Will and Terry 856 update

[Simon]

Will,Terry,here's an updated pic of the one in my (wanted shock posting you've commented on),
just made and fitted a template of the new swing link,I can now make some proper swinglinks using the template for pivot positioning, this has cured all the clearance issues I had, just need to remove some material on the strut brace for extra tyre clearance at full suspension compression,initial measurements are giving just over 5" of hopefully smooth Fox shox travel,the new swinglinks will be made from T6 Aluminium.
Simon.

[tmaybee]

Wow Simon!  That looks excellent.  What forks with what amount of travel are you planning on using?

Are all the pivots going to be bearings or bushings?

Cheers,
Trevor

[shovelon]

Very NIce. I like your polished frame idea also.

Terry

[Simon]

Wow Simon!  That looks excellent.  What forks with what amount of travel are you planning on using?

Are all the pivots going to be bearings or bushings?

Cheers,
Trevor

Actually thats something I was planning to post on regarding ideas for forks,you see I've increased the rear travel without raising the B/B height,as the standard girvins are very short measured from centre of wheel axle to the bottom of head tube I'm going to need (or would like) 100mm travel forks but with a short stance,to start with I'll probabaly use my Mega-air forks but set to 80mm,I don't want to slacken the head angle to much as I like the 856's quick steering,
At present I'm using the bushes and bearings from a pair of vector forks in the swing links,once the bikes up and running and proves to be worth continuing as a project I'll start looking into maybe fitting precision bearings,
The swingarm pivot will be fitted with precision bearings,infact the conversion kit for the 4500 will fit straight on the 856,I just have to machine out through the frame for the through shaft plus the s/arm pivot.
Simon.

[kiwi]

Simon....how about a pic with the rear wheel in place.....

[Simon]

Simon....how about a pic with the rear wheel in place.....

Okeedokee
Here's a couple of pic's,one uncompressed the other fully compressed,as you can see I've yet to mod the strut to give correct tyre clearance,once modded the tyre clearance at full compression will be around 5/8" or 16mm,uncompressed around 1-1/2" or 38mm,also yet to fit new swinglinks.
Simon.

[StoereVent]

Nice work Simon!
Have you been riding yet? First impression?
I think it's time for you to build a complete frame from scratch. Since K2 doesn't build interesting bikes anymore, you should start doing so.

Jeroen.

[rapiddescent]

which reminds me, I must put the LTK9596 designs up on the web.  The LTK (which I used to sell years ago) used the same principle as this design but we chose to use the existing lugs on the swingarm.  

This design looks way lighter than ours.  It is really worth while using teflon bushings on the adapter plates.  That was the secret of the LTK success because if you don't use them, they eventually build up a bit of looseness as the holes grind out from mud.  I never found a good needle bearing solution for the smaller pivots.  

One of the beuties of this is that you get quite a progressive suspension action - but the BB height will look very high before you sit on it.  We used to work with 25% sag...

fab work,
callum

[rapiddescent]

who remembers the 854 mid-year edition that had the mid swingarm pivots?  We had a picture on the 855Heads some time back but I can't find it now.

callum

[Simon]

who remembers the 854 mid-year edition that had the mid swingarm pivots?  We had a picture on the 855Heads some time back but I can't find it now.

callum

I do,remember seeing apic of it on the front of MBUK,
I remember it well and this gave me the confidence to go with the mid mounted swingarm mounts,though the 854 had a cromo (I believe) s/arm I'm sure the aluminium s/arm of the 856 will be fine,its very well built,
on another note the B/B height will be as standard,I've kept the distance from centre of top shock bolt to centre of rear dropout the same,just the way I measured it whilst setting up strut length etc,
new swinglinks are made,s/arm pivot converted to sealed bearings,I've modded the strut for tyre clearance and its much more than I expected,far more than standard,just need to sort out getting everything polished,think this could be the most difficult part [smiley=worry.gif],need to source some decals too,
Simon.
Ps according to the trusty bathroom scales the frame/swingarm/links/shock etc built up,eg complete frameset weighs 6lbs,does this sound about right

[dan_jones]

Hi Simon, the shock is looking good - I'm not sure if I will be putting a hack saw to my beast just yet...

My first Proflex was a 954, this had a cro-mo swing arm with a mid mounted strut mount (I'll fish out a photo). The Problem with this design was that the leverage ratio was high and the swingarm also flexed a little to much!

cheers

Dan

[Simon]

Hi Dan (who supplied the shock ),yep thats one of the problems with cromo s/arms they are flexy (thats why all M/X bikes switched in the late 70's to aluminium s/arms from steel),so one of the reasons I chose the 856 is  because of its short s/arm(so less leverage to flex) and its of box section aluminium,very stiff,seemed the ideal rig to try it on,as for the leverage ratio no idea on this (to much effort to workout)but the 854 strut was mounted direct to the shock,this runs through a swinglink giving a completly different ratio to the 854 (I hope) [smiley=laughing.gif],checkout the Polished posting to see how its looking now.
Simon.

[Scott]

Wow!  I step away for a bit and Simon whips up another eye catching design!  Looking forward to your first patented design too.....

Cheers,
Scott