Monday, April 4, 2011

Early alignment

The new Husky engine is home, and looks to be in excellent shape, considering what I paid for it -- double the price, it still would have been a deal.  I started the process of seeing how things line up with the engine and the swingarm.  Not sure exactly what I'll use -- either the rg125 swingarm, or go with the mito swingarm.  As you can see below, the Italian guy who did this conversion used both the mito frame and swingarm... so before I make any final decisions and start cutting metal, I did some test-fitting...
First off, the rs125 wheel fits almost perfectly in the swingarm -- just need to shave a couple of thou off each end of the wheel assy -- as in the spacers, and it will slide in perfectly.  So, I knew if I could butt the cush drive against the inside edge of the swingarm, I could see if the sprockets line up.
I clamped a piece of aluminum angle against the rear sprocket to act as a straight edge (note the new trailer in the background -- happy birthday to me!).
The idea is to see how close the outside edge of the sprockets come in relation to each other -- of course I have the rear axle square in the dropouts as well.
Hmmm, I'd say that lines up pretty good, eh?

With this pic you can also see how well the swingarm fits vis a vis the rear engine case.  I did actually shave a bit off of the inside of one of the arms, but it was only about half a millimeter.  Almost "meant to be".  However, I can't get ahead of myself.  A few things to sort out...
1.  The mito uses a 14mm swingarm pivot axle -- this is a 17mm -- depending on which swingarm I end up using might send me off in different directions... this swingarm seems to look good, but it would mean modifying the frame (and welding alu) to get it to work.
2.  Obviously it is possible to get this engine to work with the mito swingarm, which will then work with the mito frame.  However decent shock options are limited, and the 14mm axle might be an issue.  Do I shim the engine case, or can I do some funky bearing swaps and get the 17 mm axle to work in the swingarm...?  Which would then necessitate drilling out the frame. 

More questions than answers at this point -- just need to be patient (not one of my strong suits) and wait for the mito frame to arrive.

The good news is, I got both the 650 and the 400 started and running this past weekend (even with the new carb for the mono), and the trip to Mid America is only 3 weeks away.  Can't wait!!!!!!

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