Swing arm bearings .

Has anyone replace them yet or even checked for grease?

gus wrote:Has anyone replace them yet or even checked for grease?

Funny you should mention this , not yet , but was thinking the other day about them and the steering head bearings at the next service in 1000km

I seem to recall one of my old Pommy bikes (Triumph or BSA) had one or more grease nipples on the swing arm bushes.

Would it be a worthwhile modification to drill/tap and install a grease nipple?

Chain replacement time would be around the same time as greasing the swing arm bushes. Would removing the swing arm make replacing the chain easier. I guess it would be easier to rivet the chain off the bike.

I repacked the front ones but have not looked at the rear .
I hope to be fitting a gsx 1000 r   rear shock soon so I might rip it all out and check their condition .

I replaced all mine at 150 000 k`s, and to honest probably didn`t need it.

on the centre stand, if I lifted the swing arm up and down, there was some play, so I got a full bearing kit, took off the swing arm and took it along with the counter lever, and pressed them out at work and put all news ones through.

what I found with the old ones was ever so slight wear to the point when I put the new ones in, there was no difference.

the only difference was the outter seals were new opposed to the old.

the actual play in the swing arm come from the frame bracket connector holes for the counter lever, they are slightly flogged which in turn gives  slight play in the swing arm, it needs a boss and pin with tight tolerance to take out the play.

conclusion: regular greasing of all pivot points, and as BanditDave said, grease nipples are needed which I intend to do

Yep I pulled mine down when I planned on fitting a GSXR shock. The shock didn't fit the ABS model as we now know, but I regreased the bearings as Suzuki seem to be bloody stingy with the grease during assembly. That was around 25000. They are easy to get at so I'd recommend you pull them out clean everything in kero and regrease. My shock and the linkage was filthy