Showing her age, with wobbles
 

Long time no post etc.
My Tenere, the mighty Princess Sugar Sprinkles, is now at the heady age of 8 years old. Has flown by although my mileage has decreased and now the bike is just used for commuting. 55,000 miles now.
Recently I have been experiencing a new and not entirely pleasant sensation; the bike feels like it is meandering when in a straight line.
I've checked and replaced where necessary the following within the last 6 weeks;
Head bearings
Front wheel bearings
Suspension linkage bearings
Tyres

I replaced all the rear wheel bearings ca. 9,000 miles ago but am wondering for peace of mind if I replace them all again.

My other thought is that the front wheel is beginning to come loose around the spokes. There's a bit of flex in the fork when the bike is on full lock and I pull the wheel at the outer edge. Just wondering if any one else has found this?

Mine started to feel wayward when the swingarm pivot bearings needed attention. If, when you did the suspension linkage, the bearings, collars etc. were in a sorry state and lacking in lubrication, I bet you a pound to a pinch of sh!t that the swingarm pivot will be in the same state or worse.

I suspect you are entirely right. I have been avoiding them as I know the spindle is seized in. Poo.

Poo indeed.

I take it you've obviously had a go at shifting it already?

Yes, after dashmoto related his troubles with his a few years back I had a go. It didn't budge.

I shifted my swing arm pivot with an electric impact wrench, it took quite a while .

I'm experiencing a bit of wandering on mine but I put that down to the tkc 80s.

Handlebar clamp bolts nice and tight?

I'm expecting an impact wrench to be used this time. Lots of plus gas too.
Everything else all good and tight.

I greased my Tenere one when I bought it, but on my WR450, I used a product called liquid spanner and lots of force bike on its side and a big hammer, took two days (spraying letting it soak in hitting and repeat) but it came out....new pivot pin needed, but I knew it would need that

I never had a problem getting the pivot bolt out on the Ten because I got to it early enough. However, as has been mentioned, a rattle gun or even better, an air hammer works a treat – far better than traditional hammering and brute force. High frequency vibration is your friend in this situation, rather than low frequency heavy blows.

I invested in an air hammer from Machine Mart a while back which I think was cost me about �30 and a set of three dull-ended chisels which cost about �50 to do the swingarm on an RD400 I had. I’ve had more than my monies worth out of them over the years since. I can’t tell you how much of a godsend they are when it comes to drifting out seized bolts, particularly from the suspension bushes of old Land Rovers that spend a lot of time up to there axles in water!

These are the sort of chisels you need (nylon, brass and aluminium-ended ones):

https://dccf75d8gej24.cloudfront.net...949E-large.jpg