Gen II Rear Suspension Bearing Lubrication

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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
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:
Just trying to help a buddy :p

 
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.
Oh hell ya. I can break all kindza parts off these murdercycles.

Lemme know if you need any help with dat... :rolleyes:

 
I also relaced all the bearings, seals and bushings in the relay arm this winter. Now that everthing is back together there seems to be a fair amount of sideways movement that I never noticed before but never really checked before either. I spoke with GP and they said this is correct to prevent binding. How much movement does yours have?

Canadian FJR

 
Yup. If you look closely at the design, there is really nothing holding the relay arm from moving in the lateral direction except the stiction of the needles in being pushed that way. It's probably more apparent because with fresh grease it's easier to push it that way now.

As I recall, the total clearance on both sides is about a mm or so. I could see from the wear marks than mine had been favoring one side primarily, but there are no real side loads on the arm.

 
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What an incredible design fail! Would have been an easy, almost pleasant maintenance job if they'd just left an opening for the relay arm bolt.

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.
Just finished mine at 18k and had some corrosion starting on one of the bearings and spacer. For those of us who occasionally ride in the wet stuff (does it rain in Az Skooter? :p ), would have hated to let it go for another 100k miles.

 
Finally got a chance to change out my centerstand. The info below helped immensely. Using my leg to pull down the muffler was the key. Didn't have to cut the wire loop, just bend it out of the way. Put two new stainless bots in as two of the OEM bolts and nuts got a little beat up coming out. Reversed the lower bolts so I can more easily remove the stand to check the relay arm bearing.

Main mission was to change out the stand. My stand was rusted and bent and not to be trusted.

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.

Dan
 
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
Thanks for the tips Dan. I did cut those bolts, took forever. I used one of those vibraty things with a metal blade, only thing I could get in there. I also put a zert in that front bearing so I won't have to pull to the stand in future. I'm surprised you could move the exhaust that much, I didn't even try, too chicken of bad things happening. Pulled the swingarm too, might as well go whole hog. The single ujoint has me scratching my head. They're always a pair mounted opposite, my old guzzi has a weird 2 in 1 double ujoint. CV's can run alone but not a regular U. I'm amazed the FJ doesn't vibrate like mad. Clever Japanese fellows.
 
Hate to tell you. Stainless bolts are soft only sae grade 2. The bolts you removed were likely metric grade 8.8 or 10.9 . 10.9 is strong stuff about equal to sae 8.
 
Hate to tell you. Stainless bolts are soft only sae grade 2. The bolts you removed were likely metric grade 8.8 or 10.9 . 10.9 is strong stuff about equal to sae 8.
That's true. Stronger stainless bolts exist but they're not on the usual shelf. We used 17-4 PH (precipitation hardened) stainless bolts in the pulp mill for certain applications. In hindsight I should have liberated a selection. As a side note, never use titanium bolts for a shear load. I once had some pretty TI socket head bolts and I used them on the sprocket hub on my old Ducati 900ss. Saving weight under the suspension, I was so smart. Once around the block and they all snapped. Doh!
 
FWIW, Snowflake on another FJR forum has been reworking the FJR Relay Arm to include Zerk fittings. He does good work at nice prices. If you locate a used Relay Arm, he can rebuild/rework that one, replacing only the bad parts, and installing Zerks. Then you will only have to swap in the "new" Relay Arm for your bike, and maybe sell your old Relay Arm to the next rider needing Zerks. Maintenance then for the Relay Arm would only need a grease gun, on some regular basis. The linked thread is detailed and thorough:

Relay Arm Zerk Fittings
 
FYI… Snowflake on the FJRiders forum is AKA FJReady on this forum. He made the same post about his zerked out relay arms somewhere on this forum a while back.
 
FYI… Snowflake on the FJRiders forum is AKA FJReady on this forum. He made the same post about his zerked out relay arms somewhere on this forum a while back.
Fred,

Thanks. Didn't see it here. Was the follow-on discussion similar? My Relay Arm with Zerks is already here, just waiting until I decide the original unit needs some help. FJReady does nice work.
 
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