Swingarm Bearings and Linkage

[Gregorius T]

I finally did it!  

After hitting almost 35K on the odo, I removed my swingarm, and took a looksy at the linkage bolt, and bearings.  Since I don't ride hardly at all in the rain, or any other muck, my linkage and bearings looked like new.

Removing the swingarm is pretty easy.  After removing the rear wheel, of course, you need only follow the below couple of steps:

1.  Remove the shock linkage bolt.  That's the one you get to, via the little hole on the right side of the swingarm.

2.  Remove the main swingarm bolt.  This is the big ass rod and nut, that connects the swingarm to the rest of the bike.  The nut is big, but mine came off fairly easily.  The swingarm is fairly light, so you should be able to pretty easily drop the swingarm away from the bike.

Some people will also remove the front sprocket cover, and slip the chain off the front sprocket, so's they can transport the swingarm onto a work bench, or something.  This is not necessary unless you want to, of course, carry the swingarm away from the bike.

Once the swingarm has been dropped, you can then slip the outer bearing dust covers off.  There are four of them, and they come off fairly easily.  Also, you can slide out the inner bearing sleeves.  You will then see the ridged bearings.

At this point, I cleaned up the swingarm using some warm water, to get the dirt off.  And then, a bit of kerosene, to wipe away the gunked grease and oil.  I stayed clear of the bearings, when cleaning with the kerosene, and simply wiped the old grease from the bearings using a clean rag.

Once you have the swingarm, and bearings, all cleaned up, I wiped clean the inner sleeves, and applied a good coating of grease to them.  I also wiped clean the rod, and coated it with grease.  Also, I did the same to the inner part of the outer dust covers.  I removed the inner rubber parts of the dust covers, wiped them clean, and applied a bit of grease.  When reinserting the rubber parts, ensure you insert them properly, with the chamfered edges pointing in.

Once satisfied with the cleaning, and greasing, I put the bike back together.  It went back together fairly easily.  Similar to mounting the rear wheel, you just slip the swingarm in position, and push the big ass rod through.  You want to be careful that the dust covers stay in place.  Also, under the head of the rod, on the left side of the bike, is a funky washer, that sits in the flat-edged slot.  You want to ensure that washer stays in place.  My Haynes manual specified a torque of 110 nm, which, as with many of the torque values, seems way overkill.  I torqued to 85, or 90, and called it good.

I can now rest easy, knowing a very important part of my bike's suspension linkage is clean, lubed, and in great shape.  I hope this post helps ya all, and remember ... Ride HARD! Ride GOOD! Ride like you F'n SHOULD!  Cheers.  😀  🤟

 

 

Edited May 12, 2019 by Gregorius T

[whistler]

Great info, Gregorius.  Thanks!

[peteinpa]

Good job! 

Got to admit to never removing swingarm and linkages on any Honda I've owned in the past. That's with 65-85k miles on them. Honda does not have any periodic insp.-clean-lube  of their swingarm in their maint. schedules. Kind of like fork oil.

Yamaha is my first, don't know about the rest of the makes.

[tinkerfreak]

There appears to be something wrong with your garage....It is way to freakin clean. Good job.

 

Cheers

[Buggy Nate]

I just did this to mine a month ago as well, I was going to service the Nitron shock as well but they have done the seal head up to 600ft/pds like a bunch of muppets. 🤬

I added a extra bearing to the brake side as Yamaha only installed one when there is enough room for two like on the drive side. Had one lying around from a spare linkage bearing kit.

Edited October 10, 2020 by Buggy Nate

[enx]

I did this last month, when I was replacing the chain. Nothing wrong with berings at 55.000km