i have on 07 fxd with about 21000 miles. just looking thru the upcoming maintinece an noticed that at 30000 mile they recommend that you basically disassemble the back end to take a look at a sealed bearing. anybody ever do this? seems a bit draconian. every sealed bearing that i have checked looked and felt great until just before it failed. seems a waste of time. also, how many repack the steering head bearings at 30000? i will probably do that as it doesnt seem like to much of a problem. please let me know..\


thanks
scott

 

My '04 WG has 34K on it and I wonder the same thing. I don't have the dreaded front end "clunk", my fall-away check is good and my swingarm has no play that I can feel. The procedure in the book to replace the rear swingarm bearings doesn't look easy, so I can only imagine the dealer wants several hundred $ to do it.

Has anyone had this done, done it yourself or just blown it off?

 

Hmm, I'm at 22.5k miles..... I've never checked my steering head bearing, fallaway, or any of that. I should probably get on that, huh? lol

 

I've checked my fall away a couple of times over the last 20K and it's still good. I can't see why the swingarm bearings need to be replaced at such a low mileage unless there is a known weakness in the design and they'll fail. Maybe thhere aren't a whole lot of answers to this post because people have low mileage bikes...!

 

Swingarm bearings can get bad if you are pushing the bike weight limit and ride hard. You can usually feel it when its bad. I had to replace them on my old sportster.

 

I repacked my fork bearings at 13k and checked the fall away and stuff and changed the fork oil. Of coarse i had to take everything apart anyways to get it all powdercoated, so i did the maint a little early.
If you plan to take apart the front end and repack the head bearings, make sure you go down to the dealer and pick up one of those one time use steering head lock washers.

 

Thanks for the advice on the washer Jim - Tide, the part that confuses me on HD's requirement is my swingarm feels tight. Yesterday the wife and I went on a ride and she's not a small woman - between her and I we are pushing 400 pounds, but the bike is solid. I know what you mean: the bike "bends" in the middle a little when cornering maybe. I had a Yamaha 650 with bad swingarm bearings and it used to kind of wallow in turns - I could feel the bike almost hinge in the middle.

Maybe HD recommends replacement becausse these bearings fail early or something. Or maybe they just want more $$$

 

Yep, thats exactly how it feels. I used to ride a sportster with my quickly growing son. Before I new it, we were pushing 425lbs.
We crushed that bearing.

 

Yeah well its' like the cam tensioner shoes. If you are going to the trouble of taking it all apart to inspect it you might as well just replace the part while you are there. The labor time is the PIA. I usually do all that high labor maintenance when I change tires or have to remove a wheel. If I have to remove the front wheel then I check the bearings, change the fork oil, change the brake pads if they are more than 50% gone etc. Some guys replace the wheel bearings when they get new tires all the time. Just easier.

 

OK, thanks for the advice all, appreciate it.