Cracked Swingarm?

[Sharpman66]

Has anyone heard anything about the cracked swingarm syndrome on there R* from riding 2 up? I've heard this from a few people now and apparently it's a common problem? Thoughts?

[MikeyC]

I think you mean the shock mount. We broke ours at about 100,000 miles. Welded it. Current 2 up bike I welded the mount before we break it. We have a two up riding weight of probably 450 pounds and another 50 or so pounds of gear. We had hit a number of sharp bumps durning our travels that jarred our backs and bottomed the bike out. I was surprised a couple of times we didn’t break the frame.

[Sharpman66]

Yes your correct my mistake...is this something i should be concerned about? We have the same riding weight but not with all the gear weight.

[roadiemort]

Where the crack or fracture.

[Tykes_Place]

I think that whether you should be concerned or not depends on many things. Miles on the bike, riding style, road conditions, load weight, etc. Might be a "when not if" it will happen. Would you rather do preventative reinforcement during off-season, or deal with it when/if it happens on the road, in the middle of nowhere....

[Shores]

Don't later models have a more reinforced shock mount in the early models?

[rrps18admnrsc]

I think all the 1700s have beefed up shock mounts.
There was also a Service Bulletin from Yamaha years ago about overloading the bike causing bottoming out resulting in frame damage at the shock mount.
If you're trying to turn a Roadstar into a Goldwing you need fabirication skills.

[Tykes_Place]

I don’t know for sure about the frame. I think it’s more about the spring and damper. I think the early models were more prone to bottoming out and that impact is what causes the stress damage.

[MikeyC]

We do abuse our bike but it did seam to be a fairly common thing. I didn’t pay attention to weather it was just the older bikes but it seams like lots of issues got corrected in 03/04 models