XS1 swing arm with the phenolic bushings in place, otherwise bare except for paint 6lbs 12.5oz.
I removed and weighed it just for you.
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Installing Bronze Swingarm Bushings and Setting Sideplay
- Thread starter YamadudeXS650C
- Start date
I removed and weighed it just for you.
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I don't know about the newer parts or replacements, but on the 72 the bolt bushing is a 3 piece unit. After reading about drilling more holes, I gave it a try. I stopped after destroying 2 bits. These puppies are hardened. Give it the file test before attempting to drill. I got out my trusty Dremmel and splashed the holes out a little wider. Not sure if a lathe could cut more grooves.
For the record, they're all the same design. The swingarm holes are bored smaller in the '70-'73 frames than '74 onward, so the parts aren't all interchangeable.
No need for a lathe if you have a drill press. Clamp the inner bushing ("tube") on a long bolt between two washers, chuck the free end of the bolt in the drill press, and cut grooves with a small round file. The grooves don't need to be very deep. The job may take awhile and may not look as pretty as Jim's work, but it will get 'er done.
Yes, you can go even more cave man..
Chuck the tube up in a (soft jaw) vise and just work your way around with a small round or half round file. Like dick says, the grooves don't need to be very deep... .025 to .035" is plenty deep.
Or you could use Delrin!
Hi Tebo,"Stone Age Garage"? Wait, I have a drill press....
a real one or a modern copy that has an electric motor?
It's a bench top modern copy with an electric motor.
A pillar drill.
Doing my bushings now and this thread has been a great help. One question I have is what is the best grease to use with these bushings?
Whatever you have in the gun will be fine but I'd use a HD (thick) lithium and or moly grease
When I saw HD I thought you were going to say Harley Davidson. Glad you inserted (thick). You don't want people running go the nearest HD dealer looking for grease.
I use the thickest, highest pressure stuff I've got, which happens to be this Sta-Lube premium red .....
HF sells tubes of it .....
https://www.harborfreight.com/14-oz...MIrtnQuqKd_QIVQ8LICh1OOAnsEAQYBiABEgLn5fD_BwE
HF sells tubes of it .....
https://www.harborfreight.com/14-oz...MIrtnQuqKd_QIVQ8LICh1OOAnsEAQYBiABEgLn5fD_BwE
Yup - use any thick stuff so that it doesn't run out all over the place and make a mess.
The thing about these bushings is that they do not rotate all the way around 360 degrees like an engine bearing. They only go back and forth through an arc of about....say....20-25 degrees (that is a WAG* by the way) - and there is not a lot of heat involved.
The function of the grease is to keep crap out of the bushings so they do not get ground up and also to keep metal-to-metal contact from occurring.
That is why you need to pump in a couple of squirts of new grease every once in a while: to drive new grease IN and move old grease OUT - and thus, carry any debris out with it.
Pete
* a WAG is a Wild Assed Guess, better known in polite company as an "engineering estimate".
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Hi cra-z,
The Harley shop will sell you good quality grease that's been re-packaged in Harley colours at only twice the price so you gotta balance the cost of buying the high-priced re-packaged grease while you are checking the Harley store's bargain bin against the extra cost of making a second stop at a different store just to buy grease.
Yes they are brain washed. My friend went in and was checking out the heated gear and the friendly girl helping in the clothing dept insisted that Harley Davidson makes the gear and that it was superior to anything out there. I think at the time Gerbing was supplying their heated gear.
This such great info for a newb! Doing my first bike rebuild. Thanks for this. I powder coated my swing arm and am a bit nervous to apply heat to it. Was thinking I may leave it the sun for a few hours, freeze the bushings and use a press. What do you all think of this idea?I thought I'd compile the essential elements of the swingarm procedures from my other recent thread
http://www.xs650.com/threads/yet-another-swingarm-bushing-thread.51061/
....into a more coherent, single post for those who might want to read the info more easily for their own installation.
This applies to all XS650 years, and I used Mikes' Bronze bushings, purchased recently.
I did some measuring of dimensions to see exactly what I had:
The proper, expected dimensions of this bushing are:
Length 40mm
ID 22mm
OD 28mm
Collar thickness 2.6mm
Collar OD 34mm
Using a new, calibrated Fowler, I got these measures at 65 degrees F:
Bushing One:
Length 40.06 mm
ID 22.03 mm
OD 28.04 mm
Collar thickness 2.50 mm
Collar OD 34.07 mm
Bushing Two:
Length 40.03 mm
ID 22.05 mm
OD 28.05 mm
Collar thickness 2.60 mm
Collar OD 34.10 mm
I noted the largest variation in bold.
The OD increased on both bushes by .02 just in front of the collar.
The old nylon bushes tend to be really stuck in there. Make cuts like in the photo below to relieve the tension of the material. Cut almost down to the metal. Then heat with a propane torch until the grease boils, but before the paint gets singed. Knock it out with a long drift. I used a section of copper water pipe.
After 24 hours in the freezer, the OD of the new bronze bush was reduced by .04 mm.
Reheat the arm with a torch and assemble an installation tool made of all-thread, fender washers, and two nuts.
Quickly assemble the tool and your cold bushings. I pressed both at once, which worked, but the torque required in the last 1/2 inch became very strenuous due to the cooling of the arm and warming of the bush.
I suggest pressing one at a time.
The pivot tube should fit nicely, smoothly. Some have reported having to do a bit of machining/reaming of the bushes to get a good fit. Sometimes the pivot tube is badly rusted; in that case, replace it.
Aligning the tube and the bushing at one end ("flatting them"),
....a measurement can be easily made at the other end with a feeler gauge.
I am inclined to suggest a target figure of .008 and a range of .006" to .010" for this pre-assembly sideplay or freeplay, based upon my experiences and measures taken during two installations, and the technical information available to us.
The .040" figure found in your Yamaha Service Manual is a wear limit for inspection purposes to be applied later, after many miles of use, and therefore not a figure which we would want to be using when doing our pre-assembly bench set-up.
The sideplay or freeplay is the distance the pivot tube emerges past the collar of the bushing when you set it up on the bench as I did in the photos. This distance becomes your sideplay. You might have to add a shim if your sideplay comes out to be larger than .010.
To quote 5T,:
"The shims are actually used if the pivot tube is too long compared to the swingarm/bushing assembly. They are installed inside the grease seals. They have an I.D. big enough to go over the pivot tube - they don't shim against it. This doesn't happen on most swingams so you don't find the shims very often. You need to thoroughly clean the old grease seals and look inside them to see if shims are present. Most probably get tossed out with the old grease seal because folks aren't even aware they might be in there. Out of the half dozen of so swingarms I've taken apart, I only found shims in one."
On one of my installations, the sideplay was too small, so I carefully filed down the collar until I achieved the correct play. You can see this in the last photo, above.
Next, install the swingarm, using the new end seals if yours were at all bunged-up.
5Twins offers the following torquing procedure to assist in fine-tuning your sideplay:
" When installing the swingarm, I would use the pivot bolt torque range given in the '77 torque spec chart (36-58 ft/lbs), not the single value given in some of the other years manuals (something like 47 ft/lbs). When you install one of these, the usual procedure is to torque the pivot bolt until it is in the specified range and so that the arm very slowly falls under it's own weight. That may not happen exactly at 47 ft/lbs (probably won't). It will probably require a bit more or less than that. If it stays loose above the max torque spec, you've got too much play. If it binds up completely before you even reach the minimum spec, you don't have enough play."
The results of my recent torquing procedures, per the recommendation of 5T:
> The 1980 was set at .008, and the arm fell slowly at about 38 ft. lbs.
> The 1976 was set at .010, and the arm fell slowly at about 42 ft. lbs,
the results of which seem to validate that the .006 to .010 range of pre-assembly sideplay is a good starting point.
fini
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Thanks for the positive feedback.
I'm not an expert as to how much heat powder coating could tolerate. I suggest warming it up as best you can without using a flame ( use boiling water or a heat gun?) , try to press it in, and see how it goes.
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