Gen II Rear Suspension Bearing Lubrication

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BkrK12

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Just finished lubricating all four relay arm bearings. Actually, I had already done all but the front one and was going to ignore it until guilt got me. As you know, the front one is what causes the major disassembly to take place. The actual lubrication of the bearings takes less than 10 minutes. The disassembly/reassembly goes on for hours. For a device that needs to be lubricated on a regular basis, some remarkably poor engineering went into this portion of the bike. Some thoughts on avoiding pain follow.

1. Before you do anything else, put the bike on its sidestand. Lie down on the floor on throttle side of the and, using a flashlight, locate the wire loop behind the left front center stand mounting bolt. It is there only to serve as an unrequired retainer for the tank vent hose. Found it? Good, now get a pair of pliers and snap that mother off. You cannot get a wrench on that nut with the wire in place.

2. You do not need to cut the centerstand bolts off. It is amazing how much you can move the exhaust system (once the four mounting bolts are removed). You can pull all four CS bolts past the exhaust pipe. I never would have moved the exhaust that far if I hadn't gotten pissed and decided I didn't care if I broke something. My method was to lie on my side and use my leg to pull down on the muffler.

3. Getting the centerstand back on the bike is the hardest part of the job. Do it with the stand in the extended position. Before you start putting it back on, use the tool of your choice and pry apart the two sides of the mounts to make it easier to refit the stand on the bosses. Not a whole lot, just enough to give yourself a little extra leeway.

4. If you want to use your handy torque wrench to snug up the stand mounting nuts to spec, go find a friend, because it's a two person job. You need a long extension to reach behind the exhaust pipes (which you're holding down with your leg) and that means torqueing is a two handed job - leaving no hand for the wrench needed to keep the bolt from turning.

5. If you are going to reverse the centerstand mounting bolts (nuts to the outside), you need to use a 10mm washer behind the bolt head on the two front mounts. Otherwise, the bolt touches the exhaust pipe.

I hope this helps someone avoid some of th pain I just went through. It took about one hour to do all but the very front bearing. It took about five hours to do the last one. Now that I've done it once, I could probably cut that in half. It's still a stupid amount of time to spend on a five minute job because the engineers gave no consideration to maintenance engineering.

Good luck with the task. BTW, all my bearings were in great shape and didn't really need to have anything done to them.

Dan

 
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For a device that needs to be lubricated on a regular basis, some remarkably poor engineering went into this portion of the bike.
Does it? Ain't never done mine.

Good info for those going down that path. Sounds like great fun.

 
Look again. I'm pretty sure it's on there. Something like "lube suspension pivots". I'll look it up when I get back in front of my PC. Killing time in the auto repair shop right now.

 
Personally, I'm beginning to cherish having a spare relay arm that's freshly rebuilt, more than spare wheels. It's such a total PITA to get that thing removed, there's no way I'm going back in with anything other than fresh bearings and seals.

 
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Look again. I'm pretty sure it's on there. Something like "lube suspension pivots". I'll look it up when I get back in front of my PC. Killing time in the auto repair shop right now.
Fred W, did you mean this article https://www.fjrforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=26816 where Bounce finally waded in and answered all of the questions for everybody?

dcarver and Bustanut joker also contributed their thoughts to this thread, but it was way back when they were alcoholics and drug dependent! They both are much better now!

 
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Look again. I'm pretty sure it's on there. Something like "lube suspension pivots". I'll look it up when I get back in front of my PC. Killing time in the auto repair shop right now.
Yeah...unfortunately it is. I was going to echo Skooter...I haven't ever done mine. But, according to the service schedule on HMarc's site it shows "Repack the swingarm pivot bearing at least every 2 year" while "check operation" and "correct if necessary" for rear suspension link pivots.

However, I guess I will join Skooterg to the outlaw ranks and doubt I'm going to lose a wink of sleep at the Iron Butt Hotel. ;)

 
Timely discussion since I'm starting the rear-end tear-down this evening. Line item 18, "Rear suspension link pivots", are to be checked every 16K miles and "Apply lithium-soap-based grease lightly". The Swingarm pivot bearings (line item 9) on the other hand, do get repacked at 16K miles and are to be "Moderately repack[ed] with lithium-soap-based grease".

The good news is that since I'm tearing down the entire rear-end, I don't think I'll have to go through the physical contortions that the OP had to go through. I hope I'm wrong... :unsure:

 
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So that makes two of the FJRForum admins blowing this off.
Naw...we're just liberally interpreting that "two years" refers to those people that do crazy miles and us Sunday riders...the interval is more like 8 years for us Pasadena grandmas. ;)

Or, that we exercise our pivots so regularly that the grease doesn't get a chance to dry out.

Or....ummmmmm.....I dunno.....PHUKIT!......I wasn't buying any of this as I typed it anyway.......we've been blowing it off. :dribble:

But, I'm extremely interested to hear Skooter's justificexplanation. I'm sure he'll be much more convincing about it. :)

 
Personally, I'm beginning to cherish having a spare relay arm that's freshly rebuilt, more than spare wheels. It's such a total PITA to get that thing removed, there's no way I'm going back in with anything other than fresh bearings and seals.
You're welcome!

 
:) Yamaha FJR1300 Service Manual, page 3-2, item 18 Rear suspension link pivots: Apply lithium soap based grease lightly - every 16,000 miles or 24 months. I figured at 48K I was slightly out of spec. However, as I said above, they really didn't need to be serviced.
 
3. Getting the centerstand back on the bike is the hardest part of the job. Do it with the stand in the extended position. Before you start putting it back on, use the tool of your choice and pry apart the two sides of the mounts to make it easier to refit the stand on the bosses it attaches to to which it attaches. Not a whole lot, just enough to give yourself a little extra leeway.
There, fixed that for ya. I mean seriously how am I supposed to do this job with that sentence ending in a preposition? :devil:

 
Timely discussion since I'm starting the rear-end tear-down this evening. Line item 18, "Rear suspension link pivots", are to be checked every 16K miles and "Apply lithium-soap-based grease lightly". The Swingarm pivot bearings (line item 9) on the other hand, do get repacked at 16K miles and are to be "Moderately repack[ed] with lithium-soap-based grease".

The good news is that since I'm tearing down the entire rear-end, I don't think I'll have to go through the physical contortions that the OP had to go through. I hope I'm wrong... :unsure:

I'm sorry to tell you that, if you want to service all four pivot bearings, you have to take the center stand off - which is all the work.

 
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Timely discussion since I'm starting the rear-end tear-down this evening. Line item 18, "Rear suspension link pivots", are to be checked every 16K miles and "Apply lithium-soap-based grease lightly". The Swingarm pivot bearings (line item 9) on the other hand, do get repacked at 16K miles and are to be "Moderately repack[ed] with lithium-soap-based grease".

The good news is that since I'm tearing down the entire rear-end, I don't think I'll have to go through the physical contortions that the OP had to go through. I hope I'm wrong... :unsure:

I'm sorry to tell you that, if you want to service all four pivot bearings, you have to take the center stand off - which is all the work.
Well piss on my optimism why don't ya..! :p

 
Timely discussion since I'm starting the rear-end tear-down this evening. Line item 18, "Rear suspension link pivots", are to be checked every 16K miles and "Apply lithium-soap-based grease lightly". The Swingarm pivot bearings (line item 9) on the other hand, do get repacked at 16K miles and are to be "Moderately repack[ed] with lithium-soap-based grease".

The good news is that since I'm tearing down the entire rear-end, I don't think I'll have to go through the physical contortions that the OP had to go through. I hope I'm wrong... :unsure:

I'm sorry to tell you that, if you want to service all four pivot bearings, you have to take the center stand off - which is all the work.
Well piss on my optimism why don't ya..! :p
Let me help you out Marty. You can bring it over here and use one of my lifts and I will tell what you are doing wrong. :yahoo:

 
BTW, before I forget again. Fred W gets the credit on breaking off the wire loop retainer. He had already done it to his when I asked him about it.

 
Timely discussion since I'm starting the rear-end tear-down this evening. Line item 18, "Rear suspension link pivots", are to be checked every 16K miles and "Apply lithium-soap-based grease lightly". The Swingarm pivot bearings (line item 9) on the other hand, do get repacked at 16K miles and are to be "Moderately repack[ed] with lithium-soap-based grease".

The good news is that since I'm tearing down the entire rear-end, I don't think I'll have to go through the physical contortions that the OP had to go through. I hope I'm wrong... :unsure:

I'm sorry to tell you that, if you want to service all four pivot bearings, you have to take the center stand off - which is all the work.
Well piss on my optimism why don't ya..! :p
Let me help you out Marty. You can bring it over here and use one of my lifts and I will tell what you are doing wrong. :yahoo:
Oh, well, gee thanks, Ray..! :lol:

 
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