Home made dog bones.

Anyone here had much to do with suspension-linkage "dog bones"?
I've never had anything to do with them but I'd been under the
impression they'd be cast unobtanium with nitride-infused micro-peened
diamond-coated surfaces and I was just looking through some forums and
I saw a bloke just saying you could knock up some custom-sized ones
with some bits of steel, a drill and an angle-grinder.
Anyone made their own (or know any tales of doom from people who
have?)
Cheers ..... Clem

 

The ones on the FZ1 look like 3mm steel - they must be a tension member
cos they look mighty flimsy to take much compression without buckling

You would get a good idea of the material by scratching it - probably
mild steel, unlikely to be hardened as that would increase the risk of
fatigue failure???

 

Ta for the link. I figured I might take the old ones to a wrecker and try
some comparisons first.

 

Good point.

 

Apparently steel is 40,000
http://www.steelforge.com/metaltidbits/tensilestrength.htm#Tensile Strength Of Steel

 

Oops.

 

Actually mild steel seems to be 410 MPA
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_tensile_strength_of_mild_steel
which converts to 59465.457 PSI
http://www.chapelsteel.com/mpa-psi.html
[boggle]

 

or as low as 36,000
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_tensile_strength_of_cold_rolled_steel

 

[makes a Mad Max II gesture] You want dogbones.... you come to me!!

 

It's fascinating what can be achieved with a welder and an angle
grinder. A plant operator I knew replaced the stripped teeth on the
main drive ring gear and pinion on a Cat 12 grader. The drive pinion
is pretty small and the driven ring gear is pretty big on the old 12s.
It took him all night welding and shaping but he was back at work in
the morning. The machine kept going until the proper parts arrived
some days later.
Just not sure if even he would play around with suspension bits with
what is obviously just sufficient knowledge about metallurgy to be
dangerous.
Him, not the OP of course

 

Christ no; I know as much about metallurgy as I know about making women
happy!
I'm VERY impressed by the story though; it sounds like an excellent example
of a jury-rig and, coming from a long line of people who'd do almost
ANYTHING to keep going rather than admit defeat, my hat is most-definitely
doffed in his direction!

 

I agree

T6 refers to the temper or heat treatment applied to the base material -
The most common high strength aloominum would be the 6061 'aircraft alloy'

From yer Materials Handbook; And not too specific - there are sooo many
varieties of steel

Youngs modulus; Yeild Strength;
6061 T6 68900 MPa 276 MPa
Mild Carbon Steel 210000 MPa 386 MPa

In general the steel is stiffer than the alloy and you can pull it
harder before it stretches, it's about 3 times heavier and 1/10th the price.

 

Just to help translate that raft of numbers; in English it reads as "you
go girl"!

 

I have made up similar items on a CNC Machining Centre.

Boxer

 

Loads of them on american ebay for just about everything. Stick in lowering
links in the search box.

Fraser

 

I think you'll find it's aluminium for lightness rather than strength
- I can't say as I've ever read anything to indicate they need to be
super strong, obviously as a suspension member it needs to be
reasonably robust, but none I've ever seen have been super big or made
of unobtainium AFAIK

JL

 

I hate you! (Only 'cos there's no greater toy on the planet than
a CNC machining thingamie, and 'cos you got to 'play' with one and
I didn't!)

Well, not for a while anyway.


GB

 

He's actually saying "suck dick; drill-and-angle-grinder boy"!

 

....and come up with motorcycling's equivalent of low-profile 4WD
tyres. That so many outfits offer such abominations is testament to
how simple they are to make.

The ones Kawasaki and Suzuki tend to use are literally just a pair of
lengths of 3mm steel with M8 clearance holes at each end. Could knock
them up on a mill in a matter of minutes.

The single chunky dogbone Yamaha, Honda and Triumph tend to use is
more elaborate; alloy (on both my R1's they have been, at least) with
pressed-in bearings. Bit of machining involved there, but still
doable.

All operate in tension, so there aren't too many demands on the
metal...

 

Pssst. We have a $100,000 washing machine at work that no one uses.
One of the guys threatened to buy a dryer, and the operations manager
nearly had a breakdown over that and then resigned.

All the workshop guys did their 3 days training on it, and now no one
wants to use it.