Yeah, I bang on about it.....

Grease your swingarm bearings and check the seals.

These came out of Greg's 1200 Sport this morning, (Not without a fight.). The clowns at the factory had put the seals in back to front which didn't help!

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Pete

Will get this job completed over the winter months. Just out of interest how old and what sort of mileage are on these bearings?

So Gregg's Sport went out in sympathy? He's only just had his own hips replaced & now his Sport's hips are getting the same treatment. It DOESN'T make him a hipster.itll be good to see them both back on the road.

Wow, I did mine about 2 months ago

Greggs bike is always looked after and properly garaged so it really supports Petes repeated comments to keep them lubed up and regularly inspected.
At least that is one job done and dusted for you now Gregg.

Hello
Have a question, where do I find info on how to grease those bearings?
Have a 2016 GRiSO 1200SE and LOVE that bike!
Thanks and have a great day

I may of already done a write up. If not I'll try and do one tonight.

Start with this;

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Here are Pete's comments;


Jerry, doing the swingarm bearings and shock linkage is really pretty straightforward. You need to support the bike on its sump and tie it down at the front obviously and the side plates have to be removed to access the swingarm spindle but apart from that it's just a 'Start at the back and work forward' job. Separating the bevelbox from the swingarm can be a pain if they've been generous with the silastic but I just use a bottle jack between the abs sensor mount and the shock linkage to force it back and break the seal. Just take care while doing it as the boot retainer plate on the mod may want to stick to the swingarm Jo gentle prying with a screwdriver to separate it may be required.

That will get you started.

MalG wrote:

So Gregg's Sport went out in sympathy? He's only just had his own hips replaced & now his Sport's hips are getting the same treatment. It DOESN'T make him a hipster.itll be good to see them both back on the road.

Hi Mal, never a hipster ! I have been back on the road but only out to Kulnura once, then a longer run out to Grey Gums a couple of weeks ago, I'm not as rusty as I feared in road/bike skills, just being careful how and where I put my feet down still. Hope to catch up at next months MGOC meeting.
I am very glad I took the bike down to Pete for a thorough going over !

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Hello again, thanks for the info about the swing arm bearings, I'm not great as a mechanic, ( I did think that was a simpler job) but will tell the fellow who service my bike to look after those bearings at my next visit to him.
Thanks again have great rides and be careful on the roads!
Kind regards for all of you!

After doing mine with the bike perched on a jack in the most precarious fashion I came up with this simple inexpensive support in case I ever had to do it again.
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A couple of lengths of 6 x 2 (2 x 6 depending on your location) with a length of 1/2" pipe and readi rod through the Luigi hole.
In order to remove the swing arm you first remove the Left Hand side plate (RH plate stays in place), this exposes the lock-nut and axel which is behind the round plate in the second picture.

Further on you will see some other solutions.

Well it's looking like that I'll have to do this job myself sometime in the future! so, I'd like to be prepared in advance with everything I'll need.
Do I need a special tool to remove the swingarm axle nut? I've been looking at some pictures and it looks like.

Thanks and great thread on this (for me scary)subject!

No real need for any special tools to remove the swingarm but one for the castellated preload sleeve of the spindle helps. I'm pretty sure that MG Cycle or whoever can supply a peg nut scanner or socket that fits the crank sprocket nut on old Tontis which will do the job admirably or just use a 'C' spanner.

If the bearings are buggered then you need to remove the outer races from the frame and will need to grind up a special, long, punch to biff them out with but there's no 'Leg of toad, eye of newt', secret handshake stuff involved.

Pete

Thanks a lot for all the info! greatly appreciated!

After reading the horror stories I stripped out the bearings to find everything nicely greased up, and no corrosion. All needle bearings also greased and in excellent condition. I still cleaned them out and regreased. Surprised or what! 35k miles and 8 yrs old from new.

So annoying how dealers don't visit these forums. When I asked TLM about this, due to an earlier topic by Pete Roper, as I brought the bike in for the roller conversion back in may. They basically told me there is no need to check and re-grease the swingarm bearings, that people on the internet are just a bit dramatic and that they never had issues with it.

Furrowedbrow wrote:

After reading the horror stories I stripped out the bearings to find everything nicely greased up, and no corrosion. All needle bearings also greased and in excellent condition. I still cleaned them out and regreased. Surprised or what! 35k miles and 8 yrs old from new.

After reading one of Pete's earlier rants I pulled mine apart as soon as I got it at 40k km, the only grease in any of the bearings was the shipping grease that comes in the wax paper wrapper, luckily caught in time.
That reminds me, I haven't looked at the steering yet I wonder if they are the same?

Can be very dry - checked mine at 20k Miles and needed lot of grease.....easy job though

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