Usually rear brake caliper’ torque rod is strictly utilitarian looking thing. To make it of steel was also the simplest option, especially taking into account the fact that there is a 6mm offset between torque rod mount on swingarm and brake caliper holder. So KZ650 project might have quite ordinary brake torque rod if I wasn’t working on it simultaneously with working on the chain guard.
Idea of torque rode as some kind of “counterpart” to chain guard was pretty obvious to me. First were measurements.
They were closely followed by pencil sketch. I used to do such sketches (or simpler ones) beforehand to drawings that I make on computer.
Then I produced 3D drawings and brought them to CNC shop along with plate of 2024 aircraft grade aluminum.
That’s what I’ve got as an output:
I did some sandpapering:
And polishing. Dunno why I did it, as it’s likely that later I will drill and thread hole/ holes for brake hose clamp/clamps. However, rod looked nice once it was finished. So let’s suppose, that I did polishing to cease the itch of wish to see ready part.
Let’s install torque rod:
Yep! Result was exactly as I planned: torque rod and chain guard look like eggs from the same nest.
Surely, once you took a look on photos above, you noticed, that right shock absorber body is in black, while body of left is in silver. According to my design bodies of both shocks would be in black and I was curious to see how they will look once painted. However, it would be lunacy to do them with rattle can just to see if I am right. So I imitated black painting using black Oracal film and electrical tape. And it looks like this idea of mine was also good.
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