IF I take the time to add grease zerks to the rear shock tri-linkage (2002 ttr 250), will I be able to reach the zerks to grease them assuming I put the zerks in the center on the top of the tri-arm. (see pic with three blue dots marking place for 3 zerks).
Background: I'm rebuilding the bike, frame-off. Since the bike is in pieces, I cannot verify if I'll have room to get a grease gun in there. When I look at my 2008 WR450, no way which is why the factory may not have put grease zerks there.
I will also be machining passages for the grease to get to the three rear arm suspension linkages.
I am asking because all three of these bearings were rusted badly as were the swing arm bearings which will also get grease zerks.
If someone would like to post a pic of their bike's rear shock linkage, I think I'll have my answer.
Many thanks, Rick
-- Edited by zzrdd on Friday 31st of July 2015 01:40:20 PM
It's not really essential. But if you want to do it as a project then so be it. As soon as water gets in you want to be changing them rather than greasing them up after every ride..
P.S Welcome to the Forum
-- Edited by peteBLUEttr on Thursday 30th of July 2015 08:22:56 PM
good luck well worth doing when you get them in take it easy and be carfull you dont push the seals out with the one i put on my swingarm i loosen the swing arm bolt before greasing just enough to push any air out so no water gets in then retighten
My thinking is that the zerks would not be accessible where I've marked them. They may however, work in the three bolts which would allow access for greasing. It will likely take a bit more machining to get the grease where it need to be but we'll see.
Again, many thanks especially to Martyn for the pic. Very helpful (since my project bike is in multiple piles in the garage).
Went with the drill the bolts approach so we could access* the zerks. I'll let you know how it works...IF it works.
Rick
* One of the bolts, the one that holds the tri-linkage to the swing arm, will need another trip to the hardware store for a straight zerk vs. the angled one pictured as that bolt is recessed in the swing arm.
I just had a thought which prompted me to find some old original bolts with nipples to photograph. They were fitted with straight nipples and I have a vague idea that the longer angled nipples might foul the arms. Just to say check by doing a dry installation to check this before putting the linkage back in the TTR
I have to say that I have always found it difficult getting any grease into the linkage bearings and resort to stripping them out for checking, cleaning and re-greasing every six months or so. I then know for sure they are properly greased.
Very good point Brian. Strait nipple would likely be best all around (except for the swing arm).
Maybe your point about the difficulty of getting grease to where it needs to be is why the zerks were dropped. All the bearings on this basket case/down to frame rebuild were rusted worse than I've ever seen. Barely got the swing arm bearings out and bent my press doing so.
Rick
-- Edited by zzrdd on Saturday 1st of August 2015 02:13:22 PM