Swingarm

Fabbing Up The Swingarm

Layout of Fixture

Rickman Backing Plate

Inside View

Outside View With

Rickman Logo

I'm working on the rear swingarm for the Rickati project. It's pretty straight forward. The fixture is just a flat plate with the layout drawn on it. I drilled and reamed the threads out of a couple of 3/4" nuts and placed one on each side of the pivot tube, shimmed them up a little and then clamped them down to the plate. The axle plates are bolted to a steel spacer to hold the width and alignment. I clamped the parts on both ends down to the layout marks, double checked the alignment and dimensions, then filled in the blanks with the tubing. With something as simple as this one, I don't need any elaborate fixture. I'll just have to watch it when I'm welding it up to keep everything straight.

I'm still weighing my options on the back wheel. The Rickman wheel needs a little TLC and to make the sprocket line up, the hub will have to be relaced a with a little offset in it. That means I might as well spring for an aluminum rim and new spokes. Plus the wheel has the brake and sprocket on the same side which means the sprocket has to have a large hole to fit over the hub. It has a 56 tooth on it now and I could probably get away with a 50 tooth but no smaller. I would also have to machine up a sprocket to fit it. I checked my go-kart parts catalog and they have 40 series sprockets I could make work but I'm not sure what kind of gearing I need. I'm checking in to that.

The bottom two photos show the backing plate fitted with a quickie mandrel I made up to machine the inside boss square. The surface was screwed up so I TIG welded a little material on it. I'll chuck that in the lathe and it'll be good as new. The back wheel is going to be both a little work and a little money if I use the Rickman but I like the look of those style of hubs, plus the Rickman logo on the backing plate looks cool. Even if I can't resolve the issues with this wheel, I made the swingarm the same dimensions as a stock Ducati arm, so I'll have room to throw something else in there if need be.