Author Topic: What I suspected but never mentioned about aluminum frames (Read 4806 times)

Desolation Angel · « **on:** June 06, 2006, 10:44:47 AM »

WSBTV.com
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Video: Man Claims Motorcycle Broke In Half

Man Claims Motorcycle Broke In Half

POSTED: 5:29 pm EDT June 2, 2006
UPDATED: 6:27 pm EDT June 2, 2006

ATLANTA -- Nick Jerard claims his motorcycle broke in half while he was riding it – sending him to intensive care. He also says that several other riders report similar ordeals – but the manufacturer won’t do anything about it. Channel 2 found a number of complaints on the internet about frames on that 2005 model Suzuki breaking in half under seemingly normal conditions.

Suzuki officials did not return our calls.

Jerard, who bought the model during its first year of production, says his snapped while he drove it at about 25 miles per hour.

It takes two people to wrestle what remains of his prized motorcycle out of the garage.

This time last year, the 21-year-old and his dad bought a Suzuki GSXR 1000 – touted then as the fastest production bike on the road.

The aluminum alloy frames made it light, and the Jerard’s say, more susceptible to frame problems.

Two months into ownership – Nick landed in intensive care.

“I was moving my brother’s stuff, I pulled out of the driveway, it fell apart on me from there,” Nick says.

Less than 100 yards from his house, you can see the trenches carved, Nick says by the muffler after the frame below him snapped in two, and sent him flying.

After several weeks of recovery, and $7,000 in medical bills, Nick says he and his dad started inspecting the bike. They spotted a hole drilled into the frame for his horn.

When they tried to get the bike repaired, they say initially, Suzuki seemed cooperative. Jerard says after he raised that question, Suzuki officials refused to repair his bike.

Copyright 2006 by WSBTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/9314629/detail.html

interfuse · « **Reply #1 on:** June 21, 2006, 01:07:05 AM »

Notice no mention of the # of wheelies pulled on it pior to snaping

wheeliekev · « **Reply #2 on:** August 15, 2006, 10:26:57 AM »

we had one snap on a friends bike in the uk, ok the bike was wheelied but the fella knows how to wheelie properly, these bikes are thrashed around the tt course so imagine the stress and strain they go through doing that !

dgc · « **Reply #3 on:** May 10, 2007, 07:55:56 PM »

not to revitalize old thread or anything, but i was just hanging out browsing the board when this story caught my eye. okay, i heard of frames breaking before...so no issue there, but "21yo and his dad". wow. what was he like: "you are 21, time to start stunting and running lights ona big gixxer, retire the middleweight!", did they have matching chrome helmets?

ps thank god nobody bought me something with around 150hp out of the crate when i was 21

ZenMan · « **Reply #4 on:** May 10, 2007, 08:27:32 PM »

Quote from: "dgc"

ps thank god nobody bought me something with around 150hp out of the crate when i was 21

In my early twenties I was obsessed with the wickedest-accelerating but worst-handling bikes in production... Kawasaki 2-stroke triples.

I can't remember how many times I cracked the frames on those H1's and H2's from slamming wheelies... just welded 'em up with an old Lincoln stick welder and kept blasting around.

Trashed the steering head bearings and swing-arm bushings a lot too... the bike couldn't handle that insane engine very well.

Oh, it wasn't my parents fault... they had pretty much disowned me by then. I guess I was sorta wild in my younger days.

drewpy_dawg · « **Reply #5 on:** May 24, 2007, 11:51:29 AM »

I just found this topic...wanted to add my 2 cents.
The guy I bought my bandit from had a 06 FZ6 that his wife drove. He put frame sliders on it to protect the bike if she dropped it. She did (due to some a$$hole driver that took a curve WAY wide and she panicked at about 30mph). The frame slider cracked the frame (aluminum) and thus the bike was totalled.

r_outsider · « **Reply #6 on:** May 26, 2007, 12:30:33 AM »

Weird. I would've thought that the aluminum frames were stronger(except for the frame slider thing, aluminum is brittle, after all). I know that they hold up pretty well in the motocross and off road world.

solman · « **Reply #7 on:** June 03, 2007, 05:39:00 PM »

Here is something to think about. In AMA racing, how many frames have you seen snapped? I personally think it is due to people doing improper wheelies and stoppies. I almost forgot about stoppies. Can you imagine how much stress you are putting on the frame? Tell me what bike is actually designed to have all the weight on the steering head.

Vidrazor · « **Reply #8 on:** June 03, 2007, 09:53:17 PM »

Ah, if titanium wasn't so expensive (and relatively rare). I once read long ago, and don't know if this was ever confirmed elsewhere, that the Apollo astronauts' moon samples indicated that the moon was 12% titanium(!). Too bad they never found gold (or oil) up there too, eh?

solman · « **Reply #9 on:** June 04, 2007, 11:30:08 PM »

Gold would be possible, oil, no.

Red01 · « **Reply #10 on:** June 05, 2007, 09:36:31 AM »

Quote from: "solman"

Tell me what bike is actually designed to have all the weight on the steering head.

I'm guessing just about every repli-racer out there since when they're out there racing, they put all or nearly all their weight on the steering head braking for corners on the track and these bikes are the basis for Supersport and Superbike classes.

solman · « **Reply #11 on:** June 06, 2007, 07:42:55 PM »

Check this out, there is a BMW which has no frame. Figure that one out.

orionburn · « **Reply #12 on:** June 06, 2007, 09:14:50 PM »

I remember talking about this on another board back when it was happening. There was a guy using one as a track bike and when it went hard into a corner the bike basically folded in half. They had some really good photos of the breaks and it came apart at the welds. I dug up the thread, but the links are all dead. Did have one pic left:

It's not so much a flaw in the frame itself as it is in the welds. Even though the weld doesn't run all the way down vertically, once a crack starts it can propagate through any metal it connects with, just like the photo shows. One of the guys from the other board that's an engineer said by the looks of it the welds didn't have deep enough penetration. I wouldn't say all Gixxers from 05 are bad, but obviously something wasn't working right in the weld department that day.

Was another story going around of a Gixxer and a Harley hitting eachother head-on. The front end of the HD was in shambles (forks bent to hell), but the Gixxer looked like it hit a wall at about 120mph. Totally folded in on itself.

Barbarian · « **Reply #13 on:** June 08, 2007, 01:07:45 PM »

Steel gives and flexes.
Aluminum has a fixed amount of cumulative stress it can handle before it snaps. (Hence the brittleness)

As a teenager, I once snapped the downtube on my 10-speed bicycle, and I never did anything except ride it to school and back.