swingarm/rear link bearings maintenance

[RM]

On Sat, 29 Dec 2001 TexasThumpin@... wrote:

>IMS shift lever on, just to be cautious. Well, a few weeks later I went >over a bit hard on the left side and was very very lucky. The IMS shift >lever had bent in toward the engine and almost punched the case.

[snip]

>Now to my point. Kawasaki built that lever so that it would break >instead of punching your left side case. They didn't want to put a large >shock hit on the transmissions shift rod, so they designed the lever to >break before causing real damage.

Hey, has anyone ever JB-Welded a little flat piece of metal to the magneto cover where the shift lever would potentially punch-through? Extra protection or dumb idea? RM

[bkowalchuk]

While up on stands in the garage, I figured it was a good idea to check the swingarm and rear suspension bearings. Good news is that I got there on time (A14 with 11,000 kms). The bearings and shafts where all in good shape, not worn but the bearings were looking pretty dry (from the factory no doubt) and the shafts where showing signs of corrosion. After a clean up, and a liberal dose of synthetic grease, they should be good for another season. If left any longer I could easier see the the corrosion along the inside of the shafts would prevent thier removal in the future. The grease I smeared along the shafts should hopefully eliminate that problem. The moral of the story? Spend an hour and grease your shaft so you can get it off (pun intended) before its to late. Bryan K A14