Kawasaki Vulcan Forum banner

Swinging arm bearings going, belt rubbing?

4K views 19 replies 11 participants last post by  VGER 
#1 ·
My bike is a 2009 Voyager with 35,000 miles on her and I suspect the swinging arm bearings are going. I have had the wheel alignment checked and we have reset the drive belt to be in the middle of the pulleys. After riding for a few miles the belt is pulling over to the left and rubbing against the outer edge of the pulley. There does seem to be a little play in the swing arm when the bike is raised with the rear wheel off the ground. Does anyone have any advice before I strip the entire back end off and take out the swinging arm?
 
#2 ·
You said you reset the belt to be in the middle of the pulley, That's great but need to ask "Did you use the alignment marks above the axel to get both sides the same?
 
#3 ·
Neil, I believe the only way to know if the bearings are worn, would be to check it when the bike is on the ground. Because this is the normal riding position of the arm where the most of the wear would be.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Motorcycle.com Free App
 
#4 ·
I have checked alignment marks myself and with this with two different dealers. Only one suggested bearings when he had it lifted on the bench. It did appear to have a little sideways movement to me when he showed me. I don't want to spend a lot of money on mechanic's labour so I'll break the bike down myself.
 
#5 ·
I questioned the need for lubrication of the swing arm bearings in another post a while ago. The manual calls for them to be lubricated at 15,000 miles/24 months. This of course requires taking half the motorcycle apart, which IMHO is ridiculous for a routine maintenance procedure. The consensus at that time was that the bearings are not normally subject to much wear and that it would be just as good to wait until they need to be replaced rather than going through the bother to lubricate them.

Anyway, did you ever lubricate yours as recommended? Please let us know what you find when you take your bike apart and inspect the bearings. Thanks,
 
#6 · (Edited)
I have not lubricated them and strongly suspect it has not been done under the service schedule as I would have noticed that labour charge!

I have checked the belt movement on the ground also, spending an hour messing about with a dealer doing the same thing. It is not until I put a few miles on her that it makes its move over to the left after being move to the middle.

Oh well, one lives and learns an expensive lesson and I must pay more attention to the service manual now I have one.

I will post details of what I find.

Thanks for the input.
Neil
 
#7 ·
I would recommend using a wheel alignment tool to align the wheel and not rely on the tick marks on the swingarm.

When I serviced my swingarm bearings the lubricant that was there was clean. Sure there was minimum amount of lubricant, but it looked sufficient and there was no wear on any of the parts.
 
#8 ·
Have you inspected the drive belt? I would think the belt is the weakest link with your bike problem.
 
#10 ·
If your going to take the belt off you might be able to reverse it and give it a try. Not sure if the belt is one directional.
 
#12 ·
The belt is directional. If it started doing that all at once the first thing I would check is for asphalt or rocks or junk in the belt or back sprocket, that would push the belt over till it rubbed sometimes.

Also the belt should run close to the left (outside) but not rubbing, that is the way it is designed. Did you just change a tire, how is the rubber dampers seating where the sprocket fits in the hub (is the sprocket running true).

Shouldn't be any play in the swingarm, I would fix that right away. That could cause wobble. Have to pull the header pipes off to get the swingarm bolt out, so order some gaskets. The rest is basic stuff that you take off anyways to change a tire. Good time to change the belt if it needs it, it might be the problem like was said above.

Good luck and keep us posted,
James
 
This post has been deleted
#13 ·
The real bad news is both the front and rear pulleys are worn on the inside of the teeth so the belt is riding up the teeth to the left and rubbing on both the front and rear left hand side pulley guides.
Will keep trying :-(
Any idea what caused all the wear on the sprockets, maybe some rocks or something that got caught in the belt? Good luck getting the swinging arm bolt out, have you tried driving it out with a brass rod?
 
#16 ·
Wow, that's amazing. I bet Aussie is right.
 
#18 · (Edited)
I have seen too tight belts wear away teeth, they looked just like that, worn more to one side, but I have never seen one that bad.... that's the reason I loosened my belt a lot the day I got it. For my own opinion/experience (do not want to get that can of worms open again) ... it was way way too tight out of the box. The little divots look like gravel gouges....
 
#20 ·
I believe the you are now experiencing the same problem I have just corrected with my 2009 Voyager.

I would recommend the closely inspect both front and rear drive pulleys for signs of wear. On my Voyager without removing the saddlebags belt covers output shaft cover and belt, my pulleys appeared to be okay, and the belt did not appear worn. However, once I did remove all of those items and closely inspected drive pulleys there were obvious signs of wear which did cause the belt to drift over to the side and Rub the outer edge of both pulleys creating a sound that almost sounded like a metal on metal squeal.

Correcting this is not inexpensive. I have just posted an update thread entitled update - Voyager belt squeal.

I'm afraid the only way you're going to correct this is to replace both drive pulleys and your belt.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top