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I want to start my build and have decided taking the stretch way.
Pushing the aluminum cold makes me think it would crack faster. Do you guys heat the frame and how much? Have anybody welded their front mountings with a mig or should I stick with a tig job only?

Not sure about adding heat, should be some posts regarding that, for sure you want to TIG.

This method has been done a few times...

PRO's:

Easy
Cheap
Works


Con's
You gain mount and waterpump clearence, but still have to dick around with pipe clearence

Some frames need more pushing that others

Some frames push easier than others, like their softer


You should mock it up, and see what your up against. If it only needs a slight push, consider it. It it needs 3/4".... pass.

Heat the frame up first, the whole frame, not just the cradle.


Personally,I would replace the "Y" with a Gen4 cast one, and have new rails bent for the cradle. Remove the old one at the foot pegs.

Tig.... Always.

Gen3 250 cradle seems to be the only one that happily pushes,




This is the front mount location of gen3 250, the jig is the bolt location of cr500

Not a ton of movement needed

[quote=Not a ton of movement needed[/quote]

WTF ... i dont meen to burst your bubble, but thats alittle more then a push away ... having said that, i've never done a G3-4

Take the advice so freely give mate ..... i'd cut & tig if it were me.

just my 10 cents worth.

Thats alot.

The Gen 3 I did needed 1/2 of that.

Mine went about 6mm in the center over 55-65mm length. So the taper is ever so slight and barely noticeable unless your looking for it.

But as Bob says, you can redo the cradel. So if you salavage the mounts wheres the harm in trying. If it dont work out do it another way with very little financial outlay.

I reckon the hot tip is if someone can make an adjustable jig, attach the front mounts to the jig, push it to desired position and weld it in one application. Let the heat settle with your rails in the new position.

The thing is the frames bend easy, the part that is NOT easy is the spring back. For example you may push it 15mm with next to no force, when you release it will spring back to pretty much where you started from. This is the tricky part because you have to gradually go past that point so the spring back is less each time. If you get impatient and try do it in one go you would require more intial force than what it will happily bend at and risk breaking it.

I was giving it some thought about a new cradle, but decided that it was too extreme for my first build and then I stretched her. I pushed the rails out but they just kept coming back, moved the jack around on the cradle and it started stretching. My frame rails had to move about the same distance as the one in the pic of gmbond , its crazy how far you can push these rails without cracking. When cutting the front mounts of I only removed the flat pieces that touched the motor and not the L section of the mount welded to the frame. Cutting so close to the frame makes me nervous and I thought of leaving it and only welding the old flat pieces back to it. Would that way be okay or will I be nigivering it?