Well, it's been months since I took my little trials bike out for a play, so when I did I wasn't too surprised to see the rear end looking a bit saggy and forlorn. When I tugged at the rear lifting strap there was a telltale easy lift before the weight of the bike was felt and a definite sloppy feel to the whole back end. I rode it for an hour on my little play area but it all felt so slack so I wheeled it back into the garage and left it sit until I have just found the time to sort it... This full time working lark really interferes with riding time!! ;-)
So after finding out the entire rear end bearings set is around £200 ish, give or take, I thought I'd find out what actually needs replacing before I splashed the cash!
Being lazy at the moment, I didn't bother to clean the bike so everything is a bit grubby, but that just means I can clean it all as I go and re-grease everything as it gets refitted.
It took awhile to strip things out as all the nuts & bolts are different sizes ranging from a 10mm to a 14mm.
The steps I've done are;
1. Pop the bike on a stand & remove the rear wheel
2. Remove the tail guard
3. Remove the rear shock mudguard
4. Remove the right footpeg
5. Undo all the nuts & bolts on the rear linkage
6. Undo and remove the rear shock
7. Remove the rear linkage.
At this point I checked the swing arm bearings for any play, they were fine so I will leave them for this time. But the rear linkage is shot and the top bearing on the shock is also knackered, so I've taken them out, with a little help from a very heavy mallet and a vice!
Everything has clearly been in there a long time and gone both dry and rusty, so no wonder it's feeling a bit saggy.
Ordering the parts...
The Splat Shop sell the parts as a kit for £151.00, this is a full replacement kit. You can buy the individual spherical bearings, (12x22x12) for the Beta rear shock from here too for around £20
BVM Moto sell a kit which is missing the short ends to the bushes, I'd guess this is because these don't get as much wear and so can be re-used, their kit is £109.00
I found plenty of other sites, but you have to trawl through loads of pages of parts to find what you are after, this is very slow and time consuming and you need to know the sizes of things, so I'm going to go with the BVM kit as I hadn't really planned for this expenditure this month!
Once this lot comes I'll reassemble it all and hopefully have the bike running sweet for the charity trial that is being held on October 29th around the Melmerby area.
So after finding out the entire rear end bearings set is around £200 ish, give or take, I thought I'd find out what actually needs replacing before I splashed the cash!
Being lazy at the moment, I didn't bother to clean the bike so everything is a bit grubby, but that just means I can clean it all as I go and re-grease everything as it gets refitted.
It took awhile to strip things out as all the nuts & bolts are different sizes ranging from a 10mm to a 14mm.
The steps I've done are;
1. Pop the bike on a stand & remove the rear wheel
2. Remove the tail guard
3. Remove the rear shock mudguard
4. Remove the right footpeg
5. Undo all the nuts & bolts on the rear linkage
6. Undo and remove the rear shock
7. Remove the rear linkage.
At this point I checked the swing arm bearings for any play, they were fine so I will leave them for this time. But the rear linkage is shot and the top bearing on the shock is also knackered, so I've taken them out, with a little help from a very heavy mallet and a vice!
Everything has clearly been in there a long time and gone both dry and rusty, so no wonder it's feeling a bit saggy.
Ordering the parts...
The Splat Shop sell the parts as a kit for £151.00, this is a full replacement kit. You can buy the individual spherical bearings, (12x22x12) for the Beta rear shock from here too for around £20
BVM Moto sell a kit which is missing the short ends to the bushes, I'd guess this is because these don't get as much wear and so can be re-used, their kit is £109.00
I found plenty of other sites, but you have to trawl through loads of pages of parts to find what you are after, this is very slow and time consuming and you need to know the sizes of things, so I'm going to go with the BVM kit as I hadn't really planned for this expenditure this month!
Once this lot comes I'll reassemble it all and hopefully have the bike running sweet for the charity trial that is being held on October 29th around the Melmerby area.
