Tuesday, February 12, 2008

It's Not Easy, Bein' Cheezy



I've been obsessing over the pot metal flanges on my new swing arm bearings, so I went to Grainger today and coughed up the cash and got the genuine Browning, cast iron flange, bearings. You can see from the pictures that they are much more substantial than the Taiwan cheepos. I had to enlarge the hole in the swingarm mount to accommodate them and needed to take a few thousandths off of the bearing housing so they would fit snugly. These are killer and will be maintenance free.
I see no reason why this modification couldn't be done on the stock BH setup as well. You would need to get a 2 1/2" holesaw, a big ol' 1/2" drill (I call mine the Widowmaker) and make a centering jig for the holesaw. This is nothing more than a piece of 1/4" plate with a 2 1/2" hole in it. Center the jig over your existing swingarm bushing, clamp it securely and cut the hole. The jig will pilot the saw on it's outer circumference. They are usually piloted by the 1/4" hole that is made by the drill, but we already have a 3/4" hole, so without some method of holding the saw on target, it will lurch around like a sailor on payday
I picked up two spherical rod ends for the shift linkage also. Oh yeah, I ordered a shiny, new Kuryakyn shift peg to replace the hex bolt. No more cheezy shortcuts.......for now.

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