Fun with swingarm pivot bearings and rear shock spring

[nwguy]

So I bought a new, heavier weight Ohlins spring for my Norge's rear shock and decided to overhaul the swingarm pivot bearings and grease the driveshaft splines when I replaced the spring. Had a few hiccups that I thought someone might want to hear about. The spring I bought is described in this post:

https://wildguzzi.com/forum/index.php?topic=112164.msg1784846#msg1784846

I borrowed this tool from my local shop:



The part of the tool that fits between the coils and then captures the shock's chromed shaft with a sliding pin was too thick to fit in the gaps between the stock spring's coils. They're closer together than the Ohlins' coils. So I used a cutoff wheel on my grinder to cut the spring out. Wear eye and face protection if you ever do this. The spring sprung on the first cut and was a bit scary. Took 2 cuts to free it up enough to remove the plate at the end of the shock.



With the help of a friend we were able to get the new spring on with the shop's tool without too much difficulty. Did take 2 people though and a cheater bar on the end of the tool's handle.

I followed this excellent tutorial for overhauling the bearings and greasing the splines:

https://wildguzzi.com/forum/index.php?topic=66579.0

It's for a Stelvio, but works well for a Norge except for the lack of instructions for removing and reinstalling the footpeg side plates. My bike was supported by its center stand during disassembly, and upon removing the second side plate the center stand folded up and the bike collapsed. It didn't tip over, nor did that damage anything, but it was a shock. Huzo cautioned about this in some other post (I think on GuzziTech), but I hadn't read or remembered that. So yeah, watch out for that. I used blocks under the engine to support it after that.

My pivot bearings had minimal grease but were in fine conditions. Cleaned them with kerosene and applied plenty of new grease on them and the driveshaft splines. When reinstalling the shock, I checked the pivot points on the shock's bottom linkage part shown here:



2 of the 3 pivots rotated smoothly, so I just applied more grease to them. The third was frozen and wouldn't rotate. I saw one on Ebay for only $35, but I thought I'd try fixing mine before resorting to buying a replacement. Each pivot point has about 40 needle bearings, half on left side of the pivot bushing and half on the right. I removed them and cleaned everything with kerosene before examining them. One half of the pivot bushing was covered in a thin layer of rust, and its needle bearings were brown with surface rust too. I polished the pivot bushing, its races and the rusty needle bearings with steel wool and fine sandpaper. The pivot bushing looked OK after that, but I could still feel some roughness in the races. I greased the races and installed the bearings, mixing the good ones with the rusted ones so they're not all rusted on one side. Reassembled it with new grease and it rotated smoothly. Maybe it's OK. Glad I caught that though. The new spring:



Before this repair I tried adjusting the shock for my weight and found the shock's plastic knob difficult to access. So I cut a hole in the plastic panel that hides it and put some automotive trim around the hole's edge. Don't know if rainwater will come flying out of there while riding. In fact I haven't ridden/tested the bike since completing this job yesterday because we here in the Northwest are experiencing a "rain bomb". Will see how everything works soon though.

[Huzo]

When you pulled the pin and dropped the swingarm, did you notice if the seals were in place and can you be sure you didn’t dislodge the right hand (rear brake) side one when you pushed the pin through ?

[nwguy]

I lay underneath it, and looked up with a good flashlight. Both sides look good. No out of place seals.

[Huzo]

I lay underneath it, and looked up with a good flashlight. Both sides look good. No out of place seals.

That’s good.
When I pulled mine out for the first time, the dislodged seal was in the bottom of the housing and the races were rusted dry.
The cage fell out in multiple pieces and the rollers fell out separately on the floor...!
The seal had never been in the register and is not readily visible from the outside. I made a spacer to go between the race and the seal, to prevent the seal dislodging as you push the pin through.

[Salishmoto]

Glad you had success. I did more or less this same thing on my 15 Stelvio with a new Wilbers rear shock. I found all my parts had some grease but was happy to clean them and put it all back together with gobs of good grease. Used Red and Tacky. I found the bearings that connect to the bottom of the shock to be so worn that they had cut into the race itself. I ordered a new race from AF1 and found it came with new bearings as well. I had no trouble pressing the old one out and the new one in, using all the usual methods of a home mechanic. Blue Beast sure rides a lot better with that stock and dead shock replaced. It used to bottom out with no effort at all.