Topic: Monoshock help

[custommade]

Hey guys,

So I want to go for a monoshock, but I want to use the original swingarm and I don't want to weld a top brace like
this:




I don't like the look, I want to keep underneath the tail as clear as possible
I want to mount the shock like this:



My question is will the swing arm be able to handle the force this will create or will it snap in half now that it will be an big leaver?
With to original shock setup there would have been hardly any force bending the swingarm so I am
wondering if the tube swinger will take it or If it will snap or bend.

I don't like the look of the top brace or the modern alloy box section swingers id like to keep the original.

[SteveD CB500F]

This is a bike site - not a place for flinging personal abuse. Go to the porn sites for that.

I started to remove the abuse but life's too short and theres to much of it.

So I've removed the lot.

Behave or I'll remove you too.

[andy120t]

Hi there - I owned a mono-shocked 500/4 some years ago. Geometry was based on the RD350LC.

See the link to my intro page on the UK SOHC site for some piccies & an article about the 'bike from a UK magazine. Clearly it has the bracing above the swing-arm that you don't want, but the tubing looks thinner than that used in your picture & it certainly didn't look cluttered as the back-end was jacked-up quite a way.

Anyway, there may be some info that is of help in the article.

Good-luck!




Andy - that post is quite difficult to find so I've copied it onto this post (hope you don't mind)

Steve



Andy said:

I was a student in Manchester in 1992 and the 500 was my first big bike. I knew nothing about CBs at the time but was about to take my bike test and needed a large capacity bike to avoid the rumoured "large bike test".  It was a toss up between a SOHC CB750 or the CB500 and the insurance costs meant that the 500 won.

I had no idea that it wasn't standard (!). Started to learn about that when I looked for service parts for the forks and brakes, then got a manual and noticed the differences.

Essentially it is a 1974 CB500/4 in a modified CB500/4 frame. Back end has been mono-shocked. Seat is a Kawasaki Z650. Front end CX500. Tank from a 550. Modified wiring loom, and I think the clocks / idiot lights are from a larger CB - this always annoyed me as I love the idiot lights incorporated in the handlebar clamps and was never able to track down a set!

Front -

Left (no exhaust) -

Right (no exhaust) -

Rear -


I didn't work out much more about it beyond that, just rode it and enjoyed it - although had endless problems keeping the battery charged so I did a lot of pushing and bump starts too.  On the plus side it was always one of the coolest bikes parked up at the Uni - and years later on a visit back to see friends I met someone who told me they always used to look out for it and wish they owned it!

In 1994 I sold it on to someone from Bradford and that was that - until 2002 when I was idly flicking through an issue of Classic Bike in the newsagents and a numberplate caught my eye. I had actually turned the page and then my brain caught up and recognised plate and the view and gave me a start - yes, my bike in the mag and a full three page article from the guy who originally built it. 

Links to the article below -     
Page 1 -

Page 2 -

Page 3 -


- hope they are clear enough to read. I dropped the guy an email to let him know I had owned it and sold it & filled in a a few gaps for him. Now I'm coming full circle and trying to get an old SOHC back on the road again!

Andy

[custommade]

Thanks Andy, got a link to the page? its ok found it

[SteveD CB500F]

I have that mag: Classic & Motorcycle Mechanics Issue 172 Feb 2002

I can scan a higher res version if anyone wants.

Steve