Griso grease report

[4vgoose]

Hello one and all,
I decided to check my steering stem, swingarm, and linkage bearings for grease on my 2013 Griso and pass on what I found.

The steering stem looked to have adequate grease so I added some more and did a careful torquing and reassembly.

The swingarm bearings also had grease but not so obvious if more would not have been better.  The needle bearings in the suspension linkage surprised me by how much more grease I could press into them.  Again, a careful torquing and reassembly so I could forget about this possible issue for a long time.

Of note:  The tool Todd sells over at GuzziTech to deal with the castellated nut which sets the preload on the swingarm bearings was worth getting.  I'll pound on these kind of nuts with a brass drift if I have to but it's nice to have the right tool to put a torque wrench to.  Also, Pete Roper's suggestion of using a bottle jack to pop the glued on CARC from the swingarm was brilliant.  Don't know if I would have thought of that solution and the adhesive (looked like RTV) was strong.  Trying to pry those surfaces apart or apply enough heat to soften the adhesive would be damage waiting to happen.

One thing I was unsuccessful at was getting the drive shaft off the output shaft to grease the splines.  I gave it many a good whack but it did not pop off so I contented my self with pushing as much grease into the ends of the splines.  Maybe the cold temperature of my garage was a factor in not being able to separate them.  Easy to grease the other in of course.

That's it except to say that I'm glad I did this though I found no real problems.  I like having felt the bearing motion with my hands and torque them myself.  If you can't afford to pay someone to do this for you or it is beyond your abilities, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it but if you ride a lot of miles, you will want to get in there some day.

cheers,
tod

PS,  try Mark's (Beetle) map for your Griso if you don't like the fueling.  Best improvement you can make for just a modest donation.

[boatdetective]

The drive shaft is held in place with a spring. You do need to whack it to get it off. You're limited to delivering a whack off axis, which doesn't help much. If you have something clamped to the shaft and whack that- then that might help. Removing the shaft from my Griso was harder than the 1200S.

[Vasco DG]

Yah. 'Thor' is your friend for getting the shaft off. It's retained by an internal circlip. You need to pull it against the clip and then smite the yoke. You can see my mate Thor on the left in the pic below. A hide and copper double ended hit-o-meter it is a splendid tool!



Pete

[not-fishing]

Thanks for the post and "Darn you" for the post.

My Griso has 33,000 miles on in and I doubt the swing arm / steering has ever been repacked.  Curse of being the 3rd Owner

So now I have another maintenance item to do in the next few months along with changing the alternator belt.

I just put another hundred-plus cold miles on my Griso 1100 today so I feel obligated to keep the old girl in good shape.  I'm hoping to see her turn 40,000 by the end of summer this year. 

[4vgoose]

I was pretty sure I knew what had to happen but was balancing the thought of hitting my thumb with Thor vs pushing some grease into the cracks and hoping warm temperatures would migrate the grease into the splines.

to not-fishing:  at that many miles, a good thing to do.  My plan is to always budget enough winter down time to take my time with the job and not be rushed.  Good time to do something with the rear shock or spring while you are at but I didn't bite this time.

thanks to all for the replies.

tod