This is a follow up to this thread, where On my 04 road king I identified the play in my swingarm as being excessive clearance between the bushing and the pivot shaft. https://www.hdforums.com/forum/touri...-old-ones.html. Since the new oem bushing had the same excessive clearance as the old one had, clearly I would have to come up with a fix on my own.

The "proper" fix would be to machine my own bushing. But I wanted to come up with a repair that pretty much anyone could do, without special tools or equipment, especially since I suspect this play is pretty common. I think I've found it. I've got the rear end back on, and there is virtually no play any longer. Between the snow and my doctors, I can't test ride it yet, but I've no reason to think it's not a perfectly valid repair, doable by all.

The magical ingredients were shim stock, a pair of scissors, and a dab of red thread lock. Nothing more.

I used .003" shim stock. I tried .004", but it was just a bit too tight to work with comfortably. Cost about seven dollars for a 8x12 piece of stainless shim stock from McMaster Carr. That's a whole lot more than you need.

Cut out two pieces with standard scissors. Nothing fancy needed. Metal this thin cuts easily. I think I cut it about 3/4" by 2-1/4". Rounded the corners a little after slicing my hand pretty badly.

Round the stock over the pivot shaft, slip a bushing up over it, roll over the shim stock until it's all nice and smooth and everything moves nicely. Bonus tip, roll the ends of the shim stock over the threaded ends of the shaft and the ends will lay flat in the bushing, otherwise the ends tend to rise slightly.

I bonded it to the bushing because I found I needed too. Otherwise it would get pushed out while mounting it all on the bike. A thin smear of permatex red thread lock did the trick. And I mean thin! Smear it on the outside of the shim stock, set it in place in the bushing, then slip the shaft it to push it tightly against the bushing. Fiddle as needed to square it and position it in the bushing. Let it set, but fiddle enough to not bind the shaft. Fwiw, I also tried superglue and permatex blue. Both were failures.

Buttoned it up a few hours ago. It assembled easily and the play is all but gone. The only trace left is in the bearings themselves (I can hear the grease moving, that's how I know it's the bearings). The swing arm moves freely and smoothly, with no slop at the rear tire.

So there you go, a simple DIY method for greatly reducing or eliminating play between the bushing and the shaft, which on my bike was giving me nearly 1/4" deflection at the rear wheel.

 

Sounds good I hope the .003 shim stock doesn't get ate up under rotational load.

 

I wonder how much rotation there is beyond the swing arm movement up and down though? I used rocker arm shims when I freshened up the rockers and though the shafts can't turn, the rockers sure go back and forth a few times! (Been in there for just about 10,000 miles now. Still quiet.)

 

Yes, that will be the rub, I believe that's exactly what's gonna be the problem...won't take long to eat it up...that said, hopefully the OP will keep us informed...

 

Time will tell, but I don't anticipate any problems. Now that the bearings are unfrozen from the dried grease there should be no more rotation of the bushings on the shaft.

 

What about the 09 and newer models....anyone checked these swing arm pivots for slop?

 

Look at it this way, take for exapmle the control arm bushings on a car/truck, while the rubber part of the bushing will deteriorate over time, the metal sleeve that fits over the shaft that is on the inside of the bushing rarely ever creates any rotational wear on the shaft itself.
I've replaced more bushings than I care to remember, but I've only replaced maybe 4 shafts in over 30yrs, and that is only because they kept driving until there was nothing left of the rubber, the outer metal sleeve and inner metal of the bushing was all that was left, and we all know what metal on metal does.
To the OP, IMHO I think your repair will hold up without any problems.

 

Not wishing ill will on you, I hope it works out just fine, I sure don't want it fail on you. That's just a consideration that caught my attention.

 

Fabricator (and all else), I take no offense at questioning my methods. I'm not so arrogant as to believe in my on perfection. I dearly love well thought out questions, challenges and critical analysis. If I appeared to take offense, I did not mean to.

If it were to fail, to would only put me back where I was, with that apparently oem excessive play. Though the shim stock is thin, it's probably harder than the bushings or shaft. The shaft is very mild steel, and the bushings feel like a moderately soft aluminum. In any case, the shaft had zero wear and the bushings less than 0.001 compared to new. The anti seize made an adequate lubricant it seems, and the shaft was again coated with it.

Seem more likely, IMO, that should the bearings again freeze up causing the bushings to rotate, that the red thread lock would fail and the shim stock walk out along the shaft. There's always side loads, invariably unbalanced. Maybe there would be enough friction to hold them, but I wonder. Though again, this would just leave me where I started.

In all honesty, I don't believe the pivot shaft takes a terrible rotary load. It doesn't move much, the shocks take almost all of the vertical load due to their placement, the thrust loads from braking and engine are pretty gentle and gradually applied.

 

On some jobs (like loose swingarms) I would prefer to just pay a little money, fix the problem and be done with it. On other jobs I don't mind re-engineering something, trial and error until I think I have the problem solved. Time is money. Rather than spending hours out in my shop designing some home made fix I can work overtime doing what I do for a living, then pay for the parts needed.

This was the case with my loose swing arm problem on my 99 RK. I decided to just get the Sta-Bo Teflon swing arm bushing kit and be done with it. My RK is my reliable touring bike. When it needs attention, I just want it fixed and fixed right. I think the kit cost around $200. Well worth it.