I may be misreading, but it sounds like you've destroyed the bearing cages then put the loose rollers back in.

That's not going to end well.

Awesome job ohlins. Fortunatley someone posted a reply so I got hold on your threads. I bookmarked all 4 parts of it.
Unfortunatley the PDF which KEV did is no longer available...:(.

Hi Uberthumper..

Valid concern....but...all my motos when greasing the pivots are the same,i.e. without a silicon soft cage. IMO the cage is there to aid assembly on the production line so as to avoid needles(from normal type needle bearings) from dropping out and going missing. (In fact those same bearings when replacing,will always arrive with a plastic sleeve in the inside diameter to stop the needles falling out).

Just too awkward to keep tabs on.

Normal bearings are saturated in grease and work just fine,so I've no worries in having grease in there instead of a bit of silicon.


:)



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There are two sorts of needle roller bearings, "full complement", and "caged roller".

A full complement bearing has, as the name suggests, a number of rollers which precisely fills the space between the inner and outer races (the inner race in this case being the sleeve which fits inside the bearing).

A caged bearing has fewer rollers. The cage isn't just there to stop the rollers falling out before assembly, it's there to keep them spaced out evenly in operation.

What you've done is remove that cage, but you've still got the same number of rollers - which is not enough to 'fill' the bearing. This means that they can all move round to one side of the bearing, leaving an empty section. Expect a lot of play and fairly rapid failure.

In other words, if the bearing comes without a cage, that's fine. I presume this was the case on the other bikes you've had.

What you've done by removing the cage from a caged bearing isn't fine. The rest of the 'how to' is great, but this particular bit is not good advice.

OK Uberthumper..

Thanks for your input....

For info I haven't any play at present after riding lots of trails and oddly enough when I put the needles back in and with that cage out,there's not enough room to even squeeze an extra bearing in at all. They're all so tight with each other.

When assembled they look just fine. I'll keep an eye on them just to confirm that all is well and if not I'll certainly post any findings.


Thanks


:)


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Big thanks from me too!
Very much appreciated! :)

I am going to do this job in a couple of days.. Great to see a guide with nice pictures that show how to do everything!

Big thumbs up! :)

One little question though;
I have a XTX, and my bike does not have that fancy center stand as the XTZ has..
How do everybody do this on a xtr / xtx ? I only have ha swing arm stand, but
that is quite useless when removing the swingarm :P :D

:)









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What kind of grease do you use when greasing the swingarm bearings?

Hmm... If uberthumber is right about the plastic in the bearings, how can I avoid to damage it when I disassemble everything?

Is it better to not remove the needles and leave them where they are and just clean as much as possible and regrease it afterwards?

I used marine water resistant grease last time I had the swingarm off.

http://www.opieoils.co.uk/p-60211-fu...nt-grease.aspx

I am about to do the pivot again in the next month or so, so we'll find out how good its been...

Ok, let us know the result :)