Am I lucky or just stupid?

so today as i was at home and it was sunny i thought i better service the bikes. since its MOT the sv650 hasn't seen much love apart from snow, ice and cold winter starts.

so thought better clean salt of it and lube chain etc....

but since the MOT i was advised new set of brake discs soon. so for about half a year had been riding with warped disc's where at high speeds when go to grab the brakes the front wheel/disc's vibrate like mad.


until today i clean the bike and thought check how bad the disc's are, to then find they look pretty straight once spun? i then found that i could wobble the front wheel by about 1-2mm and realised it was not warped disc's but bearings were F***ED.

feeling like i shouldn't be alive right now poped down to local bike shop got parts. spoke to the man about it whom reassured me that if the bearings were bad they would have told me..........................


hmm we shall find out tomor once i have put new bearing in. if under heavy braking there is no vibrationg, eg disc's are fine, i dont think ill be going back there again.

[Sid Squid]

Errr... I dunno.

Maybe you're luckily stupid, or stupidly lucky - I can't decide.

Whatever, no one died.

[Red Herring]

Or just maybe the vibration from the warped discs is what finally persuaded your bearings to give up...? With that much play I'm surprised you didn't notice it when you first applied the brakes. Normally the movement knocks the pads back into the calipers so when you first brake you get quite a lot of lever travel.

[yorkie_chris]

I doubt it TBH, comparing the load from discs to the load from hitting lumps at 120mph?

One thing I will say is buy decent bearings. Decent bearings have "koyo" on the box and come from local bearing factors for same price as the pattern sh*te that wemoto and a lot of other places sell.

taking apart the front wheel i found the right hand side bearing covered in rust. hopefully should sort the problem when i decide to next ride it assuming it doesnt kill me

Are the wheel bearings on the sv not sealed?

Get some pics up.
while you've got the wheel off I'd also remove the front discs and lay them flat just to be sure.

fag and sks bearings are also very good

they were the orginal ones as i am more then certain the guy i bought it off (3000miles on clock) had not changed them. they were only sealed on one side. got a new seal for the right hand side as well just in case. ended spending £19. 5 on seal and 14 on the bearings. wish i did take pictures now but the work has been done. the disc's have done 30k with one high side at 35 mph. meh problem solved hopefully.

just annoys me on how arrogant some MOT places can be, and moody. its like they know everything and everyone else is stupid.

Originally Posted by kiggles

they were the orginal ones as i am more then certain the guy i bought it off (3000miles on clock) had not changed them. they were only sealed on one side. got a new seal for the right hand side as well just in case. ended spending £19. 5 on seal and 14 on the bearings. wish i did take pictures now but the work has been done. the disc's have done 30k with one high side at 35 mph. meh problem solved hopefully.

just annoys me on how arrogant some PROFESSIONALS can be, and moody. its like they know everything and everyone else is stupid.

corrected for ya, ya cant blmae just MOT folks it happens in any situation you ask a proessional a question they deem remedial.

Besides I belive it was an MOT tester who was the first to help you in this thread... so might be worth considering who may be offended by that comment