Slow Monster rebuild

Originally Posted by utopia

This will have the added advantage of keeping the threads true to the axis, which is almost impossible with a hand-held die.

Surely you do this?

[Nasher]

I use one of these in my lathe.

http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster...older-ax453621

Great piece of kit.

Nasher

[slob]

I keep meaning to get one of those, even so my 300W lathe would hit overload cutout long before I managed get those Ti threads cut

[utopia]

Agreed, to both the above.
But I always prefer to screwcut (at least "roughly") if I possibly can, because of its inherently accurate axial alignment.
Plus I can only bring myself to shell out on decent metric dies in the smaller sizes.
Tbh, I'd probably be more likely to spend the money on change-gearing to allow my imperial lathe to cut metric threads.

[Nasher]

I use the Die Holder above without power to the lathe, and with plenty of cutting fluid.
Even on it's slowest speed the thread would be cut too quickly and for too long without backing off to break the swarf out. Especially with Stainless, I've not tried Ti.

I turn the chuck by hand using a very short bar in the chuck key holes, and use the same 1/2(ish) turn in -1/4 turn back as you would when cutting using a hand held die.
All the tool above does is give far greater chance of cutting parallel to the workpiece.

Nasher.

[350TSS]

Comments re the above:
Slob: post 471 – nice looking titanium bits – seems like a very good idea to thin the cutting flutes on the tap and really surprised an 18v drill had the power to drive a thread through the boss especially as it looks quite a coarse thread.
Capo: post 472, 4 & 7 - I impulse bought the titanium bar over Christmas being deprived of garage time and needing to feel I was moving the project forwards and
1) not having stripped the swinging arm down yet and
2) not realizing that the needle roller SA bearings run direct on the shaft (no inner race/sleeve) and
3) not having read up on the wearing properties of titanium.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
Nevertheless, thanks to your comment I am now much better informed having spent some time reading all about titanium on the internet.
Nice looking titanium bits also.
Why does your swinging arm spindle have wasted bits at either end?
Kato: post 479 thanks also for the explanation of DLC – am I correct in thinking the process is additive and before treatment the bar would have to be undersize so that it would fit the bearing after treatment? The treatment looks as though it is highly specialist and therefore expensive.
I have 3 options now with the SA spindle:
a) stick with steel and accept I have wasted my money; or
b) treat the titanium bar with DLC and fit (cost to be ascertained) or
c) fit the titanium bar as is and hope the wear is not too bad, if it does not work I can always go back to a) although I suspect if it is bad the needle roller races will require replacement.
I did some approximations assuming a “just about acceptable” 10,000 mile life, assuming 40 mph average speed so 250 hours riding with the suspension moving full travel every 1.5 seconds. If the rear wheel rises and falls 150mm in that time it will have travelled 300mm which is 43 degrees of the swinging arm movement.
At the SA spindle this translates into 7.5mm of movement at the circumference of the SA spindle. So, in 10,000 miles the movement at the circumference of the spindle would be 250 hours x 60 minutes x 40 movements x 7.5mm = 4500000 mm or 4.5km.
The balls on a wheel bearing by comparison would each be travelling approximately 853km in 10000 miles.
I also checked the hardness of a 20mm 8.8 grade bolt which is HRC 23 to 34, (about the same range for stainless steel grades A2 and A4) this compares with titanium grade 5 at HRC 36, although I read on an American engineering forum that the minimum hardness for a needle roller race should be HRC 58. Is the standard SA steel spindle treated to improve its hardness?
I am thinking if I drill and tap the crankcase casting into the hole which contains the SA spindle and fit a grease nipple and pump it full of graphite grease every week or so then it will have a sporting chance of lasting. Probably not a bad thing to do anyway even for a steel spindle. I would have to replace the inner oil seals with spacers that allowed the passage of the grease under pressure to the needle rollers or simply remove the spring from the seal. I do not see any problem with the grease getting into the gearbox as it should take the path of least resistance and blow out of the seals at the extreme end of the SA spindle if I am over enthusiastic with the grease gun.
Exam question: Do you think I am mad? Is a little knowledge a dangerous thing? Discuss.
Nasher; post 482 – thanks for the link got one on order already – oddly I do not seem to regard cost of tools needed(?)/ purchased to finish the bike as part of the cost of the build. Does anyone else work on that principle?

[Capo]

Its not so much wear rather that the needle rollers will indent the shaft as they take load without necessarily rotating then they will 'click' on these indentations when they do rotate. Even the standard hardened spindle suffers from this

The swing arm spindle shown is from a single sider, the ends mount the foot reset assemblies
and yes it is drilled, Pete knows how to do it

[utopia]

My personal decision, when I fitted the ally swingarm, was to stick with the std swingarm spindle .. in fact I bought a new one.
However, the wheel spindle is another matter since it does not have the bearings running directly on it, plus being at the other end it constitutes unsprung weight.
So in my case, titanium will be limited to that spindle only.
Also, the swingarm bearings are a right pig to replace .. you wouldn't want to be doing it twice.

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing .. it depends how you apply it .. but it still beats ignorance hands down in my book.
Same goes for madness really .. I like a little, if its used, er .. sensibly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nataraja

Nasher .. I hand-tap in the lathe too. I just use the chuck key.
I do the same in my pillar drill. And for counterboring too, cos my drill runs too fast.
Thats mostly for ally though .. wouldn't fancy it so much for titanium.

If I was making my own swingarm spindle I would probably consider stainless.
Largely because I would hope to find some suitably sized hollow barstock to make it from.
I may do the same for the wheel spindle tbh.
Even better if I could find some ground stock in the correct dia .. though that might be being a bit too hopeful.
And better still if it could be martensitic stainless, which I believe is harder but even more rare.
But I'd probably stick with the std swinger spindle.

ps. yep, I discount the cost of tooling in the overall build budget too.
Creative accounting .. can't beat it.

[Nasher]

Originally Posted by 350TSS

Nasher; post 482 – thanks for the link got one on order already

They are a useful company to have in your favorites list.
They've never let me down with delivery, and have some good prices.

Originally Posted by 350TSS

– oddly I do not seem to regard cost of tools needed(?)/ purchased to finish the bike as part of the cost of the build. Does anyone else work on that principle?

I'm glad it's not just me.

Tools will always be useful again, so are not project specific.
Often of course you buy a new tool, then 6 months later wonder how you ever managed without it.

Nasher.

[350TSS]

Re the swinging arm spindle being indented by the needle rollers in the crank case, I have been struggling to work out where the force (and it must be a shock, hammer blow type event) comes from that causes it. I am not saying that it does not happen just that it seems to me that there are only 3 possible violent forces acting on the swinging arm pivot:
1) rapid rotational (when the bike hits a big bump) and the SA deflects upwards;
2) fore and aft when the bike is accelerating hard and the top run of the chain is rapidly tightened; and
3) conversely when changing down and the bottom run of the chain is rapidly tightened and the rear wheel locks under an aggressive /clumsy change down.
Against this, in 1 above the tyre and the air within it should act as a good damper on the force being transmitted to the pivot bearing (although steering head bearings become notched and they are also “protected” by the tyre and damper and spring within the front fork leg), and in 2 above, the rear sprocket rubber bushes should take the sting out of the shock (unless the chain is badly worn or there is slop between the sprocket and the splines on the gearbox output shaft and the chain is good at transmitting the shock the short distance between the output shaft and the SA pivot before the rear sprocket shock absorber is activated by the chain), and in 3 above, the force will only be as strong as the rear tyre adhesion to the road.
I wonder is the evidence of the fretting of the pivot shaft more pronounced on the chain side? If so sprocket slop seems the most likely candidate/cause.
Whilst pricing up replacement SA pivot bearings, I looked at the picture of the needle roller races on the Stein Dinse web site and compared them to the offerings on the Simply Bearings (SB) web site. The standard Ducati fitment are described by SB as “budget” bearings priced at c£4 each. Cost of this option is therefore £16.00 plus 4 x seals at £2 ea - £24.
A crowded race set with c50% more rollers is offered at c£15 each which might be the way to go, reducing the chance of all the load, wherever it come from, being transmitted through one roller and thereby causing the fretting. Cost of this option obviously is £60 plus 4 x seals - £68.
I also wondered if, in fact, bronze bushes would be a better solution given that there would be 4 of them and the total bearing width would be 64mm (or c72mm if you did away with the inner seals), particularly if you put a grease nipple(s) feeding into the crankcase pivot hole. Cost of this option is 4 x bronze bushes at £5.5 plus 2 seals plus 2 x grease nipples at £5 - £29.
Would standard sized “off the shelf” bronze bushes be “snug” enough or would I need to buy undersize and ream them?
Views???

[utopia]

The rollers in the "crowded" bearings must be really small if there are 50% more in there .. the std ones are only a couple of mm dia. from memory (think I have some somewhere .. could possibly measure one if you like).

I see no reason why phosphor bronze bushes wouldn't work, in fact they should give a more rigid assembly if anything.
But I think you would need to ream them after fitting.
I'm guessing that the need for this, both at first build but more importantly during later replacement, is one reason why Ducati use the needle bearings.
The bushes would probably close up a fraction when fitted, hence the need to ream them.
Ideally, you would probably "line-ream" them using some sort of guide spindle to ensure precise concentricity, but that may require some constructive engineering to achieve.
If you do go that way, note that there are different grades of phosphor bronze, some of which are better than others for bearing/bush surfaces.
I recently made a couple for the suspension linkages on my Honda Dominator and I think the grade that I used was PB104.

I would suggest that if you buy a reamer, you get an adjustable one, as it will have more scope for future use.

The cost/effort of all this may not be worth it .. unless you're obsessively mad.
I might even give it a go myself, next time I'm in there.

Note also that the void between the bearings is quite large.
If you're filling that with grease, it will add a certain amount of weight.

[Darkness]

A thought on your three option on how impact forces can be generated on the swing arm:

consider the forces and motion relative to the centre of the rear wheel.
At rest, a vertical force of roughly half the weight of the bike and rider is transferred from the frame to the swing arm. To get to the swing arm without creating out of balance moments, it becomes a larger downward force force acting through the spring and wishbone, plus a large upward force at the pivot. [if you took out the pivot bolt whilst the bike was on the ground, the released end of the swing arm would go downwards rapidly, so the bolt is holding it up.
When you go over a bump, the bike drops, then rises relative to the wheel, so there is a rapid succession of alternating upwards and downward forces.
This is a static analysis. Dynamic effects add to this.

Phosphor bronze bushes used to be commonplace on 70s Hondas and the like, and were blamed by some for poor handling. They certainly did wear over a period of years, but whilst that added to the "hinge in the middle" feeling, the spindly swing arms and lack of frame bracing at the swing arm mount were main causes of vague handling IMO. It helped sell a lot of stiffer box section and braced swing arms to get the race handling (And look).
I wouldn't have a problem with phosphor bronze bushes, provided there was a grease nipple fitted.

[Capo]

Many moons ago BMC as it was then were experiencing premature wheel bearing failure. Investigations revealed that the races were becoming indented during transportation by rail. The vehicle was restrained from movement fore and aft but was free to move vertically on its suspension. A typical delivery would involve 10's of thousands of load cycles. A term was coined for the phenomena 'Brineling'

[Mr Gazza]

I think that a crowded race would probably have more rollers than a standard caged race, as the cage keeps the rollers apart, by a considerable gap on the swinging arm bearings if I remember correctly.
A crowded race by definition has the rollers or balls in very close proximity to one another, they touch most of the time, although there is a clearance involved.

Just wondering out loud 350TSS... When it comes to the wheels, are you sticking with circular ones or thinking of a re-design?..

[slob]

Armed with an early Monster wiring diagram



and the manual for the M-Unit V2

I reckon this should do the job, preserving as much of the original loom as possible



1. Indicator trigger wires (switch to M-Unit) are coloured Green/White and Black/White on the diagram, to distinguish them from the (original) output wires which are White/Green and White/Black. Note 2 diodes added to idiot lights as per M-Unit manual p.11. Please note: some wires are the same colur into the M-Unit as out eg, ‘start’ and ‘brake’.
2. I’m not quite sure how the kill switch will function, since the M-Unit expects all switches to be momentary push switches (although I think it should be OK from reading p.5 of the M-Unit manual) Same may apply to point 1 above.
3. Sidelight and tail light will be permanently on, as will the corresponding idiot light, since the M-Unit has its own park light function using low beam (see p.4 M-Unit manual) you could ditch the bulb/connection and idiot light but bear in mind the circuit also supplies illumination for the speedo.
4. I have left the original starter solenoid in place, since the M-Unit will only handle up to 30A and think the M900 starter draws around 43A
5. Headlight switch (0-P-H) is now redundant Hi/Lo is controlled by ‘passing’ switch using M-Unit’s internal logic. Note: orange wire has moved to a new pin on L/H switchgear.
6. Ignition supply is from the brown wire, doesn’t matter if you change the ignition system on the end of the brown wire for Ignitech or something else.
7. Note cable ratings for M-Unit in manual particularly main positive supply!!

I'm sure someone on here with sharp eyes will spot any howlers I may have made.