I think I would use the standard swing arm ....... that one looks a bit too bulky for my eye
Agreed.
Chris/Kwakman - if I'm honest I had my reservations as well. I think it's the under bracing is just overkill for a 550. it would probably look great on a physically bigger bike like a 1000 or 1100.
No offence ment! Keep it safe!
None taken, Philippe. Part of the reason for this thread is to get feedback and ideas from other people.
Anyway, I thought I'd try to get a feel for how it would look and managed to temporarily work around the clearance issues, but then run into the next problem. The top shock rocker would not line up to the frame mount. It took me some time to fathom out what was going on, but I figured it out when I compared the 2 swingarms. Look at the previous picture of the 2 arms side by side. You can see that the lower shock mount is formed by 2 plates bolted onto the lower side of the swingarm. the ally one uses the standard plates, but because the main beam of the arm is deeper, they are lower by about 15mm so it pulls the shock down and alters the angle of the top rocker arm. Remember what I said about this looking like it wasn't built around a bike - I reckon someone has taken the dimensions of a standard arm without reference to the frame. How else would you get all these problems ?
Here it is, temporarily fitted
I did check the chain run with a piece of ally on the sprockets to see if it would clear and it would, but I did use a 17t (+1) front sprocket. However, thats a moot point now.............
So if I really wanted to use it, I would get the under brace removed, then I'd need to make up new lower shock plates, then remove part of the footrest mounting, which in turn means changing footrest mounts, etc, etc. It's a shame because an ally arm was part of the look I was going for on the completed bike. Never mind - maybe, I'll just spray the standard arm in ally paint
So now it's time for plan "B"