A motorcycle swingarm refers to a specific part of a mo […]
A motorcycle swingarm refers to a specific part of a motorcycle's rear suspension that is completely different from a car's suspension. This is an important enough part to warrant proper decomposition. A motorcycle's swingarm is an H- or L-shaped suspension member that connects the motorcycle's chassis or frame to its rear wheel.
The swingarm is attached to the motorcycle's chassis via a swingarm pivot bolt, which allows the swingarm, rear-wheel, and tire to move up and down with the undulations of the road, along with the shock absorber and spring. This gives the motorcycle the rear suspension travel, which is the distance between the top of the suspension travel and the bottom where the suspension can no longer travel.
H-shaped swingarm is the most common, this swingarm design is attached to the chassis, the swingarm straddles the chassis, pivot bolts, shock absorbers, and springs, and the rear wheel straddles the opposite hub. Most modern motorcycles use this design, including Honda's CRF450RX race-spec dirt bike, as well as Kawasaki, Yamaha, Honda, and other sport, street, naked, and touring motorcycles.
L-shaped or single-sided swingarm designs are also popular, although not as many as H-shaped designs. The L-shaped swingarm has the same chassis connection via a single pivot bolt and shock and spring, but only uses a single hub on one side of the rear wheel and tire. The result is that the rear wheel is a complete circle when viewed from the non-hub side, resulting in a unique look.
