Pointy swing arm side play.

[yorkie_chris]

Alignment will not be changed as your shim is flat. Only thing I would worry about is offsetting the chain. If you put the shim on same side as the threads in the frame then your swingarm is in exact same place as it's still located solidly against the LHS of the frame. (is it the LHS one pointy?)

[DavieSV]

I know what you mean, but I still don't know which side of the swing arm is short, If it's the left hand side then that's where the shims would need to go.

[Sid Squid]

Slight faff I know, but take off the chain, reassemble everything with shims and torque-up correctly, take a straight edge of the rear sprocket to where it meets the front, it should be obvious if there's any misalignment.
That said I can't see a half mill either way upsetting anything greatly.

[Bibio]

watching this thread with interest.

I guess that is all about this issue here. DavieSV put washers and is happy.

I have still few months to think but plan is to machine bearing spacer. Then I can be sure that correct parts are contacting each other and I don't have to use any extra parts (washers).

If someone has opinion I would like to hear answer (once more, my swing arm is too narrow compared to the lenght of two bearing spacers and center spacer): if gap is 1.50mm, should I machine more/less/exactly 1.50mm away from bearing spacer? I think best is something like 1.60mm. Then there is no gap at all and as shaft is torqued up to only 15Nm it allows swing arm to move freely.

Im in the process of changing the swing arm bearings on my '04 K3. Just came in for a cup of tea and found others have had the same problem....and it seems they have!

I removed the swing arm and brought it to the bench. cleaned it all up and measuered everything and found no wear on the inner races, apart from some very slight discolouration.
I put the spindle back though the races and fitted a temporary spacer to take up the space on the threads that the frame would occupy and i tightened the thing up. To my surprise there was axial play in the whole assembly!
seeing as i bought a bearing kit anyway, i changed them out. Wish i hadnt bothered as the problem was exacltly the same with the new bearings.
i feeler'd the gap between the flange face of the inner race and the alloy of the swing arm and found there to be 0.8mm clearence.
3 things could have happened here, the swing arm alloy has worn away on the faces which would act on the flange of the race (unlikely if others say its the case with new bikes). the spacer tube is 0.8mm too long, or each inner race 'tube' is 0.4mm long.

I didnt want to face the spacer tube off on the lathe because this would have made the over all assembly short by 0.8mm. this space would have to be taken up by distorting the frame as the spindle was tightened agains the outside nut. you might have got away with it, but it seemed excessive. Instead, I made up a shim at 0.8mm and wet&dry'd it down by a ball hair until there was free rotation on the tightened spindle but no axial play.

hopefully this will cure the head shake/wiggle when you crack on the power which you can feel through the bars, and also the nervous feeling it has when you drop it hard into a corner!

my new bearing 'kit' although apparently being correct for my model, has different inner races. There like tubes apposed to the ones i have which have the flange on them. Is this the kit for the curvey ive ended up with? Lucky my inners were ok so il reuse them

il finish my tea then back out to box it back up again. Least it was a good chance to change the sprockets, chain and grease up the suspension linkage! but feel robbed of a £55 bearing kit i didnt need and wasnt correct for my bike.

Cheers!

Also I bought new expencive bearings for nothing. It is "nice" to hear that other bikes have this same problem. I think there is now only 3 cases in this very intelligent forum. I would say that there must be a lot of bikes with this fault, but probably lot of people won't realize the problem and maybe some don't care. This is factory mistake. I am sure that no wearing would have caused this. Swing arm alloy is not worn.

My bike was dangerous in corners. I made a shim and now bike is much better.

In previous message there was some words that I didn't understand. Was it so that you have bought some kit which you believe is for curvey?

Originally Posted by Mannerheim

...... Was it so that you have bought some kit which you believe is for curvey?

Yes, i think so.

my inner races have a flange/flat face machined on the ends.
The inner races in the kit had no flanges and looked as if they should be fitted to a model which had washers that were to be in there place. I thought maybe this kit was for a curvey?

I have just put the bike back together. Everything is on except the new chain. Already there seems to be less play and i havent torqued up the wheel and the spindle yet.

will finish it and go for a run tomorrow.

Beer time!

[Dave20046]

subscribed

Originally Posted by 2F45T4U

Yes, i think so.

my inner races have a flange/flat face machined on the ends.
The inner races in the kit had no flanges and looked as if they should be fitted to a model which had washers that were to be in there place. I thought maybe this kit was for a curvey?

I have just put the bike back together. Everything is on except the new chain. Already there seems to be less play and i havent torqued up the wheel and the spindle yet.

will finish it and go for a run tomorrow.

Beer time!

I'm far from an expert (infact planning on checking my linkage for the first time tomorrow) but from what I've read on the internet you may just have pattern parts rather than ones for the wrong bike.

I know that may not be all that helpful but might be worth double checking before accusing the seller of giving you the wrong bits as I ahem...hear ..that's quite embarassing.

Originally Posted by Dave20046

subscribed

I'm far from an expert (infact planning on checking my linkage for the first time tomorrow) but from what I've read on the internet you may just have pattern parts rather than ones for the wrong bike.

I know that may not be all that helpful but might be worth double checking before accusing the seller of giving you the wrong bits as I ahem...hear ..that's quite embarassing.

Im not accusing the seller of anything, i ordered the correct kit for my bike (by year/model etc) off Wemoto and im asking why its different. Im not even bothered as ive used the original inner races anyway. i was just curious if it was to be used with additional washers or if anyone else had noticed.

For what its worth, one of the races on the bottom yoke of the rear suspension (where the yoke meets the frame) was pretty stiff and rusty but it came alright with a wash out and exercise in diesel and re packing with grease. Struck me as odd how it was shimmed in there so accurately, yet the swing arm had been totally neglected of such care and fine tollerance. I guess the swing arm was designed on a friday afternoon.