Who Swiped My Cheese?

[clark4131]

I dove into the swingarm linkage on my '05 today for an inspection, cleaning and regreasing. After reading Wrooster's write up and doing some of my own research on the MPL (string cheese) bearings, I thought I'd only remove it if it looked like it was suffering from insufficient lubrication. When I got the linkage apart, was I in for a surprise. The string cheese had magically vanished and was replaced by old school needle bearings packed in grease . So I said to myself, "Self, it looks like somebody done made off with your cheese." Needless to say, I removed all the needles, cleaned everything thoroughly and repacked it all with a generous helping of Bel-Ray Waterproof. It would seem that the folks at Yamaha may have learned the error of their ways and went back to the tried and true bearing and grease setup for 2005 and beyond. I guess the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is still alive and well in Japan. BTW, there was tons of grease in there when I opened everything up, just like in the steering head which got repacked last week. I didn't really need to repack anything, but I really like the iridescent green of the Bel-Ray stuff and just knowing it's gushing around inside my bearings makes me feel tingly all over. So that's my story, g'night John Boy...SC

[Matty05]

Lucky!

It seems to be hit and miss with some.........

My bearings were pretty good too, but my girly's bike had stuff all grease.

[Brettv]

excellent, good to see u HAD grease

when i pulled mine apart i had blue bearings with no grease, (overheated)

had to completely rebuild with new bearings, seals and all that.

id like to see grease nipples implemented maybe.

[ARin]

I too, am a fan of seeing nipples....

...implemented.

[luckyfly]

I have an 05 450 and same deal, actually got the linkage and swingarm out now and no cheese. I've done the wheel bearing and steering head previously and they were adequately greased from the factory.

The linkage did have one with score marks but cleaned up well, the swingarm pin is heavily rusted and water was in there otherwise not too bad.

[clark4131]

I did my swingarm today and it had the MPL bearings in it. So I guess I have a hybrid deal on my bike, half cheese, half old-school. Everything looked good inside the swingarm, lots of Yama-grease, though I did a thorough flush of all the bearings to get the factory grease out of there and repacked with the Bel-Ray waterproof. I figure I'm good for a long while...SC