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I've been thinking about a prophylactic swing arm remove/inspect myself. If I remember correctly, torquing that swing arm lock nut takes a special socket cut away to allow a hex wrench to hold the pivot bolt. Anyone found a source other than the dealer for that?i agree that lubing the splines on the 2010+ RTs is not in the service schedule...nonetheless i will be pulling the swingarm/driveshaft on my 2013 at 50k miles (only 8k to go) for kicks and giggles....and to lube the splines and inspect the universal joints...
wyman
I've been thinking about a prophylactic swing arm remove/inspect myself. If I remember correctly, torquing that swing arm lock nut takes a special socket cut away to allow a hex wrench to hold the pivot bolt. Anyone found a source other than the dealer for that?
JayJay
Thanks, Wyman - that's what I'd pretty much decided to do. Harbor Freight is a good thing, sometimes.i fabricated one JayJay....for just such an occasion...
wyman
So far I can't recall seeing a report of a driveshaft spline failure on the hex/cam heads.. and I've been on this forum (and some others for R1200R's) for a while now. And some of the bikes have accumulated some considerable mileage now (going on 10 years old..)
I have heard of U-joint failures though, so IMHO still a good idea to examine them when you lower the rear drive to change the oil (or on the newer ones with a rear-drive drain plug - just lower it to check the U joint.) While it's apart it's trivial to put some new grease on the splines (I'm using Wurth-3000, it seems to stick around a long time.)
A good U-joint moves smoothly through it's range of movement with the same amount of effort. It shouldn't flop - it should have a tiny bit of resistance to movement. One of those things you learn when you have done a lot of automotive U joints (and at one point - I did.) One that moves real easily in the center of it's range is actually worn. Perhaps not enough to need replacing yet, but I wouldn't leave on a 6,000 mile trip with one like that.
It is more difficult to examine and check the splines on the front U-joint to transmission spline - since on most models (apparently not the GS though) removal requires removing the entire swing-arm. Not a totally trivial exercise, but not impossible either. I'd save that for major services - like 80,000 mile ones. The failures do seem to be primarily the rear U-joint, although I can recall 1 front U-joint failure report here.
And IMHO - what's really important - make sure on reassembly that the rubber boots are in the correct position, with the plastic expanders where they belong and some white-grease on the rubber-to-metal surfaces. If they are in place - they keep water out of the swingarm assembly, meaning rust is much less likely to start and cause a failure.