DRZ s/a pivot corrosion

[camster]

I know most of you know this already but for new DRZ owners such as myself I thought it warranted another post. If you have a chance to pull your swing arm pivot bolt and grease things up you had better do it. I just pulled my shock and forks off for lowering so decided to grease up the linkage and pivot bearings while this far along, my bike is an '02 400s with 1800 miles on it (dealer left over) and I have only washed it with a hose twice and that was carefully and the second time was yesterday. The swing arm pivot bolt was corroded but came out with some persuasion, when I pushed the needle bearing sleeves out there was a milkshake like emulsion in the left needle bearing cavity. Somehow water had gotten in there past the seals, bearing and sleeve race looked o.k. but may not have in a week. All the bearings had grease but not a lot. Guess a new bolt and a lot of anti-seize is in order followed by annual regreasing. This isn't just a Suzuki problem, my xr400 was worse, I think any bike with this pivot arrangement is corrosion prone...Mark

[Noble]

Suzuki has a good seal design as long s you don't try to use the grease fittings on the E bike. If you had water in the swing arm pivot bearing, try to figure out why. There is a defect of some sort some place

[camster]

The fact that the bearing cavity showing water inclusion was the left one may be due to the fact that that is the downhill side when parked on the side stand...still got to figure out how it got in there though, seals look great. I understand how water gets into spaces between bolt and bearing sleeve/spacer and also engine case area but not past sealed bearing. Hmmm, will have to look closer. Anyway, it's good to catch it earlier than later. Mark

[colhogg]

Could be worse, mine was like this when i bought it. Removal to inspect and re-grease once a year is vital.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e391/colhogg/IMG_0691a.jpg

[camster]

Yeh, that's bad alright, my bolt was just corroded, now I feel lucky ...Mark