Squeaking swingarm - how to fix
- Thread starter sam2019
- Start date
kingmonkeyno1
Active Member
i will be hopefully attempting this fix this weekend. my himi is preowned but less than 3000 miles and it squeaks like crazy. the bike is in great condition otherwise but annoys me that it should creak so early in its life. i found some correct size shims online and ordered. Ill strip the swingarm, inspect and grease the components as well as add these shims.
while you are at it also exchange the bearings in the steering head for German made ones or they will haunt you along the line - mine failed every 10k km until I finally exchanged them. there is a thread somewhere telling you the specs. and check if your battery survives 2 weeks of parking, if not use a breaker switch at the battery bc the BS6 electric wiring is leaky.
Shere Khan
Prolific Member
I believe I found a better solution, since it does not require to dismantle half the bike. So far so good, no squeaks ever after.
Remove the swingarm pivot nut, back the main bolt a little and spray a lot of WD-40 from both sides of the bike into the swingarm channel.
Reinstall the nut at the torque of 60 Nm instead of the 70 Nm you should find on the manual. Squeaks should be gone then.
Remove the swingarm pivot nut, back the main bolt a little and spray a lot of WD-40 from both sides of the bike into the swingarm channel.
Reinstall the nut at the torque of 60 Nm instead of the 70 Nm you should find on the manual. Squeaks should be gone then.
Shere Khan
Prolific Member
More than WD-40 I believe the winning card is torque... 70 Nm is by many considered over-torqued. 60 Nm is not that far and makes a difference already.
Forget about WD-40. Forget about lubrication at all (other people disassembling the squeaking swingarm end up finding still a lot of marine grease inside the pivot and around the bearings. It shouldn't really be a lubrication problem most of the time.
As soon as you start releasing pressure on the pivot bolt, the squeaking should cease. At 70 Nm everything is so compressed that the swingarm moving against rubber grommets remove the marine grease from that place and start the squeaking.
Is the friction against rubber that makes that noise.
kingmonkeyno1
Active Member
Recieved some shims ordered today. I'll be tackling this job at the weekend. Can't wait to get rid of that creaking.
Is it possible to remove the swingarm completely whilst on the centre stand or will I need to Jack it up and support via other means?
Is it possible to remove the swingarm completely whilst on the centre stand or will I need to Jack it up and support via other means?
ham
Active Member
ahhh the squeaking is caused by the gouging of the swing arm tube on the seals
shim it out and grease it nice
I got by with less torque and more grease
kingmonkeyno1
Active Member
So just finished stripping it all down and reassembling .
It was shocking how tight everything was. Removed the drop links and there was no free movement in the swingarm. Did an approximate test on how much the bolt was torqued (old torque wrench so don't fully trust) and it was above 80Nm!
Cleaned everything up, packed all the bearings with grease, added the shims and reassembled. Initially torqued to 60Nm on a recommendation . Went to 70 just out of curiosity and there was still good free movement.
Gonna be so much nicer to ride now without that awful creaking , and I know everything is nice and lubricated also.
It was shocking how tight everything was. Removed the drop links and there was no free movement in the swingarm. Did an approximate test on how much the bolt was torqued (old torque wrench so don't fully trust) and it was above 80Nm!
Cleaned everything up, packed all the bearings with grease, added the shims and reassembled. Initially torqued to 60Nm on a recommendation . Went to 70 just out of curiosity and there was still good free movement.
Gonna be so much nicer to ride now without that awful creaking , and I know everything is nice and lubricated also.
Shere Khan
Prolific Member
Perfect, thanks for adding the picture, helps me futher explain the issue.
Problem is even if you add grease, that gouging perpetual movement will slowly (not that slowly actually, soon) remove the grease from there under and push it on the outside, restoring the squeaking.
I managed to get away by just slightly loosening the tightening torque values. Also ridden two-up this weekend and didn't hear any squeak. Still experiencing some slight squeaking on some hard hits offroad.