightly to slot the wheel in, even with captive spacers. i'm fairly certain the swing arm is bent or tweaked ever so slightly.

obviously i can't tell when buying another one without getting the swing arm mounted if it's good or not, so is it just a matter of trust?

tamer do you know if dave's got any spares? i was gonna call him tomorrow.

**TRAVR6** · 10-06-2011, 06:15 AM

Seems highly unlikely that you bent your swingarm from it falling off the stand.

Unless you were working on it on top of your house

**Azr6** · 10-06-2011, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by TRAVR6

Seems highly unlikely that you bent your swingarm from it falling off the stand.

Unless you were working on it on top of your house

+1

Something else has to be wrong. I have seen bikes in big wrecks where the swingarm has 10x the damage yours would and they still mount fine.

The wheel or axle bent?

**natedogg624** · 10-06-2011, 11:57 AM

I don't think so. I haven't had any major wrecks or anything like that. I'll inspect some more.

**DangerDog** · 10-06-2011, 07:39 PM

Originally Posted by Azr6

+1

Something else has to be wrong. I have seen bikes in big wrecks where the swingarm has 10x the damage yours would and they still mount fine.

The wheel or axle bent?

I can see it happening in this case actually. The difference here is there was no wheel and axle with a nut on it to prevent one side of the swingarm from tweaking. With a wheel in place, if your swingarm tweaks, it will likely tweak both legs of the swingarm equally since there is a wheel and axle in place maintaining the distance between both legs of the swingarm. Without a wheel there, each leg is free to tweak independently of the other and you might end up with a smaller distance creating the condition Nate's seeing on his pile.

Nate, I bought one off of d2cycles.com before. The dude parts out motorcycles and sells everything off reasonably. In hindsight, I might not gamble something like a swingarm from there again just to be safe, but I got the whole thing for $60, and it included everything, swingarm pivot axle / bearings / nuts / rear axle, complete rear brake assembly from the master cylinder back, axle / nut, fender, chain adjusters, everything! Lucky for me it was nice and straight so far as I could tell, and I got 2 years out of it before I wadded that one up. Put my old one back on the bike and it checked out straight according to our local frame straightener so I'm rollin with that one again.

Just remember 08+ is actually a different swingarm. It may or may not bolt up with the same geometry, I think the major differences are internal adjustments they made to the castings before the peices are welded together.

**natedogg624** · 10-06-2011, 08:36 PM

I just checked part numbers and the part numbers are the same now.

i've found a few on eBay that i'm watching, probably pull the trigger here in a few days.

**DangerDog** · 10-07-2011, 11:38 AM

Interesting. When I was prepping Beantown's 08 for the CSC endurance race @ Willow last year, I was using my bike for a mock up beofre I got a hold of his for the Attack GP stand hooks, and I noticed the bottom side of the ends of the swingarm that hold the axle were definitely different on my 06 than they were on his 08.

Maybe they just combined the P/N to use the 08+ for all replacements since that's supposedly better.

**natedogg624** · 10-07-2011, 12:23 PM

it does have the "replaces ----" indication next to it for the 07 swingarm. i'm assuming that the fitment is the same if they are selling the 08+ arms for the 06-07.

wonder how this will effect my superstock status lol

**APCh8r** · 10-07-2011, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by natedogg624

it does have the "replaces ----" indication next to it for the 07 swingarm. i'm assuming that the fitment is the same if they are selling the 08+ arms for the 06-07.

wonder how this will effect my superstock status lol

You will be fine, they won't know the damn difference

**Azr6** · 10-08-2011, 04:14 AM

Originally Posted by DangerDog

I can see it happening in this case actually. The difference here is there was no wheel and axle with a nut on it to prevent one side of the swingarm from tweaking. With a wheel in place, if your swingarm tweaks, it will likely tweak both legs of the swingarm equally since there is a wheel and axle in place maintaining the distance between both legs of the swingarm. Without a wheel there, each leg is free to tweak independently of the other and you might end up with a smaller distance creating the condition Nate's seeing on his pile.

Nate, I bought one off of d2cycles.com before. The dude parts out motorcycles and sells everything off reasonably. In hindsight, I might not gamble something like a swingarm from there again just to be safe, but I got the whole thing for $60, and it included everything, swingarm pivot axle / bearings / nuts / rear axle, complete rear brake assembly from the master cylinder back, axle / nut, fender, chain adjusters, everything! Lucky for me it was nice and straight so far as I could tell, and I got 2 years out of it before I wadded that one up. Put my old one back on the bike and it checked out straight according to our local frame straightener so I'm rollin with that one again.

Just remember 08+ is actually a different swingarm. It may or may not bolt up with the same geometry, I think the major differences are internal adjustments they made to the castings before the peices are welded together.

Falling off the rear stand should not cause the swingarm to be bent in anyway. It would take a lot of force to bend a swingarm especially one that is this braced.

Originally Posted by DangerDog

Interesting. When I was prepping Beantown's 08 for the CSC endurance race @ Willow last year, I was using my bike for a mock up beofre I got a hold of his for the Attack GP stand hooks, and I noticed the bottom side of the ends of the swingarm that hold the axle were definitely different on my 06 than they were on his 08.

Maybe they just combined the P/N to use the 08+ for all replacements since that's supposedly better.

I mounted an 07 swingarm to an 09 and it worked just fine. The difference is they have different size spacers for the axles but it wasn't a huge issue. Also, the new swingarms are a tiny bit longer from what I remember and just like you said before, the bracing on the inside is different to help with flex. I don't remember the parts being the same # tho.