DeadZedDave wrote:I thought you said it was done for now ! GSX swingarm in the old Zed - I did that back in '82 but didn't like the way it changed the handling ! It looked good though.....but that was because it was an alloy swingarm or at least thats how I saw it at the time - polished up well. You'll need some more new shocks with the forked lower mount or just modify the arm to bolt up to the Zed shocks.... Theres lots of modern 'arms that'll fit e.g. Zephyr but to be honest I prefer to go shorter - looks a bit odd to most people but goes around corners better..... longer 'arms were good for the drag strip but with the Streetfighter craze in the 90's they made a popular "look" and its like that "look" is what most people now think of for a modified Zed. Back in the 70's when people raced them around the track you'd almost never see a longer swingarm - some cut the legs in half and slotted in smaller thicker "sleeve" tubes inside and welded them up for strength - some made them a bit shorter at the same time, some used Z650 'arms (and front fork yokes with shorter offset). With some frame bracing the old Zed will go through the twisty bits a lot better but it'll be less stable at high speed.
As I keep saying though, its your bike, you can do what you want !
Will look out for updates and look forward to seeing how it turns out....
yeah it is done for now !!! im talking next year sometime for any more mod's.
ive been meaning to fit the bandit swinger to the GSX for a while now so i can use a 5.5inch wheel, so thats my project over winter. then the GSX swinger is free to use in the zed so i can get a wider wheel or rim in, ideally a wider spoke rim (not as wide as the GSX) but then theirs the extra expense ( rim/tyre/spokes etc ) but i do have a spare set of 600 bandit wheels and other bits. also a few sets of shocks I can use.
the GSX swinger is only 40mm longer than the zed overall, but i can keep the wheel further forward in the swinger so the wheel base won't be much longer than standard, maybe 20mm ish give or take. i could even lengthen the slot so the wheel is further forward but the few extra mm wont make a big difference.