My rear track stand bought for use on my SS “cradles” the two swing arm members. Positioning it was critical. Too far back and the cradle on the drive side clashed with the sprocket nuts and too far forward the top of the track stand leg, which has a plastic bung, rubs on the underside of the Ducati Performance carbon sleeved cans. So when I bought my Street Triple which has designated tappings in the swing arm for bobbins, which I bought, I ditched the swing arm cradles and fashioned a pair of hangers from 3mm ally which worked a treat. But that meant changing the hangers for the cradles when I wanted to lift the SS (2001 with the ally swing arm). Looking at the Striple bobbins I reckoned that I could make them work on the Duke. They come with M8 cap head screws. Having measured the width of the spindle slot and the thickness of the swing arm surrounding the slot the solution I came up with was to use stainless steel M10 cap head screws and M10 flanged nuts. The reason for going from M8 to M10 was the width across the flats on the nuts is very close to the width of the swing arm spindle slot. I had already checked that there would be sufficient “meat” left after drilling the bobbins out to 10mm and the OD of the bobbins is greater than the spindle slot width. So the installation is basically reversing the flanged nut into the wheel side of the swing arm slot and screwing the cap head with bobbin into it and it’s the flange on the nut that anchors it all. Problems encountered:- the M10 nuts will just spin in the slot. Even after finding some strips of thin ally to effectively reduce the slot width the non drive side took no more than a quarter of an hour to fit. The drive side was a different kettle of fish. Not only do you have to pack the nut out to prevent it rotating there is the possibility of the flange on the nut clashing with the wheel spindle spacer. Also there is not enough room to reverse the flanged nut into the back of the swing arm slot, some gentle leverage is required. Let me say at this point, if I had to do it again I would definitely remove the wheel. The nut flange/wheel spindle spacer clash was overcome by filing a flat on it that would otherwise span across the spindle slot. I filed it until I could fit the flange into an open ended spanner, thus giving me a more robust method of preventing the nut spinning whilst tightening the cap head screw. I also filed a small amount off of the opposite point on the nut to allow it to sit as far back in the spindle slot as possible. Because the wheel spindle and the bobbin are so close you will see that I had to notch the hangers that I had previously made to use the track stand for the Striple. I have considered the closeness of spindle and bobbin with regard to limiting chain adjustment but reckon when the two get that close it’s time for a new chain and sprockets anyway. Also, having reviewed the above photos it would be possible to move the bobbins further away from the wheel spindle by filing down the rearmost three points on the nut. My filing just the one at the back probably had very little effect as the two adjacent points look very close to the wall of the slot. This would also mean that the flange on the non drive side nut would also need filing as photo two. The advantage is no more fiddly packing and a more robust method of stopping the nut rotating. That’s about it, apologies for banging on a bit. I’ll let the photos tell the rest.
As ingenious as your method is, there's plenty of meat in the SS Ali arm to drill and Tap it for bobbins:
Perhaps I should have asked that question first? Many thanks. If possible I do try to go with mods that are reversible but will do if there is benefit to be had. Has that swing arm been modified. The space between the hugger support/shock mount loop and the swing arm looks to be filled in. I’m guessing that the rear track stand is bespoke to that bike, whereas mine needs to be adaptable?
Yep, that swingarm was modified, but not in any way that would change the addition of Bobbins. Ignore the dodgy paddock stand, that was just what I had around me at the time of the image. The bobbins on that bike worked with the normal hook type paddock stand. A bit like your plates with holes but with one open side so you can just pop it under and hook the bobbins. Like these: .
