Contact Chollo9, he did a nice conversion. I think the thread was" Far from finished but on the road"
I realized that I had a couple better shots of what's going on at the swingarm: I also really liked the gas tank sight tube... And the super-high through-the-tank air intake:
i have been thinking about putting the shock on the center line of the bike in stead of of to one side the lower shock mount would be in front of the rear wheel
That makes for a very short lever from swingarm pivot to shock mount, which equals high wheel travel for a given amount of shock stroke. Not impossible to do, but would require a pretty stout spring, and a stiffer spring is harder to damp well. The main reason I chose to copy the GS design was the ease of finding a baseline. I could buy a good aftermarket shock and know that I would be close right off the bat. Believe me, it's enough work just getting everything fabricated, fitted, in alignment, and soundly welded. You don't need to add design, engineering, and R&D to all of that. Or at least I didn't in my small shop with my skillset and budget. Not trying to discourage you, I just know how big my task became once it moved from paper to metal.
Not if you lay the shock down flat and create a new lever arm on top of the swingarm like fubar did on his bike.
Yeah but his bike looks like shit! got any decent examples? It's funny, I have been admiring the side mounted shock bikes posted here, and thinking, Damn that looks nice, I should have done that!
KTM use a non linkage shock in this position on most of their bikes. Plenty of options top choose from atermarket, genuine & second hand. There is also the paralever 3 offerings from BMW.
If we're including people who actually know which part of the torch you hold on to, then I'll have to excuse myself, as I have a ditch to dig . . .
any one know the stock spring rate on the rear of an airhead. i have not been able to get an answer on that one yet.
where did you find such photo's?, if i search google I end up with yunk. I'm interested in the boxer dakar bikes but it's hard to find detailed photo's and other details
The standard spring that comes on the OHLINS 317 for an R80G/S is a 19/71. What that actually means in lbs/in or kg/cm, I do not know. Useless information, I have a lot.
It takes a LOT of searching and not just in english. I can't remember where I found those specific photos, but here's a pretty good collection of a lot of various airhead offroad stuff: https://picasaweb.google.com/117484384927206692661 A lot of the same stuff, plus some other stuff here: http://www.gs-airheads.be/Album.html
