Servicing the Swingarm Bearings

[3dogs]

My 2005 has 86k and I finally decided to grease the swing arm pivot. Manual says check the bearings every 8k and grease every 16k. I took it apart and found the following:

Right side has a sealed bearing. Check it for roughness and found it to be smooth—did not try to remove seal to grease.

Left side has roller bearing. Looked OK, added some grease cleaned up the pivot shaft and reassembled.

Other than piece-of –mind, the service was a waste of time. Unlike wheel bearings, the swing arm bearings don’t go round and round but only move in a limited arc. They are subject to very little wear—same for the seals. There are lots of parts to remove to get to the swing arm out of the bike. I was changing the rear tire so that saved some time over just servicing the swing arm.

Great write up if you want to do this yourself Here.

One thing that is not in the service manual (or on FJR-Tips.org) is the procedure for tightening the 3 fasteners that hold the swing arm pivot. The order that the right (36mm) nut and left (27mm) lock nut and the pivot shaft have to be tightened is as follows:

1. Tighten the pivot shaft (5 ft-lbs) first. I used the 19mm nut from the lower rear shock bolt as a tightening tool. Place some flat washers inside the hex in the pivot shaft and put the nut in so that one half of it is in the hex and the other half sticks out far enough to get a 19mm socket on it. I used my wrist-calibrated torque wrench to tighten to 5 ft-lbs.

2. Install the rights side 36mm nut and tighten to 85 ft-lbs. If you try to install the left side 27mm lock nut and tighten it first the pivot shaft will back out of the frame and become loose. The 36mm nut acts as a locking device for the pivot shaft.

3. Install the left side 27mm nut and tighten to 90 ft-lbs.

I won’t be doing this service anytime soon—I’m sure it’s a great way for the dealer to generate service hours if the recommendation in the manual is followed.

 

[Fred W]

Tracy,

I have serviced the suspension relay arm (boomerang) once at 50k miles, but I opted not to bother with the swing-arm pivot. My reasoning was that the swing-arm pivot is relatively well protected, up high and (mostly) dry, but the relay arm is down in the area of direct road spray. Although doing either of these jobs require suspending the bike's frame to accomplish, the relay arm is considerably less invasive than removing the swing arm. Also, I have heard of people having the relay arms corrode and the bearings go bad, but never the swing-arm pivot bearings.

What I did find in the relay arm was that all of the roller bearings were clean and rust free, although lubrication was pretty minimal. There was really only that waxy stuff that the factory seems to use in there and no real grease. I'm hopeful that having removed the waxy stuff and replaced that with a good waterproof grease will extend the life of these parts.

 

[wheatonFJR]

Great info. guys.

 

[Geezer]

I serviced my swingarm bearings 2 or 3 years ago and found the same thing, plenty of grease and no indication of any need to ever do it again. I don't remember how I put it back together, but I do remember scratching my head a couple of times trying to figure it out. So, thank you for documenting a procedure that works.

If you haven't already done it, it might be helpful to send your additional information to Mark Johnson for inclusion in his 'Servicing the Swingarm' procedure that you point to.

 

[Bounce]

Saw it. Am digesting what it says. I don't seem to remember having any reassembly issues when I did mine and documented it. I can add it as a credited addition if the OP wants.

 

[Fred W]

It appears that they omitted the order of assembly in the first gen manuals. It's the same swingarm, so the same entire procedure in the 2nd gen manual, except they added the order of assembly at the end.

3. Tighten:
Pivot shaft
23 Nm (2.3 m·kg, 17 ft·lb)

Pivot shaft locknut
115 Nm (11.5 m·kg, 85 ft·lb)

Pivot shaft nut
125 Nm (12.5 m·kg, 90 ft·lb)
 
Interesting that the 1st gen calls for only 5 ft-lbs on the pivot shaft, but the second gens call for 17. :huh:

 

[RaYzerman19]

Just because I'm a bit anal about not completely ignoring Yammy's recommendations, I'll feel better after I lube the pivot at least once, but you know there are thousands of bikes out there over the years that have NEVAR had that done. As for the rest of the pivots, they definitely need more attention to prevent wear, particularly the lower shock mount which I would do once a year (having seen how dry mine was a year after I had it, and after seeing a friend's well worn lower shock mount). It is hard to get a lot of grease in, but I think Yammy didn't put enough in the first place. At least do it once!!