Suggestions while I've got the bike on the table...

[Toecutter]

It's finally going to be warm enough this weekend to get in the garage, so the '14 V7 Special is going up on the table. I'm a hair under 30K km. Crankcase and bevel box oil was replaced just before storage this past fall.

-Getting new tubes and tires, wheels balanced.

-Replacing my clutch cable and cleaning the clutch actuator arm (due to it being gummed up pretty bad with road slime)

-replacing my kickstand springs with a Moose Racing exhaust spring, and hoping it will do the job (spent all summer last year with my kickstand bungie'd up)

-replacing gearbox oil

Anything else you guys suggest I do while I've got the rear wheel off, other than lubing the splines? (High pressure grease with moly, right?)

[not-fishing]

Steering head bearings.......Grea se.

[Roebling3]

Splines? Clean as your teeth and skimmed with 60% moly.  R3~ 

[yogidozer]

ever flushed the brake fluid yet?

[Toecutter]

Yogi... that's on the roster too.

[yogidozer]

  Good, something a lot of us put off, then regret later

[Toecutter]

Too many years spent riding old beaters with garbage brakes, I'm pretty anal about brake maintenance.

I was just wondering if there were any tips or ideas that are made easier with the rear wheel off... stuff that's a PITA with it on... I imagine bleeding the rear brake is one of them.

[pyoungbl]

Heck, if you have the rear drive off to lube the splines you may as well drop the swingarm and dab a bit of grease on those bearings.  Yes, they are sealed bearings but a bit of grease will keep any rust at bay.  Oh, and removing the swingarm will give you access to the tranny output shaft splines.

Peter Y.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Oh, and removing the swingarm will give you access to the tranny output shaft splines.

Beat me to it.

[Toecutter]

Not having done this on the V7 before... how involved a job is it? Any online pic-heavy walkthroughs?

[SmithSwede]

---seal the rear wheel speed sensor with silicone goop.  If water gets in there, the speedo and odo goes crazy until it dries out.

---waterproof the rubber boot at the front of the swing-arm.  I removed the boot, slathered on silicone goop under and around where the boot fits, re-installed the boot, then drilled a very small hole to vent the pressure differential caused by heated air.   No more leaks into the swing arm, and no more water getting into the final drive.

---grease both the rear and front splines.

---put Lock-Tite on the sole bolt that hold the gear shifter onto the transmission spline.   They seem to have a habit of falling off, and then you can't shift.   

---grease the swing-arm bearings; make sure nothing is leaking

---remove the EVAP crap

[wymple]

Since it's easy & cheap, I'd replace the throwout bearing and lube the contact areas of the actuator rod as well. My son Chris found out it can start to squeal almost overnight.

[pyoungbl]

Not having done this on the V7 before... how involved a job is it? Any online pic-heavy walkthroughs?

No pictures.  Removing the swingarm is dead simple once you have the rear drive removed...which you were going to do already.  Each side of the swingarm has a stub axle that screws into the transmission housing.  To explain better, each stub axle is actually threaded into the swingarm and the smooth end sticks into a sealed bearing which has been pressed into the tranny housing.  It has been a year since I did this but I remember the hardest part being getting that rubber bellows secured back in place.

[SmithSwede]

Yes, dead simple.    But note that on a V7, the right side, but not the left side, has a washer between the swing arm and the transmission.   

You also don't need to torque down the studs very much.  Just get them seated all the way in, and make sure the swing arm can move freely. 

It is a very fine thread and you don't want to bugger it up.   I would not slather them with lock tite. 

[SmithSwede]

It sounds like you want to piddle around and do useful things with the bike some once you have it on the table.  Some other things you may want to do, even though they do not relate to removing the rear wheel.

Remove the exhaust header bolts and put some copper anti-seize on them.  If you do this semi-regularly you will never have the horrible experience of trying to get a thoroughly corroded and seized exhaust header off.

Do nice things for your electrical system.   Clean and grease the battery terminals.   Make sure you have an excellent ground wire connection at the engine case.   Clean up the connectors on the starter motor.    Clean up the connector for the alternator.  Clean up your fuse and relay connectors. 

I believe a lot of weird and intermittent problems can be avoided if people considered their electrical system as something that benefits from regular maintenance. 

[Huzo]

Clean it while it's on the table.
You'll be surprised the things you see when @ eye level and it'll end up as clean as a birds bum..!

[antmanbee]

Clean it while it's on the table.
You'll be surprised the things you see when @ eye level and it'll end up as clean as a birds bum..!

I had to read that twice. At first I thought, well here is another unfamiliar Aussie expression, "clean as a bride's bum..!" but after rereading it made even less sense.

[Huzo]

You'll be able to get at the hard to reach places a lot easier and it'll look a lot nicer than when you just do the usual "top and tail" effort down on the ground.
And BTW.
That'd be a bird's bum, not a bride's bum..!

[Chuck in Indiana]

It sounds like you want to piddle around and do useful things with the bike some once you have it on the table.  Some other things you may want to do, even though they do not relate to removing the rear wheel.

Remove the exhaust header bolts and put some copper anti-seize on them.  If you do this semi-regularly you will never have the horrible experience of trying to get a thoroughly corroded and seized exhaust header off.

Do nice things for your electrical system.   Clean and grease the battery terminals.   Make sure you have an excellent ground wire connection at the engine case.   Clean up the connectors on the starter motor.    Clean up the connector for the alternator.  Clean up your fuse and relay connectors. 

I believe a lot of weird and intermittent problems can be avoided if people considered their electrical system as something that benefits from regular maintenance.

What Smithswede says. Other than a flat tire, the most likely failure will be electrical from corrosion. Everything I needed to know about this has been drummed into my head by an old SP on the side of the road.

[Toecutter]

Electrical maintenance was beaten into me by years of old beaters, too. So many roadside repairs...

[Sheepdog]

Give your wheels a good cleaning and treat them with ACF50 to keep rust/pitting at bay. Cleaning wheels is pretty easy if you can get them off the bike and up on a trueing stand...

[Toecutter]

Sheepdog... they're going on the truing stand to be balanced anyways, so I was planning on it.