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Good information. I won’t pull apart my brand new Guzzi then. I’ll investigate state of play when the wheel comes out for a tyre change.
Tony
But the bolts were dry, and had rusted in. Still have not been able to remove the front one holding the wishbone.
heat ?
As precaution I removed the 3 “con rod” nuts and gave them a smear of the good stuff, Nickelslip.
Have to say the nut on the chassis mount (wishbone) was really tight. Moving it with an 8" ring spanner was virtually impossible. I will get an extra long ring spanner for future UN-doing. The nut on mine wasn’t seized, the bike has only been ridden 3x from factory new, but it was darn tight. Think I popped a few tendons getting it started, def benefit from long leverage undoing.
TonyTooJuicy2014-04-04 22:28:36
Mine turned easy enough, but the bolt is rusted in solid inside the inner tube of the bearing. Thus it all turns easily, but won’t shift sideways. Yes, tried heat to an extent. Not wanting to put a blowlamp in there of course.
Little angle grinder and cutting disc seems the only option, plus a new wishbone.Brian UK2014-04-04 22:59:17
May not be relevant but my wife’s Aprilia Pegaso Strada has a similar suspension linkage. When the bike had done about 1200 miles, I stripped and regreased te linkage bearings and found that they were actually OK and had some grease from new. The bike was about 4 years old at this point.
Yes, it’s very wrong when the manufacturer supplies a bike with too little grease but is it also possible for them to over-grease these parts?
JonSquarepants2014-04-05 00:42:18
all the bearings not stripped and checked at every service interval every 6,250 miles as per the manual? nope i do not do mine either but I suppose that is guzzi’s escape clause. As mentioned before on this topic, it would not be done on the PDI as it would cost to much.
Worse than the suspension linkages lack of grease is the steering bearings lack of grease which could be dangerous. My bike the steering bearings were replaced under warranty by the previous owner.
Most definitely possible to over-grease bearings. Too much grease can cauyse as much problems for bearings as too little. Needle & taper bearings, for example, are specified for low lubrication / high load / small space environments and because by their narrow diameter design they have relatively small freeair space and a large surface area - so they hate a lot of grease. Moreover grease actually impedes the bearings’ rolling action causing them to drag, skid and slide instead of rotating. With sliding bearings a high pressure oil lubrication system is required, which is something that lubrication by a grease source cannot provide and the bearing surfaces will heat up, weld, and destroy the races & themselves. There are formulae to estiimate the optimal volume of grease which are then adjusted/fine-tuned through testing. A bearing manufacturer will know to the gram how much grease must be applied to each of his bearings, a value which varies with bearing orientation, load and speed, and the frequency of replacing since by the way it functions grease has a finite usage life.Tony
The amount of grease is also dependent on the type of rotation.A wheel bearing spins quite quickly, the general advice is to fill the bearing, then turn it one rotation and remove excess grease.With the needle bearings in the suspension, and the taper roller in the swing arm pivot, they don’t spin at all, just reciprocate slowly, thus can be filled with grease without problem. In that location, some sort of waterproof grease would be best.
Having stripped the swingarm and the streering bearings during winter 2012/13 on the Griso, I found the steering bearings to be sound, and well greased. Not so for the swing arm. Holy crap! the offside bearing crumbled as I took out the spindle. 21,000 miles and they were destroyed. New bearings and seals for the swingarm from Gutsibits and a roller bearing kit from Wemoto for the steering (well i had it apart anyway so I done them) and all is well with the world. Got bored this winter as theres nowt to fix. If it aint broke, dont fix it.
Just to add… I put a High moly grease in the linkage needle bearings. Its the stuff used by Honda on their motocrosser linkage and for lubing the splines in their shaft drive bikes, but funnily enough, they dont import it into the UK anymore, so Christ knows what their dealers have been using! I got a amall 80 gramm tube of it from a specialist motocrosser dealer who imports it for his customers. Next time Im in the workshop Ill get the details off it and post it up on here.Tod.2014-04-06 21:38:02
Last time I mentioned what grease I used everywhere, I was the subject of some ridicule. But actually I use a grease formulated to lubricate stern tube bearings on boats.
+1
Huh? In the garage maybe but not on the road. The needle bearings in the suspension joint (not the swing arm pivot) get a lot of work.Half the weight of the bike/engine/rider/pillion/luggage, say 1/4 tonne, sits on these needle bearings. They carry all the load of the bike to the rear tyre.Travelling at road speeds (1,500 inches per second on Mway - a lot of road imperfections) the suspension reacts to bumps/holes in split seconds, that is an inch+ vertical deflection by the rear spring unit in split seconds. That movement, from rest to full compression to rest, and then return, in less than a second is transmitted to the swing arm through those needle bearings. Being so tiny in circumference they get a lot of rotating to do to keep up with the suspension unit movement and are subject significant accelerations all while supporting 1/4 tonne on their backs. They’re little heroes really! And they need our lubrication to provide a slight oil film to keep the metal surfaces apart. That’s exactly what grease is, it is a reservoir of oil in a non-lubricating binder/holder. Just not too much or too little of the grease or they’ll overheat and crumble.Tony
TooJuicy2014-04-12 07:47:06
cant believe I enjoyed this post ,very helpful information johnno2014-04-12 08:07:33
I never said they were not loaded, I said they didn’t spin. They reciprocate, but actually very little in an angular sense, rather less than 30 or 40 degrees in total one way then back again.Yes they are heavily loaded but will accept far more grease in them than a race which is spinning at several hundred rpm like a wheel bearing.
Rocol Sapphire Hi-Load 2 is perfect ; contains molybdenum disulphide.
Its a long life bearing grease for applications subject to high load. Temp. range -30 deg. to +150 deg. Have always used this grease on swing arm pivots on every bike Ive owned.
Superb stuff ( but not to be used on high speed applications such as wheel axle bearings).