Suspension linkage sleeve material?
- Thread starter sixstring
- Start date
Checked out your zx7 build...Pretty nice work. I'm not really sure what type of sleeve youre making, can you give me a little more detail?
If they are making contact with any type of bearing rollers Id use steel, Id go stainless personally to avoid rust/corrosion or having to have them electro coated
I'm fitting a Ohlins KA606 designed for a 06-07 ZX10 onto my ZX7. I'm planning on using the stock suspension linkage on the bottom and stock shock mount on the top. The stock mounting holes on the ZX7 is 12mm. The mounting holes on the Ohlins shock is 10mm to match ZX10 specs.
So what I'm planning on doing is making a smaller diameter sleeve for the ZX7 shock linkage. For the top mount I might sleeve down the ZX7 shock mount or make larger sleeve for the Ohlins shock... haven't decided on that yet.
Johnny, for stainless steel I have these options:
17-4PH
303
304
316
I don't know much about any of these grades except that 316 is also called 'marine grade' and is the most corrosion resistant. How much material does electro coating add to the surface of the steel?
So what I'm planning on doing is making a smaller diameter sleeve for the ZX7 shock linkage. For the top mount I might sleeve down the ZX7 shock mount or make larger sleeve for the Ohlins shock... haven't decided on that yet.
Johnny, for stainless steel I have these options:
17-4PH
303
304
316
I don't know much about any of these grades except that 316 is also called 'marine grade' and is the most corrosion resistant. How much material does electro coating add to the surface of the steel?
Are the needle rollers running directly on the sleeve that you are proposing to make?
If that is the case, the diameter must be held to close tolerances (I'm not sure how close, but the tolerances on bearing races are very, very tight) and the surface finish in the area where the needles are rolling is important, it should be hardened and ground smooth. A good machine shop can do this, but it won't be free.
It should be a medium carbon steel (1040-ish), preferably hardened (quench and temper) before grinding to finished size. Because it is a slow moving bearing, the heat treatment and material choice are not all that critical, but unhardened steel won't last long.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news ($ $ $). It's easy and cheap (per piece) to rough machine parts like this on an automatic screw machine then send them through a heat treating furnace and quench baths and then into a centerless grinder on a production line in vast quantities, but when the quantity is one, it could be a little expensive.
The good thing is that because the motion is very slow, you can probably omit some of the steps and the piece will still survive for quite a while, but expect the bearings to get trashed in the long term if the heat treatment is not right or the surface finish or diameter is not right.
Aluminum is not suitable in this application.
If that is the case, the diameter must be held to close tolerances (I'm not sure how close, but the tolerances on bearing races are very, very tight) and the surface finish in the area where the needles are rolling is important, it should be hardened and ground smooth. A good machine shop can do this, but it won't be free.
It should be a medium carbon steel (1040-ish), preferably hardened (quench and temper) before grinding to finished size. Because it is a slow moving bearing, the heat treatment and material choice are not all that critical, but unhardened steel won't last long.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news ($ $ $). It's easy and cheap (per piece) to rough machine parts like this on an automatic screw machine then send them through a heat treating furnace and quench baths and then into a centerless grinder on a production line in vast quantities, but when the quantity is one, it could be a little expensive.
The good thing is that because the motion is very slow, you can probably omit some of the steps and the piece will still survive for quite a while, but expect the bearings to get trashed in the long term if the heat treatment is not right or the surface finish or diameter is not right.
Aluminum is not suitable in this application.
Your second post showed up while I was typing the first. I take it the issue is that you have to adapt the 10mm upper shock mount bushing on the shock to the 12mm holes in your chassis?
Make a stepped bushing to fit in those holes, one on each side. 10mm through hole, 12mm pilot diameter a millimeter or two long to locate it in the 12mm holes in the chassis, then the main part of the sleeve some bigger diameter (16 - 18mm, not important) and 3 - 4 mm thick. If the length of the shock's sleeve is shorter than the distance between the mounting holes on your chassis, then put these stepped bushings on the inside of the chassis and make the length such that it takes up the space properly so that the shock mount doesn't float end to end. Then bolt the whole thing through so that it is all clamped up. If the bushings are mounted on the inside of the chassis mounting holes, use big washers so that the clamping load gets properly distributed.
If this is the situation then the material is not important, because you are re-using the existing shock sleeve (which is already designed for that purpose) and all the new bushings are doing is taking up the space (and the clamping load). Aluminum should be fine.
Make a stepped bushing to fit in those holes, one on each side. 10mm through hole, 12mm pilot diameter a millimeter or two long to locate it in the 12mm holes in the chassis, then the main part of the sleeve some bigger diameter (16 - 18mm, not important) and 3 - 4 mm thick. If the length of the shock's sleeve is shorter than the distance between the mounting holes on your chassis, then put these stepped bushings on the inside of the chassis and make the length such that it takes up the space properly so that the shock mount doesn't float end to end. Then bolt the whole thing through so that it is all clamped up. If the bushings are mounted on the inside of the chassis mounting holes, use big washers so that the clamping load gets properly distributed.
If this is the situation then the material is not important, because you are re-using the existing shock sleeve (which is already designed for that purpose) and all the new bushings are doing is taking up the space (and the clamping load). Aluminum should be fine.
Hey Brian, reusing the existing bearings is a great solution! I think I'm going to go along with that! :headbang::headbang:
I have a 7x12 bench lathe and can do most of the cutting myself (although I don't have a toolpost grinder, nor could I apply heat treatment to steel). This little baby has saved me hundreds of dollars in machining work by now with all the different wheels and calipers I was trying out on my bike.
I'll have to do a steped bushing like you said for the upper shock mount. For the shock linkage though, I might have to do make a sleeve to go inside the sleeve though.... if that makes sense. Do you see any issues with that?
LOL.
I just realized the ZX10 and ZX7 have interchangable upper shock mounts in terms of having the mount bolt to the frame. That means if I get a ZX10 upper shock mount, it will bolt to my frame perfectly and I won't have to machine jack all to get my upper shock mount sorted out!
Check out the part fiche. Both bikes use a 1.0xM16 nut
http://www.ronayers.com/Fiche/TypeI...nja_ZX-10R/GroupID/94409/Group/Frame_Fittings
http://www.ronayers.com/Fiche/TypeI...nja_ZX-7R/GroupID/102692/Group/Frame_Fittings
I'll dial out any drastic chagnes in ride height with dog bones.
I wonder if I can do some similar parts swapping to get the bottom sorted without machining......
I just realized the ZX10 and ZX7 have interchangable upper shock mounts in terms of having the mount bolt to the frame. That means if I get a ZX10 upper shock mount, it will bolt to my frame perfectly and I won't have to machine jack all to get my upper shock mount sorted out!
Check out the part fiche. Both bikes use a 1.0xM16 nut
http://www.ronayers.com/Fiche/TypeI...nja_ZX-10R/GroupID/94409/Group/Frame_Fittings
http://www.ronayers.com/Fiche/TypeI...nja_ZX-7R/GroupID/102692/Group/Frame_Fittings
I'll dial out any drastic chagnes in ride height with dog bones.
I wonder if I can do some similar parts swapping to get the bottom sorted without machining......
Let me know the outer diameter and width of the sleeve. I have many of these kawi sleeves that are 10mm center hole, if your lucky one might match up to the width and OD that you need. Or at least if the OD is the same I can give you a long one and you can just turn it down to the length you need
bushing was 12 ID x 20 OD x 32 mm length, He would have needed a 10 ID x 20 OD x 30 mm
My bushings would not work because they had a smaller OD at 17mm
The bottom shock mount was 30mm wide with a 10mm hole....I suggested rather then making new bushings, we drill the hole in the shock mount out to 12mm and machine the bushing down to 30mm so he could use the stock hardware and would only need to find 2 new seals...He was a little against drilling the hole in his new $1000 Ohlins shock mount, so I said lets drive down the street to my friends machine shop and do it somewhat professionally. I shortened the bushing on the mill using the vise and a Vblock, and we used a 12mm hone to hone out the hole in the bottom shock mount to accept the 12mm bolt...I also gave him a ZX6R upper shock mount that should fit his frame, and already fits the shock upper mount...
Will have to wait and see what happens with the seals and the overall outcome with the fitment, but I believe he has got it all ready to go now. The seals shouldn't be too hard to source for a couple of bucks and he would have needed those even if he made new bushings anyways..
My bushings would not work because they had a smaller OD at 17mm
The bottom shock mount was 30mm wide with a 10mm hole....I suggested rather then making new bushings, we drill the hole in the shock mount out to 12mm and machine the bushing down to 30mm so he could use the stock hardware and would only need to find 2 new seals...He was a little against drilling the hole in his new $1000 Ohlins shock mount, so I said lets drive down the street to my friends machine shop and do it somewhat professionally. I shortened the bushing on the mill using the vise and a Vblock, and we used a 12mm hone to hone out the hole in the bottom shock mount to accept the 12mm bolt...I also gave him a ZX6R upper shock mount that should fit his frame, and already fits the shock upper mount...
Will have to wait and see what happens with the seals and the overall outcome with the fitment, but I believe he has got it all ready to go now. The seals shouldn't be too hard to source for a couple of bucks and he would have needed those even if he made new bushings anyways..
Last edited:
Thanks for the help today Johnny.
I'm glad we had access to a mill to face the bushing down. Like your friend said, I could have faced it down on my lathe ... but my lathe has a serious problem chucking up parts perfectly concentric with the spindle. I would have ended up with the two ends of the bushing not 100% parallel with eachother... and I mean it would have been skewed badly.... like 0.001" over the diameter of the piece!!!! Your buddy's mill table was probably trammed to somethig like 0.001 over 12" or something... which for my purposes might as well be perfectly parallel.
Your setup with the V-blocks and parallels was clever. I'm going to have to remember that when I get a bench top mill
I'm glad we had access to a mill to face the bushing down. Like your friend said, I could have faced it down on my lathe ... but my lathe has a serious problem chucking up parts perfectly concentric with the spindle. I would have ended up with the two ends of the bushing not 100% parallel with eachother... and I mean it would have been skewed badly.... like 0.001" over the diameter of the piece!!!! Your buddy's mill table was probably trammed to somethig like 0.001 over 12" or something... which for my purposes might as well be perfectly parallel.
Your setup with the V-blocks and parallels was clever. I'm going to have to remember that when I get a bench top mill
Thanks for the help today Johnny.
I'm glad we had access to a mill to face the bushing down. Like your friend said, I could have faced it down on my lathe ... but my lathe has a serious problem chucking up parts perfectly concentric with the spindle. I would have ended up with the two ends of the bushing not 100% parallel with eachother... and I mean it would have been skewed badly.... like 0.001" over the diameter of the piece!!!! Your buddy's mill table was probably trammed to somethig like 0.001 over 12" or something... which for my purposes might as well be perfectly parallel.
Your setup with the V-blocks and parallels was clever. I'm going to have to remember that when I get a bench top mill
Setup is key in the machine shop, I'm still learning all the tricks. If we were taking more material off or a more complicated opperation he has a lathe chuck that is fastened to a flat bar that I use in the vise to hold round parts better. It was a simple trim so I just used the vblock to make it square
Last edited:
I think the V block and vise is probably the better way to go actually. I think part of the reason my lathe doesn't hold work parallel to the spindle is because there is a certain degree of inaccuracy in the scrolls that are used to move the jaws. I always prefer setups that use the least amount of moving parts.
Tripletrouble
Well-known member
Google "lathe soft jaws" for when you need accuracy. Then it won't matter if the scrolls or jaws are strained.
I can't speak for the quality or accuracy of your jaws because I don't know what you have, but as with all machining parts there are different brands and tolerance ranges. So there are chucks with great tolerance and I use parallels in the bottom of the chuck also to insure its sitting square on the bottom end also.
It depends on what you are doing and what quantity. At his shop he does alot of heat sinks that are round, skids of them at a time in the Cnc. They are about 10" diameter and go in the mill 3 different time for different operations. They use a chuck setup in a vise and the tolerance on the part from the customer is pretty high.
Last edited:
Must be a pretty big chuck then. The one I have is a TINY little 3" 3-jaw self-centering one that can barely hold a wheel spacer on it's outside jaws.
Looking at getting a 5" 4-jaw independently adjustable chuck so I can 'mill' square pieces.... but after my walet recovers from the massive hole the shock left in it.
Looking at getting a 5" 4-jaw independently adjustable chuck so I can 'mill' square pieces.... but after my walet recovers from the massive hole the shock left in it.
