Bent Rear Swing Arm

[buz100]

Anyone have any issues with the Hawk 250 rear swing arm durability?

Recently managed to bend mine, bike only has 350 miles. I've been riding primarily single track and forest roads. Lots of potholes, and I believe the one that did me in was a particularly bad one at 35MPH that caught me by surprise (didn't have time to avoid, slow enough, or shift body weight).

Enough of a bend to change axle mount to be ~1.5-2" higher than non-bent swing arm. Was causing bike to bottom out all the time. At first I thought shock was broken, so I replaced with the 295mm unit I've seen others use. Set preload pretty high to get minimal sag- still bottoming out (then I realized swing arm was bent).

Must be from the bent swing arm?

[MAT]

That's more than a little bent! Lucky for you it didn't break.

[JerryHawk250]

No issue on my Hawk. What bike do you have? I have close to 5500 mile on it.

[Bruces]

pretty sure it’s the bike with the blown out fork seals ,so clearly he isn’t riding it hard enough !

[buz100]

Sorry guys, I always forget this forum isn't hawk specific... It's a 2018 Hawk 250.

Yes bruces, I also blew one of the fork seals out. Thank you for your help in the other thread.

I never thought I was riding the bike hard until suspension components started breaking on me. I come from mountain biking, where you can really thrash bikes around with no repercussions (then again, most of these bikes cost 2-3X the hawk). I will start toning it down when flying down the forest roads.

Here is a good clip of some of the riding I do. Do you think this is being too rough on the bike?

[JerryHawk250]

That doesn't look like you were being any rougher than some of the trails I have ridden. Looks like your camera and helmet were having a hard time with the tree limbs though. Lol.

[buz100]

Originally Posted by JerryHawk250

That doesn't look like you were being any rougher than some of the trails I have ridden. Looks like your camera and helmet were having a hard time with the tree limbs though. Lol.

Yah, I see why people do chin mounts...

[JerryHawk250]

Originally Posted by buz100

Yah, I see why people do chin mounts...

That's how I have my camera mounted.

[JerryHawk250]

The swing arm for the TT250 will fit. It will probably be cheaper than getting from RPS and probably quicker.

[buz100]

Originally Posted by JerryHawk250

The swing arm for the TT250 will fit. It will probably be cheaper than getting from RPS and probably quicker.

I ended up purchasing from TX PS. CSC bumped the price up to $100 from $50 just a month or so ago...

[JerryHawk250]

Originally Posted by buz100

I ended up purchasing from TX PS. CSC bumped the price up to $100 from $50 just a month or so ago...

Wow! Yeah, the last time I looked it was around $50. I Went check my swing arm just for the heck of it. It's perfectly strait. Yours must of been made a bad batch of steel. by China standards anyway. Lol Thats the first one I here about being bent.

[buz100]

Originally Posted by JerryHawk250

Wow! Yeah, the last time I looked it was around $50. I Went check my swing arm just for the heck of it. It's perfectly strait. Yours must of been made a bad batch of steel. by China standards anyway. Lol Thats the first one I here about being bent.

It was a pretty big hit, but I didn't expect it to bend that's for sure. Didn't notice it until I had it sitting next to my friend's hawk.

[2LZ]

Theses box steel swing arms aren't strong. Easy to crush over-tightening the axle too.

I remember when Wild Alaskan actually "banana'd" his on his Lifan after he installed the Honda 450 engine. It couldn't handle the torque.