Anyone had the linkage apart for greasing care to comment on how hard (or not) it is to get to everything? Were the bearings well greased from the factory? Anything else I should know before I tear into it? 

Edited April 14, 20179 yr by heffergm

My experience in general is that no bearings are ever greased enough from any factory. It's not difficult and if you are worried about putting it back together correctly take some pictures first. the more often you maintain them the better they will operate and last.

I've done plenty of linkages in other bikes. In just interested in specifics related to the vertigo of any one happens to have any. 

So I pulled the 'dog bones' off, which was incredibly easy. That gives access to the lower two bearing recesses in the rose joint. For reference, the bearings are caged (HK1620 2RS). I stopped there because it looks like to get to the third bearing recess in the rose joint you need to pull the swingarm. 

Edited April 14, 20179 yr by heffergm

The bearings have O ring seals fitted as standard, we add an extra O ring onto each of the 6 bushes that ride in the bearings to provide more sealing which has worked well. No need to remove the swinging arm to get to these.

Bye, Peter B.

On 14/04/2017 at 5:06 PM, heffergm said:

So I pulled the 'dog bones' off, which was incredibly easy. That gives access to the lower two bearing recesses in the rose joint. For reference, the bearings are caged (HK1620 2RS). I stopped there because it looks like to get to the third bearing recess in the rose joint you need to pull the swingarm. 

Take time to strip and grease the lot including the swing arm bearings. I have a 1987 crosser that was raced regularly until early 1993 and has been played about on several times a year since. The only bearing it has needed was the rose joint at the bottom of the shock. The reason for this is regular greasing of the bearings. Typically every 4 to 6 meetings. The grease used used to be Castrol CL, then Morris K2 grease and latterly S & A complex grease.