Swingarm removal

[Lamedog]

What with it being rainy and having 21K miles on my '02 LeMans, I thought I may as well check and grease the shaft U joints. As mentioned elsewhere (esp. thanks Mr. Ratchethack), the inner bolt on the shaft cage is near impossible to get at. So I plan to remove the swingarm as others describe. I don't have an official shop manual, and a search of this site, GuzzziTech and Mr. Roper's Australian site, turned up no specific directions. Perhaps because this is so simple? Is this as straightforward as it looks - remove the large nuts on the PorkChop, and the shock mount bolt... Any cautions? Appreciate your help.

[Guest ratchethack]

LD, it's pretty much as straightforward as it looks. You want to clean off all the road grunge that accumulates around the inner joint betwixt the po'ke chops and the swingarm first (and again before re-installation) so as not to contaminate the grease and bearings. Aligning the swingarm when going back together becomes a small challenge. Most simply take a read of how proud of the outboard po'ke chops the stub axles are before disturbing them and set 'em back the way the Luigi's set 'em in Mandello with a depth gauge. But me, I've just got to do better than the Luigi's, since the little Blaggards forgot to grease half the stuff that really has to have it, and they set lots o' other stuff akimbo -- I figure best re-set everything. I came up with the following way to precision align the swingarm. I offer it only as an option you might find worth considering. It's worked like a Champ several times, and is easier, lots quicker, more accurate than the traditional "string" method, and puts you tighter within the 3 mm factory tolerance: http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?...78&hl=laser

 

Have fun.

[Lamedog]

Thanks for this. If not a laser, at least I have a chance to use some great machinists calipers and measuring tools I inherited......