Update July 2022 update, I fixed all of the typos in the following notation I made about removing the swingarm and driveshaft to clean and lube everything. I really should proofread this stuff before I post, But it’s fixed now removing the swingarm to do the suggested lubrication of the bearings in the owners manual and around the 16,000 mile mark was not as bad as I thought it was gonna be.. in the video I mentioned I was cringing at the thought of removing the rear exhaust pipe studs on both sides of the bike to get the access to the large nuts and swing arm bolts. I sprayed the swingarm bolts/studs with blaster/penetrating oil, and they came right off. Nothing crumbled in my hands. I believe there were two other fasteners I had to takeoff to get the rear pipe on each side off of the machine to get access to the swingarm pivot bolts. It really was a five minute job.. when I put everything back together I used aluminum anti-seize for next time.. it’s easier to take the swinging arm off if you unbolt the final drive first. When you do that, there’s going to be a little spring like in a ballpoint pen, but it’s a much thicker and stronger spring but not much longer. That spring fits right in the center of the driveshaft where it indexes into the final drive housing.. be aware of that when you are unbolting the final drive housing because that spring will disappear on you if you are unaware of its existence and it falls out.. once the final drive is off, it’s easier to wrestle with the swinging arm because you’ve removed all that weight. unbolting the shock absorber and removing the air hose fitting so you can put air into the shock on the right side of the bike just below/behind the driver seat. Do not lose the nut that holds the Schrader valve air hose on the frame behind the seat. The nut on mine was stuck in the socket and I did not know it. I think it’s 19 mm. But I thought I had a lot of extra nuts and bolts from 40 years of saving all The extra hardware I had left over. I even went to a hardware store and Lowe’s and went through all of their nuts, I could not find one to fit on the Schrader valve to tighten it and keep it in place on the frame. Do not lose that. I was very fortunate that it was stuck in my socket this is how I determined how tight the swingarm axle bolts should be as far as the side to side play on the left side of the machine, you tighten that nut/bolt down to the required I believe it’s 72 pounds of torque. There’s no adjustment movement there. It’s either tight or it’s not. The adjustment is on the right side. There is a bolt with a hex drive in the center for taking up the sidewards/lateral, whatever you wanna call it sideways play. Have you ever done wheelbearings on a Small trailer, or tapered wheel bearings on an American car front spindle? There is not a specific torque for them. You tighten the nut until you take up all the play without overtightening, then you back it off and put the Cotter pin in.. that’s how I did it. You adjust the side to side slope/play on the right swing arm bolt after cleaning and greasing your bearings in the swingarm. Because the bearing on the left side of the swing arm is a tapered roller bearing, just like a American car front wheel bearing, just like mini tapered roller bearings in motorcycle steering heads/stems. There’s not a specific torque as much as there is a feel you have to have for how snug it needs to be.. that’s how I did it after sitting there reasoning it out. The swingarm bearings on the right side are just needle bearings in a cage. i took out the play side to side in the swingarm bearing adjustment with that hex drive bolt, then I torqued the large nut to 72 pounds. And that’s it. My swing arm goes up and down smoothly, and there is no lateral play like there was in my video.. to tell you the truth, I don’t see how this side to side play in my video would’ve damaged anything.. then I cleaned and greased all of the shock linkage bearings, I lubed the drive shaft splines where they index into the universal joint on the left side of the engine output shaft of the transmission. That was actually the toughest part of the job was getting the driveshaft into that yoke of the universal joint. There is a little rubber plug with a bot a 3/8 inch hole on top of The swing arm just above the universal joint. I believe that is so you can look down into the swing arm where the driveshaft/universal joint is so you can see to index the driveshaft back into where it belongs.. it actually took me over an hour just to get the driveshaft to slide back into the splines after lubing them on the universal joint. Not because it was necessarily difficult,. It’s just that it took me a while to discover that little rubber plug that I could remove to look down in there to assist me in holding the universal joints still by pulling that rubber bellows back over the joint you’ll see it, that pulls back pretty easy, but you can stick a screwdriver in there to stop the universal joints from spinning and hold it in place while you insert to drive shaft.. next time that will probably only take me about five minutes to get the driveshaft back into the universal joint splines.. while I had the shock absorber off, I pulled the valve out of the air hose with a Schrader valve tool and drained all the oil out of the shock. It was black. I replaced the same amount of oil with fresh fork oil in the shock absorber. It looked like 125 cc. Are used 15 wt fork oil…..when I was done. The bike felt a smoother/better. I can’t say if it was the new tires which they always feel great. There’s no feeling like a fresh set of meats on the wheels. Or if it was the play that I removed from the side to side movement on the swing arm, or greasing the swingarm, or greasing the bushings and bearings on the shock linkage, or just a combination of all of the maintenance together just made the bike feel fresh, solid , tight & smooth.. most motorcycles have one solid long bolt just like the rear axle bolt to hold the swingarm in place. on the Venture, they just have two smooth bolts about 1” thick..The swingarm bearings ride on the outside of those bolts, that is not one continuous bolt, they just have a nub on each end which is all you really need that the swingarm bearings right on. And those nubs are held in with those 2 big nuts torqued to 72 pounds each. There’s really no mystery about it. Instead of one big long bolt to hold the swingarm in place, it’s just two short bolts.. nothing mysterious or mystical or requiring Einstein to put it back together. The only part that I had to think about when I was reassembling everything was, that rubber air tube that comes from around the shock absorber and goes up and loops over the frame under the seat. I didn’t see Exactly where it was routed to when I removed the shock. And I had to do some figuring when I put the shock back on about the routing of that rubber tube.. to do everything I did, you’re going to need fork oil to replace the oil in the shock which you just drain out through that air hose, and replace through the air hose. You’ll need some copper or aluminum anti-seize for the exhaust flange studs/nuts and for the drive shaft splines, if you choose to use anti-seize, some people will use white lithium grease, or maybe Molly Grease.. now would be a good time to change the final drive gear oil, which is 80w gear lube and it’s pretty important. That oil goes through a lot of sheering.. I also like to put a little dab of anti-seize on all exhaust mounting bolts and straps so they come apart next time.. I cleaned up my shock absorber and I can see that there was some oil seepage past the seal which ventures are known for. I lubricated the outside of the piston/shaft that the Seal is supposed to be wrapped around. I put some grease on that to lubricate it. I thought about putting some oil that is made for high mileage engines in the shock absorber instead of shock/fork oil. Those oils that are for high mileage engines, I think mobile one makes a high mileage engine oil, and I’m sure other companies do too, but that oil has an additive that swells seals to make them More oil tight.. i’ll see how it goes. There wasn’t a puddle under my bike, it’s just that that rubber bellows cover over the shock was obviously getting some oil from the shock on it and dust was sticking to it. I’ll keep my eye on it. There are people out there that can service the shock, change the seal, change the oil, and have the shock back to you quickly for around $100. I might do that.. Anyway there was nothing particularly difficult about taking off the swingarm or putting everything back together. Now that I’ve done it, I could probably do the job in three hours next time start to finish
Additional update to the video May 2022 I did some Internet research and I couldn’t find anything that said there should be zero lateral play where the swingarm pivots. But I took the swingarm off anyway To grease the bearings and check them out. I found conflicting torque settings for the swingarm.. as I was Torqueing the right side hex drive bolt, I kept checking the up-and-down motion of the swingarm without the shock installed. It was getting tight.. so I backed off and torqued the swingarm pivot bolts by feel. The one on the left side, that large 32 mm nut goes all the way against the frame and his torqued to something like 72 pounds. The Swingarm bolt on the right seems to be the one that preloads the angled roller bearings on the left side.. It’s sort of like adjusting steering head bearings. You do it by feel, or trailer wheel bearings on your trailer, there’s not an exact torque , you have to do it by feel. on tapered roller bearings on a trailer, you tighten the nut, then you back it off slightly and put the cotter pin in. You do it by feel. Same thing with car front wheel bearings. These swingarm bearings are not high speed bearings like the conditions that car wheel bearings have to survive in.. so I just torqued the bolt on the left side to 72lbs 1st, then I torqued the bolt on the right side by feel , constantly checking the up-and-down movement of the swing arm and the side to side movement. I had no side to side - left / right swingarm movement, and I had smooth up and down movement. So I then torqued that right side large nut down to 72 that locks the right swingarm bolt in position.. removing the rear cylinder exhaust pipes was very easy, to give me access to the Swing arm bolts. Not a tough job at all.. in fact, removing the muffler is just one bolt under the saddle bag and a clamp. And removing the rear cylinder exhaust pipe on each side is two nuts, and a clamp, and I believe there’s one bolt holding the pipe to the frame somewhere with a hanger.. I was expecting to have to fight with rust and snapped bolts and stripped exhaust studs. It was not like that at all. That was the easiest part of the job actually removing the bags and the exhaust pipes..Of course I used a little spray of blaster penetrating oil before I tried to turn any other hardware on the exhaust, and when I put it back together I used Aluminum anti-seize so it will come apart even easier next time.. While I had the mufflers off, I gave them some TLC underneath and on the inside where you can’t see with metal polish to prevent corrosion.. The hardest part of the job was getting the driveshaft to index with the yolk at the U joint. if your driveshaft pulls out of the final drive housing which is very easy to do, be sure not to lose the little spring it will go straight to China if it falls on the ground. It’s a small spring like a ballpoint pen spring but much stronger and longer but it’s about the diameter of a pencil and around an inch and a half long.. I finally remembered that there is a rubber plug on the swingarm itself just above universal joint which is pretty much right at the parallax of the swingarm pivot. You can remove that rubber plug and steady do U joint yolk with one finger, and you can see the yolk if you peel back the rubber bellows covering the U-joint at the rear of the engine where the swingarm meets the engine. You’ll need a good flashlight. And it is much much easier if you have a second pair of hands there helping you. It took me about two hours doing it myself and figuring out how to take advantage of that access hole with a rubber plug in it above the you joint to get the driveshaft back in, and then find that spring that bounced when my final drive fell off the end of the drive shaft. Luckily it landed on a piece of cardboard I had there for me to lay on the ground when I was trying to see down the driveshaft tube..Now that I have learned the hard way, I could probably put a driveshaft in my in a few minutes now.. I drained the old oil out of my shock absorber while I had it off. The shock absorber holds about 125CC -i used fork oil.. I drained the old shock oil by removing the Schrader valve out of the air hose line and letting it drain for a couple hours upside down into a ratio right ( measuring cup) That told me exactly how much oil to put back in. The oil that drained out of my shock was absolutely black.. I got the fresh oil to go backin that shock hose using a small plastic syringe.. it pays to pay attention to all of the facets of your suspension and maintain them because my bike feels completely different now. Of course I put new tires on which also are part of your suspension. So after draining the oil out of the shock and replacing it with fresh oil.. removing the swing arm and shock to lube the swingarm bearings and the shock absorber bearings in the linkage, and lubing the splines on the driveshaft. Then installing the lubed driveshaft and adjusting the lateral swingarm Play, Side to Side play and torquing the swingarm correctly. Then installing the shock with the fresh oil change, and all of the shock absorber linkage lubed. Then putting 20 pounds of air in the rear shock, and 7 pounds air in each fork .. my machine feels different. It feels as though the suspension is working for me. The bike feels more solid and stable in corners.. While I had the wheel off to change to a new tire front and rear, I pulled/ serviced the clutch hub/damping hub that is held into the six bushings in the rear wheel with a large snap ring. all six of those studs, pins, whatever they are called that go into the wheel rubber mounted bushings that are about 2 inches long each, those things were dry and rusty. I’m sure that cleaning and lubricating those and the rear wheel splined drive hub ,All of those parts that are now cleaned and lubed and torqued along with a new tire, all of those little improvements add up to one much better riding/ tracking/ motorcycle .. not to mention the peace of mind. All of that work I did won’t have to be done again until I install new tires probably. I always always replace tires in sets, and always the same brand front and rear. New tires is an improvement you feel immediately… I never paid much attention to that wifes tale that new tires are something you have to break in for at least 100 miles or you will crash head first into a chipper..I just take it easy for the first left-hander in the first right hander, and that’s it. They’re scuffed in.. there is no feeling like a brand new set of meats.. anyway, I did a little over 400 miles over the memorial two day weekend 2022 on the Venture. I have not owned the venture even for a year as of the making of this video, but I can say, it never felt better.. the Only system I have not serviced yet, is the front forks. I was debating changing the fork springs to Progressive brand fork springs. as of September 2022 I still have not changed the fork oil because I recently discovered that Yamaha does not recommend changing the fork oil. The way they word that is, it is not necessary to change the fork oil.. I don’t buy that because fork oil and shock oil gets cooked. not only that, the bushings in the shock and fork wear, and there’s no oil filtration system in the shock or the forks. And there’s one other thing that makes it absolutely necessary to change for coil and shock oil. When you add air to your forks or shock.. that air has humidity in it. Have you ever bled the condensation out of a compressor air tank? Have you ever painted a car with no air dryer system for the spraygun? It just isn’t done. I am positive that there is water in my forks from adding air over the years.. so- I am still going to change The fork oil. I have already changed the shock oil which was really easy. I just took the Schrader valve core out of the air hose and let the oil drain. and I can tell you that oil that came out of that shock was absolutely black. I let it drain for hours into a measuring cup. I simply replaced the oil with fork oil, and exactly the amount that I got out of the shock.. and I don’t know if it’s psychological, but servicing the swingarm bearings taking the side play out of the swing arm with that simple adjustment and changing the shock oil and greasing all of the shock linkage. The bike feels solid and it just appears to ride better.. that scissor lift that I have videos here on CZcams made the job much much easier. That scissor lift with the two adjustable perch cradles, at the time I bought it a few years ago for my Goldwing maintenance, was $50 free shipping.. The last time I checked a few months ago it was up to $67 still free shipping there are many of them on there from different sellers. I would pay $250 for one of these things. Very well-made. I can tell it’s well-made because I worked in a steel fabricating plant as a fitter/welder for years. I can tell when something is made out of quality material and good workmanship.. it’s a must have tool, since the ventures do not have a center stand, I park my Venture on the motorcycle scissor lift jack over the winter. It gives the springs and wheel bearings and tires a break
Update after riding season is over here in November/2022 I have a list of maintenance chores I am going to do on my venture over the winter. One of them is, replacing the top bushing on the shock absorber. You can see in this video that the up and down slop/ movement in the swing arm is the top bushing on the shock absorber, which is made of rubber, and it is long past its service life. I should have replaced it while I was taking the swingarm off in this video..I will make a video and put it here on CZcams. While I have the shock off to replace that rubber bushing. I am also going to change the shock oil again.. I will make a video about changing the shock absorber oil also.. and I am going to change the fork oil which I did not do since I got the bike in October 2021. Mainly because, in the owners manual that came with the motorcycle. Yamaha specifically spells out that there is no need to ever change the fork oil. So I didn’t.. but after thinking about that, I am going to disobey Yamaha and I am going to change the fork oil and I will make a video showing why. I believe I will be able to show that that oil coming out of the forks, is going to look nothing like new fork oil. And there’s another very good reason for changing fork oil. These forks have Schrader valves for putting air in the forks.. when you put air in the forks, you are also putting in moisture from the humidity in the air in the forks. Have you ever bled your air tank on your compressor. There is a lot of water in the air depending on where you live. Have you ever seen motor oil with a lot of water in it?? water and oil does not mix. Also, that water in the forks along with air, is going to promote corrosion. The fork springs are made of carbon steel. if they start to corrode, that rust is going to circulate through oil that is not filtered, and it’s going to be bouncing around in your oil and your forks, wearing your bushings out, wearing out the fork slider,, it’s not good. That’s why I’m going to directly disobey Yamaha‘s maintenance suggestion that fork oil never needs changed. I’m changing mine. I will also make a video about that and put it on CZcams.. One thing I noticed last week here in November 2022. If you look at my video you can see oil staining on that cover/bellows accordion looking cover over the shock absorber. There’s a lot of chatter on the Yamaha venture sites that all mentioned that the shock seems to lose a little bit of shock oil.. when I change my shock absorber oil here. I am going to measure precisely how many cc of oil I drain out of the shock. Because, I put in 125 cc of oil into the shock after I drained it last year. Let’s see how much I get out of it this year because, it does not look like it is leaking. I’ve never seen a drop of oil about to drip off of the shock at the bottom, and I have never seen a drip on the ground below by Venture. Since I am going to change the shocks oil maybe every year, and I am going to use a high-quality fork oil inside the shock, maybe that fresh clean oil Will keep the shock oil tight. I know that the oil that came out of this shock was absolutely putrid black. That Original factory shock oil was cooked.. so, when I was checking things out here in November 2022 laying on the ground looking at everything with a flashlight, I didn’t really notice any dampness caused by oil leakage from the shock absorber. We will see how much oil I get out of the shock and I will make the video and put it on CZcams. I am very pleased with the way the shock absorber felt after I did the oil change.. like I said earlier, I really should have replaced that top bushing while I had the shock off when I made this current video, because I could see and you can see in this video that that top bushing had play in it..
just start doing your basic simple maintenance like changing your own oil, greasing your clutch and brake lever pivots with grease, changing your own air filters, on the Venture, that’s one of the simplest jobs on any motorcycle I have ever owned, Venture has very easy air cleaners to change. It might take you five minutes to change each one..For checking things, get a little book to keep records of the date, the mileage, and the maintenance procedures performed, keep a record of the date in the mileage when you put new tires on, when you change the brakes, when you change the spark plugs, the battery, the air cleaners, the oil. I have a ledger book that an accountant would use.. I have my last 40 or 50 motorcycles cars and trucks mechanical records all in there.. go on CZcams and see how to do certain things. Watch several videos because some people are better at explaining things than others. I have a tendency to assume you know how to do things when I say do this or that. Other guys are better and they show you every little step.. Just take your time
this gave great insight on my unknown final drive noise. it seemed to go away after i changed the final drive gear oil though. got an 07’ royal star midnight venture
Austen.. if you still have that oil that you drained from the final drive. I would take a serious look into that pan with a strong flashlight. Look for tiny shiny specs, run a magnet into that, see how much magnetic debris you get out of that oil… that’s final drives don’t really hold a lot of oil. How much did you get out? The reason I mention this is, I can’t imagine how changing the oil could make a noise you were hearing go away. If you were hearing noise, if it was a whining noise, that would be the ring and pinion gear I am guessing. But if it was not a whining noise, that could have been one of the bearings in the final drive housing. did you check for play by grabbing the wheel while it is off the ground( if only you had a center stand) and see if you can get it to move side to side from many angles as you can get a grip on it.. if it is a bearing or the ring and pinion gears. You should see the debris in the oil. But if it is the bearing supporting the driveshaft behind the pinion gear.. you may not be able to detect that by just moving the wheel. You may want to put it into gear with the engine not running, and turn the rear wheel in both directions and see how much play there is, or if you can hear clicking noises. Then see if you hear the noise when the bike is in neutral with the rear wheel off the ground. You are going to hear some noise when you move the rear wheel/rotate it in his normal motion in both directions with the bike in gear, that is just play in the splines of the driveshaft and the final drive and at the end of the drive shaft where it connects to the engine..add all those gaps/play up, and that is probably about 5°of play.. if there is a problem in your final drive. I would buy a used one off of eBay before I would have somebody rebuild that because, if there are fragments of bearings that have been floating around in that final drive. They would have damaged the ring and pinion gears also. That’s a pretty precision piece of machinery inside those final drives. I have never heard of one failing on a Japanese motorcycle however. i’ve heard of them failing left and right on BMWs, but not on Japanese bikes ever since driveshaft started showing up with the 1975 Goldwing.. I don’t know how many miles your motorcycle has on it, or the maintenance that has or has not had if you are not the original owner. But it is just possible that someone may have drained the oil years ago and forgot to put oil in and put it in miles later.Or someone put in the wrong oil. I do not know of a final drive on any motorcycle that does not require gear oil.. or even possibly, that motorcycle might have been in a flood, maybe just covering the wheels, and water got into the final drive through the breather and was not changed.. I once went to buy a Honda XL 250 dual sport motorcycle from a guy that lived in an area that had flood problems about a month earlier. He told me the water only got up to the wheels barely. The bike was perfectly clean. It would not start.. so what’s the first thing you check? Air, gas, spark. it had gas, it was getting air, so I wanted to check to see if it had spark. I pulled the spark plug, connected the wire, and grounded the base of the spark plug to the cylinder, then I turned the engine over with the Kickstarter. Orange rusty water shot out of the spark plug hole.. I just walked away without saying a word.. check that oil you drained for magnetic and shiny little particles smaller than grains of sugar. Even if you drained that pan, there will still be lots and lots of tiny shiny particles that will show up under a flashlight, and a magnet. Not all of it will be magnetic.. transmission and final drive issues scare me. I have had two transmission lock ups on me. Pulling the clutch in does not save you. The clutch only disconnects the crankshaft from the transmission. It does not disconnect a locked transmission or final drive from the wheel.. The wheel will stay locked till you stop.. ect on the other hand, that noise you were hearing could be that part that is called a clutch for some reason , It’s the hub with large pins that plug into rubber mounted bushings in your rear wheel. On the outside of that hub is a gear that indexes with your motorcycle final drive. I did not hear a noise from mine but I am reading on the Internet that if you have a noise you can’t figure out what it is, it is that clutch hub attached to the rear wheel that has the gear on it that plugs into the final drive..When I had my wheel off I used to snap ring pliers to remove that clutch hub that plugs into those six rubber mount bushings, and those bushings were rusty. I greased them up with waterproof grease, I put lithium grease on the gear that plugs into the final drive, and I put everything back together. If you’re going to remove that large snap ring to get that clutch hub off of your rear wheel. You’re gonna need a pair of snap ring pliers it opens to just over an inch wide. That is one of the toughest snaprings I ever had to deal with because my snap ring pliers only opened up to about 7/8 of an inch.. Good luck
@@Jodyrides the gear oil i drained was shiny for sure. The sound i was hearing was almost like a whistle between 60-70mph. The last owner did not do maintenance on it. just a gas and go type of person
@@OACSOME I just thought of something that may be the cause of the whistling noise you here with your Venture at60 to 70 miles an hour I could be wrong about the year. But I believe 2007 was the last year for what may be the primary gears being straight cut gears.. The primary gears are the gear around the outside of your clutch basket, and the other gear is on the end of your crankshaft. The most efficient types of gears four primary gears are what is known as straight cut gears. They have a side effect. It is whistling whirling noise. Old trucks had it. I remember when I was a kid when milkman used to come around the neighborhoods, their trucks always had that straight cut transmission gear noise.. so if that is what it is, that is normal. Because I do remember reading somewhere that Yamaha changed something to get rid of that noise in 2008 to the Venture’s, and probably to the other motorcycles that share that basic engine design.. I also noticed that my GL 1800 Goldwing had that whirling whistling sound at idle. Kawasaki‘s were famous for having that noise starting in 1973 when they introduced the Z 1 903 four-cylinder. Which later became the chips California highway patrol standard police bike when they upped the CC to 1000. Pretty bulletproof motorcycles even by today’s standards but they had that straight cut primary gear whine.. some manufacturers knew how to get rid of that whistling noise by using what is known as helical cut gears. They are cut at an angle. They are quiet but not the most efficient because some of their energy goes into pushing away from each other sideways as they mesh with each other at an angle..They also have a side effect because of the angle cut to the gears, they have to compensate for that somehow with thrust washers or roller bearings so the shafts don’t walk in the cases with end play.. The next time you change your motor oil, see what the highest weight oil you can use in that engine is in the owners manual and try that. I’ll bet a slightly heavier oil will muffle that sound somewhat. And then, there’s always earplugs. The best earplugs I have found are swimmers ear plugs available in the sporting goods department of Walmart.. they’re made out of some type of a silicone like wax, they fit perfectly, and they are the most quiet earplugs I ever used. The only cost a few bucks for a dozen.. i’d like to know what happens to the sound if you go to the heaviest oil recommended by your owners manual
@@Jodyrides I’ve also read about the gears being cut differently! Just wasn’t sure if it was factual. I use 20W-50, the thickest you’re allowed to use. Thank you very much on this information. I stress less now about this situation now
I thought about that. There is no radial play.. just and play side to side. The swing arm does not swing left and right, it only moves completely left and right sliding on whatever those large diameter centers are. The swingarm freely rotates up and down in its normal motion. I felt no roughness in the bearings. I’m gonna have to put a dial indicator on the end of the swing arm, and see if I can get a sidewards swing to it at the end of the swingarm, sort of like a pendulum movement horizontally.. if there was zero allowance for endplay, you would not be able to get the swingarm into the frame. Are there thrust washers that should be in there or that are in there that may be worn? I reasoned, with no good reason, that the swingarm must be permitted to find the rotational center to allow the driveshaft to self center. I don’t have a Yamaha official service manual. I’m gonna have to get one to find out the specs. thanks for pointing that out to me. My machine only has 30,000 miles on it, and all of the shock absorber linkage was thoroughly greased when I took it apart. So I am assuming, which I should never do, that the previous owner had the shock linkage and the swingarm lubed because of how well lubed the shock linkage was.. I wanna take the shock absorber off anyway and change the oil in it.. I pulled the Schrader valve out of the air hose on my 2002 royal star venture, and I let that drain upside down overnight out of the hose. That oil in the shock was cooked/black. I noticed that my bellows over the bottom of my shock is stained, so the seal is probably seeping.. The oil in it currently is still damping.. i’m glad you told me this because now I have an excuse to take it apart again and change that shock oil, and look into how much end play that swingarm should have. I also want to lube the drive shaft splines. Yamaha‘s are not known for the splines wearing, but Hondas have a history of splines wearing… Thanks for the heads up
Doesn't look like I can attach a picture to these replies. I have 48,000 on my bike. I didn't need to replace anything, I just took things apart to grease them. It is not good to have any side play in the swingarm. Do you have a manual? Is there a way I can send a picture of the relevant page?
i’m going to take the swingarm off and repack the bearings. They have to be done every 26,000 miles, I am going to assume they’ve never been done even though they move smoothly. I do not think my bearings are bad. They move smoothly and there is no playing them. The swingarm has about a 30 second of an inch side play. But no movement within the bearing in a pendulum movement, trying to get The swingarm to rock. I can get it to move side to side, but I can’t get it to rock. That means the bearings are probably OK fairy but I’m gonna take it off anyway because I want to change the oil in the shock and lube the drive shaft splines. That whole job should take less than two hours I noticed on the parts diagram that the right side is a roller bearing and the left side is a needle bearing. The right side is the side that would get the torque, because needle bearings cannot tolerate radial loading
I just went on eBay now to make sure that this works. I typed in the words- motorcycle scissor lift jack A page opened up and there were dozens of them exactly like the one I bought. The price is a little higher and what I paid for mine a year or so ago.. on eBay right now here in April 2022. The price seems to be averaging around $68. If you buy one of those on eBay, just make sure you get the one that has those two adjustable perch parts. I used to be a steel fabricator in a fabrication shop. I don’t think you could buy all the materials and make one of these for less than you can buy one already made for here on eBay. It is very strong very heavy duty. 3/16 inch thick steel, looks like about a half inch thick all thread. It actually looks exactly like a miniature of my pneumatic motorcycle lift table. The design is the same. I have showed friends of mine my Lyft Jack, One of my friends bought two of them.. I was watching a video from a company called traction dynamics that seems to specialize in Goldwing maintenance and parts like suspension upgrades on CZcams… they have very first rate videos. When I had my Goldwing, and I had already bought my scissor lift/Jack. I was watching one of their videos, and I was surprised when I saw that they had exactly the same jack under eggs Goldwing they were changing fork springs on. They’re Jack was painted black. Mine is red. I believe you can buy black ones on ebay also..
You won’t regret buying that lift/ jack..I think you will be surprised how strong and sturdy that scissor lift is. I did have one concern when lifting my venture make sure you solidly block the front wheel. I was concerned that I was getting too much angle and I thought that the bike could slide off of the perch’s .. it did not slide because I didn’t go up that high but I figured a fix just to be extra cautious get two stainless steel screw straps/radiator hose clamps. Put one on each side under your machine and have the screw section at the bottom under the bike. It might take you two minutes to install them..Wrap them around the frame and tighten them just in front of where the perch/stand contacts the frame. That will stop the machine from sliding on the perch of the stand they will act as stops to prevent the bike from sliding forward on the perch’s.. I had the two stainless steel hose clamps ready to install as I started jacking up my Venture high enough to roll the rear wheel out. Those two perch saddles have some type of a hard plastic or rubber coating, that protect your paint on your frame, and they also prevent metal to metal contact which could cause the bike to slide as the angle increases. That was my only concern .. It comes with a socket for jacking up the lift, but if you want to do it faster you need a 22 mm socket.I also lubed the all thread. that always makes it easier.. You will have to remove both saddlebags which will take you 5 minutes each.. and you will have to remove both mufflers which will take you two minutes each. Because They are in the way for removing the axle .. One thing I did that screwed me up when I removed the shock to lube all the linkage… routing the brake caliper hose on the outside of the swingarm, not the inside when you put the shock back on. I almost had to remove the back tire again to get the caliper and hose routed on the outside of the wheel well. I ended up just removing the brake hose from the caliper and rerouting just the hose.. I watched some videos, and I decided not to pull my swingarm off to check the bearings because, all of my shock linkage was greased and in great shape..The swingarm went up and down very smoothly through its arc. It concerns me that it had end play, but I think that is normal so that the swingarm can self center, and because everything else was in great shape as far as clean and lubed on the linkage, I assumed that the swingarm bearings were also in the same shape. I could get them to move side to side, but I could get no movement up and down.. i’m satisfied with that.. The up and down play in my shock linkage was the top bushing of the shock absorber in my video.. about the only thing I could do to remedy that that I can think of would be to replace the rubber bushing and the metal insert it has. I just greased it up and put it back together.. The play in the bushing between the bolt and the bushing was so slight. I’m not gonna worry about it. It’s just when you multiply it by the length of the swingarm, you end up getting about an eighth of an inch of movement at the end of the swingarm up and down. That rubber insert in the top of the shock takes a beating. Even though it is very hard rubber like motor mount rubber or those six bushing inserts in the wheel that that Cush drive rides in. But these machines do not have center stands so all that weight sits on that suspension all the time.. when you pull that cush drive hub.. you are going to need a pair of snap ring pliers that opens at least 1 inch. That is the toughest snap ring I ever had to fight with.. getting it back on is the tough part.. while I had my rear wheel off for the new tire, I also pulled the spacers from my rear wheel bearings and inspected and re-greased them with wheel bearing grease. Wheel bearing grease is not just grease, And Grease is not wheel bearing grease all the time.. wheel bearing grease is a very high speed high temperature grease. I used EP molybdenum black wheel bearing grease. And I cleaned the dust seals and re-greased the seals on the hub/ wheel.. now would be the time to change your brake fluid. I do all my brake fluids and clutch fluids every year. Brake fluid is alcohol based and it absorbs moisture right out of the air through the breather on the reservoir. I have a brake bleed tool .. I think I paid $35 for it at AutoZone years ago. I use that to suck the old brake fluid out of the reservoir before I do anything. Rather than send that crappy brake fluid through the reservoir and through the system.. then I refill the Reservoir with clean fresh brake fluid and go down to the bleeder and suck it through with the tool… brake fluid scares me. If you get that on your paint, you can kiss it goodbye if you don’t clean it off right away. When I change the brake fluid and clutch fluid in the handlebar reservoirs, I get a large black plastic garbage bag and I cut it in half, and I cover my gas tank with that just to be safe. I have a Roll of paper towels ready, and every time I use one of those paper towels, it goes right in the garbage can because you don’t wanna wipe something up with a used paper towel or rag that already has brake fluid on it.. My Venture has a dual braking system.. they had that back in 1983 with a very first venture royale and regular Venture that didn’t have a radio. And 83 they had a stripped-down model of Venture. 19 8060 decided to include all the options on all the ventures and they called at the Royale.. they wanted to be a one up on Honda with the Goldwing. Which at that time, everything was extra. I know because I sold motorcycles part time jan- may for 17 yrs.. in my hub maintenance video. I mentioned that the new tire weighed more than the old tire I had just removed. I am attributing that to the new tire having a lot more meat on it.. On my Goldwing which I sold in June 2021.. I put new tires on. Dunlop elite 4.. The Goldwing head elite threes on it. The worn out Dunlop elite three I removed from the rear of my Goldwing weighed 25 pounds. The brand new Dunlop elite four made specifically for the Goldwing tape machines, only weighed 19 pounds. that was brand new with all the meat still on it. That worn out tire still weighed 25 pounds. When I put those lighter tires on that gold wing, the transformation was unbelievable to the way the machine road and took bumps. It felt like a much lighter machine.. I always replace both tires when one wears out, and always the exact recommended size.. One last thing. When you pull your shock off to grease the bushings/bearings. Pay attention to which way the bolts go in, and don’t mix up the two shorter bolts. One is darker colored , And one is silver/lighter color.. The shock is easy to remove. You might want to put a jackstand under your final drive or a floor jack to make it a little easier to line everything up. But there is an air breather hose connected to the boot around the shock. You’ll have to remove the seat and look on the right side under the seat where that hose comes up and it’s shaped like a J… there is also a Nut. it takes a 19 mm socket for removing the air hose fitting. Don’t lose that nut. I placed my filthy shock absorber inside my parts washer on a tray I have in there just to put it somewhere safe. I didn’t know at the time that that nut fell off the end of the air hose valve. When I went to put the machine back together, that night was not around. I spent three days off and on looking for that nut with magnets under all the stuff I have in the garage, I was out in my driveway with a large magnet in a plastic bag sweeping through, I was out in my driveway with a metal detector looking for that nut. I went to hardware stores, nothing even close. I finally remembered that I had placed the shock absorber in my parts washer when I first removed it, and there was laying in there.. I was just about to buy a new one online
@@Jodyrides thanks for this extremely informative message. I have received my scissor lift and will attempt my tire replacement and suspension inspection.
@@thomasl4953 The way I used my scissor lift to remove the rear wheel. remove both saddlebags. Should take you about 10 minutes remove both mufflers, should take about 10 minutes. If they are stuck on and you can’t pull them straight back, rotate the very end of the muffler in a circle just a little bit to spread out the part of the muffler where the clamp is just a little. I like to put anti-seize on these fasteners and on the portion of the pipe that the muffler slides on for next time now that you have the mufflers and bags removed, place the scissor lift under the motorcycle making sure you tighten the wingnuts after you center the perch on each side to the frame. I started jacking up a lift and it would contact the left side of the motorcycle first. Then it would push the bike up straight up and down, and as it does that, make sure you have the perch on the right side in the exact position to take the weight Now you can loosen the axle nut Pay attention to the hose routing for the brake hose feeding the caliper. That Hass to be rotted on the outside of the swingarm when you put the bike back together. I had the caliper on the inside after I removed the shock linkage and the shock, and then I put the wheel on, and I could not get the caliper back in the correct position with the hose on the outside of the swingarm. I had to take the back wheel back off, and move the caliper to the outside.. minor rookie mistake Pay very close attention to the washer location on the axle on the right side. That is a big thick washer about as big around as the old silver dollars. That is critical where that washer goes.. get the axle to come out while you have the bike relatively close to the ground. You don’t want to be wiggling and pounding on things while it’s up high. I only jacked it up as high as I needed after all the work was done and all I needed to do was lift the wheel away from the final drive.. with the weight of the tire on the axle, it’s a little tough to get it to just slide out easily. If you have a floor jack. Put the floor jack under the tire itself to take the weight off of the axle so it will slide out easily. When you remove the axle. The wheel will not fall down. It is meshed with the final drive.. when putting the wheel back on, start the axle into the wheel, and have the wheel held up by the floor jack again. That makes it 10 times easier to get the gear on the hub to match with the final drive.. then after everything was removed or loose. Then I jacked the bike up just high enough to remove the wheel.. then I lowered the Jack back down. It just makes me nervous having anything up higher than it Hass to be.. getting that snap ring off of the hub so you can remove it and clean it, you’re gonna need a pair of snap ring pliers and open at least 1 inch. That is the toughest snap ring I ever encountered because I didn’t have the right to snap ring pliers.. to get that hub to slide out of those rubber mounts built-in to the wheel. I just used two screwdrivers opposite each other. So it would pry out straight instead of using one screwdriver and having it come out crooked. It doesn’t take much effort to get that out. I hate trying on things with screwdrivers but I think you have to in this case.. while you have the wheel off, now would be the time to pull the drain plug on the final drive and let it drain. Don’t be surprised when you see how much shiny metallic particles come out of that final drive with the oil.. when I let things drain a long time, a lot of times I will let oil drain out of my motorcycle overnight. I have a little orange card that I put my key through and plug the key into the ignition switch. That sign says NO OIL.. just in case.. when I let the oil drain for hours in my truck or my wife’s car. I put the new oil bottles on top of the engine so I can’t close the hood while the oil is draining for hours so I don’t forget to put oil in.. I have seen that happen a couple times we’re people forgot to put their oil in after draining.. One other thing I warn people about. Do not over tighten the hell out of your axle nut. Ball bearings cannot tolerate radial loads.. The axles on this and many motorcycles has a pinch bolt that squeezes the axle from coming out. So don’t put a pipe extension on the end of A breaker bar to tighten the axle nut if you don’t have a torque wrench.. I myself have crushed the spacers between the two rear wheel bearings on the rear wheels of my motorcycles, causing the ball bearings to fail because I over tightened the axle nut like it was the final nut holding a bridge up.. putting it back together, a jack under the tire helps line the tire so you can get the axle in and so you can mesh the splines on the hub with the final drive. That was the toughest part.. don’t forget to put grease on the splines and on the seal.. and make sure you route that caliper on the outside of the swing arm before you put the wheel in there.. once you get the wheel back in under the fender. Lower that bike down before you start tugging and pulling on things. I had my machine up as high as it needed to go to get the wheel out for less than five minutes. Then I jacked it back up to get the wheel back in, once it was in there, I lowered it back down again, just to be safe..
how was the petcock not working? What kind of machine? Was it a vacuum operated petcock? Was it plugged up? Do you have rust in your gas tank possibly? Have you checked your fuel filter? you might want to check your fuel tank, breather, hose, or the fuel cap if there is not a vent hose. I don’t know what kind of insect they are there’s some kind of a bee.. They like to plug up hoses. They fill them with like mud and hardens. I have to put golf tees in my hoses and fuel lines hanging in my garage because of Bee’z. The three things in internal combustion engine needs are Air--Gas--Spark
Hey Jody, what type of noise were you experiencing prior to looking at the final drive and clutch hub? Was it the "jetsons" type of noise like a whining flutter, hard to describe I guess. And did cleaning that up get rid of the noise? I had read on the venture tech site that sometimes it can be the clutch cage or final drive gear to driveshaft backlash, but not sure. For the exhaust, It's not that bad if you remove the cylinder cover with the three bolts first next to it, number three. I did just loosen both exhausts at 3 and 4 to replace the clutch spring due to slipping when hard throttle in 4th and 5th gear. My cheap ass $43 fix. Left it on the side stand and didn't need to replace the new oil change I had done previously. Also, did you pull the driveshaft and grease it? Some say that is a pretty good idea to do as well. TIA
dirty here, sorry I didn’t get back to you months ago, I just noticed your questions now, the week before Christmas 2022.. that whirling whine sound you hear coming from the Venture engine is nothing to worry about. That is if we’re talking about the same sound. That is simply the primary gears whining. They are located on the right side of the engine .. when you had your Side cover off to service your clutch, you could see both of the primary gears.. The big one is around the outside of the clutch basket, and the small one is on the end of the crankshaft. That is the most efficient simplest least number of parts ways to get the power from the crankshaft to the transmission.. my GL 1800 Goldwing had that same whirling sound from somewhere in the engine that had straight cut primary gears or some kind of a drive gear maybe on the alternator, maybe on the flywheel, I don’t know about the gold wings. My Kawasaki Z 400 original owner also has that sound. My 1973 Kawasaki 900 Z one had that same sound because they had primary gears instead of a primary chain.. it’s just one of the little quirks that all motorcycles have of one kind or another.. as for the driveshaft on my venture.. yes I did lube the splines where they plug into the yoke of the universal joint. It’s a simple job. I used molybdenum grease mixed with copper anti-seize. I remember the 1980s Honda shaft drive bikes driveshaft spline suffered and some of them failed if the owner did not lube them.. The most difficult part of lubing the driveshaft on my Venture, was getting the driveshaft to slide back into the yolk on the u-joint .. it wasn’t that the driveshaft would not slide into the yolk, it’s that I couldn’t hold the u joint still and slide the drive shaft into the swingarm myself.. you need a helper to do that job. One guy holds the you joint still using a screwdriver or his fingers under that rubber boot at the output shaft of the transmission. There is a rubber plug just above the you joint that makes the job a lot easier to hold the u joint still.. I was able to do it myself but it did take me about two hours because I kept trying different ways to hold that thing still while pushing the driveshaft in by myself.. just be aware that there is a spring at the final drive end of the drive shaft that goes on the end of the driveshaft as you inserted into the final drive housing. I believe that’s to keep the driveshaft pushed forward while allowing it to float front to back when necessary as the swing arm moves up and down… don’t lose that spring. When the driveshaft comes out of the final drive housing, if you are not aware of that spring being there, it could fall on the ground and go straight to China. It’s about an inch and a half long, and it’s a heavy coil spring similar to a spring inside of a ballpoint pen, only much thicker. Don’t lose it..
@@Jodyrides I'm just about to get my first yamaha 1900 stratoliner it's 2007 13000 miles on it what should I look out for but it's been well looked after I'm told
U2 I just put a video on here yesterday in titled --buying used motorcycle do’s and don’ts That should cover the basics when anyone goes to see a motorcycle they are considering buying
I thought I should do an update. Actually the bearings were fine, the end play adjustment from the right side with the hex head on the swingarm bolt just needed turned in and re-torqued after I removed the swingarm and cleaned the bearings and relubed them. They were smooth up-and-down motion, and there was no end play after i took out the end-play with the hex head adjuster on the rt side with an allen wrench..i was over thinking it…I have put about 15 hours of riding time in since I serviced the shock linkage, changed the oil in the shock absorber, and repacked the swingarm bearings, not to mention lubed the drive shaft splines at both ends. my bearings on the shock linkage and the swingarm were not dry. The owners manual calls for relubing the swingarm bearings every 16,000 miles I think it is. And what I think happened was, the original owner had the bearings serviced and did not adjust out the end play on the right side correctly. while I was doing the job I tried to find out the sequence of tightening those bolts that the swingarm pivots on. I couldn’t find anything about sequence. But I thought about it, and it made sense to me that you have to torque the left side to 72 pounds first, because that bolt goes all the way in, and torquing it to 72 pounds, just means it’s not going to come loose. The bolt on the right side with the hex drive in the center is the one that is for the adjustment side to side play. The right side is the one that is going to determine if the swingarm moves side to side. I did that by feel .. The same way you have to torque trailer or even front wheel bearings on a car, and steering head bearings. That is an educated feel, and that’s how I adjusted the right side swingarm pivot bolt, then I tightened the lock nut on the right side to 72 pounds. With the shock not even in the bike yet , I moved the swing arm up and down and there were no bumps or grinding or notches in the motion. It was a nice smooth up-and-down action/motion. That’s good enough for me.. February 24, 2023… update I removed the shock and changed the oil in the shock again. It’s been a year since I changed it the first time. The oil that came out of the shock was dark. Not black like the original oil that was in the shock when it came out. I did notice that there was some Oil staining of that rubber cover over the shock absorber again just like last year. But last year I put in 124cc of oil.. this year, I can’t be sure that’s how much oil I drained from the shock because when I had the shock upside down I pulled the Schrader valve out of the air hose, and the shocks still had air pressure, which by the way it was holding for almost 6 months, since the last time I put air in the shock was September 2022.. that’s a good sign.. but I did drain the oil into a measuring cup, and I had about 110 cc in the cup, and about 15 cc on the workbench and on the ground due to my carelessness.. I replaced the oil with 7WT fork oil. 124 cc.. I was able to remove the shock without removing the rear wheel, but I did take off the saddlebags, The little side covers, the right side passenger floorboard, and the seat.. do you have to do that job with the bike on a scissor lift like I have in my video, to get the rear wheel slightly off the ground. Then to line up the shock absorber holes with the shock on the reinstall of the shock, you have to raise or lower the bike with the wheel on the bike, to line up the holes so you can get the bolts back in at the top and bottom of the shock.. to line up the holes that way it was actually pretty uneventful..
@@Jodyrides later I wanna buy a Royal Star but a Tour Deluxe version... Theres one thing which is useful to know... Bolts and dimensions are Imperial or Metric? Im in Europe... But 'cause our emission laws its realy hard to get a bike like this... So maybe I should import one from the US The bike is Japaniese (they use metric) but made for US market... So I do not know a correct dimension system!
Update July 2022
update, I fixed all of the typos in the following notation I made about removing the swingarm and driveshaft to clean and lube everything. I really should proofread this stuff before I post, But it’s fixed now
removing the swingarm to do the suggested lubrication of the bearings in the owners manual and around the 16,000 mile mark was not as bad as I thought it was gonna be..
in the video I mentioned I was cringing at the thought of removing the rear exhaust pipe studs on both sides of the bike to get the access to the large nuts and swing arm bolts.
I sprayed the swingarm bolts/studs with blaster/penetrating oil, and they came right off. Nothing crumbled in my hands. I believe there were two other fasteners I had to takeoff to get the rear pipe on each side off of the machine to get access to the swingarm pivot bolts. It really was a five minute job.. when I put everything back together I used aluminum anti-seize for next time..
it’s easier to take the swinging arm off if you unbolt the final drive first. When you do that, there’s going to be a little spring like in a ballpoint pen, but it’s a much thicker and stronger spring but not much longer. That spring fits right in the center of the driveshaft where it indexes into the final drive housing.. be aware of that when you are unbolting the final drive housing because that spring will disappear on you if you are unaware of its existence and it falls out..
once the final drive is off, it’s easier to wrestle with the swinging arm because you’ve removed all that weight.
unbolting the shock absorber and removing the air hose fitting so you can put air into the shock on the right side of the bike just below/behind the driver seat. Do not lose the nut that holds the Schrader valve air hose on the frame behind the seat. The nut on mine was stuck in the socket and I did not know it. I think it’s 19 mm. But I thought I had a lot of extra nuts and bolts from 40 years of saving all The extra hardware I had left over. I even went to a hardware store and Lowe’s and went through all of their nuts, I could not find one to fit on the Schrader valve to tighten it and keep it in place on the frame. Do not lose that. I was very fortunate that it was stuck in my socket
this is how I determined how tight the swingarm axle bolts should be as far as the side to side play
on the left side of the machine, you tighten that nut/bolt down to the required I believe it’s 72 pounds of torque. There’s no adjustment movement there. It’s either tight or it’s not. The adjustment is on the right side. There is a bolt with a hex drive in the center for taking up the sidewards/lateral, whatever you wanna call it sideways play. Have you ever done wheelbearings on a Small trailer, or tapered wheel bearings on an American car front spindle? There is not a specific torque for them. You tighten the nut until you take up all the play without overtightening, then you back it off and put the Cotter pin in.. that’s how I did it. You adjust the side to side slope/play on the right swing arm bolt after cleaning and greasing your bearings in the swingarm. Because the bearing on the left side of the swing arm is a tapered roller bearing, just like a American car front wheel bearing, just like mini tapered roller bearings in motorcycle steering heads/stems. There’s not a specific torque as much as there is a feel you have to have for how snug it needs to be.. that’s how I did it after sitting there reasoning it out. The swingarm bearings on the right side are just needle bearings in a cage. i took out the play side to side in the swingarm bearing adjustment with that hex drive bolt, then I torqued the large nut to 72 pounds. And that’s it. My swing arm goes up and down smoothly, and there is no lateral play like there was in my video.. to tell you the truth, I don’t see how this side to side play in my video would’ve damaged anything.. then I cleaned and greased all of the shock linkage bearings, I lubed the drive shaft splines where they index into the universal joint on the left side of the engine output shaft of the transmission. That was actually the toughest part of the job was getting the driveshaft into that yoke of the universal joint. There is a little rubber plug with a bot a 3/8 inch hole on top of The swing arm just above the universal joint. I believe that is so you can look down into the swing arm where the driveshaft/universal joint is so you can see to index the driveshaft back into where it belongs..
it actually took me over an hour just to get the driveshaft to slide back into the splines after lubing them on the universal joint. Not because it was necessarily difficult,. It’s just that it took me a while to discover that little rubber plug that I could remove to look down in there to assist me in holding the universal joints still by pulling that rubber bellows back over the joint you’ll see it, that pulls back pretty easy, but you can stick a screwdriver in there to stop the universal joints from spinning and hold it in place while you insert to drive shaft.. next time that will probably only take me about five minutes to get the driveshaft back into the universal joint splines..
while I had the shock absorber off, I pulled the valve out of the air hose with a Schrader valve tool and drained all the oil out of the shock. It was black. I replaced the same amount of oil with fresh fork oil in the shock absorber. It looked like 125 cc. Are used 15 wt fork oil…..when I was done. The bike felt a smoother/better. I can’t say if it was the new tires which they always feel great. There’s no feeling like a fresh set of meats on the wheels. Or if it was the play that I removed from the side to side movement on the swing arm, or greasing the swingarm, or greasing the bushings and bearings on the shock linkage, or just a combination of all of the maintenance together just made the bike feel fresh, solid , tight & smooth..
most motorcycles have one solid long bolt just like the rear axle bolt to hold the swingarm in place.
on the Venture, they just have two smooth bolts about 1” thick..The swingarm bearings ride on the outside of those bolts, that is not one continuous bolt, they just have a nub on each end which is all you really need that the swingarm bearings right on. And those nubs are held in with those 2 big nuts torqued to 72 pounds each. There’s really no mystery about it. Instead of one big long bolt to hold the swingarm in place, it’s just two short bolts..
nothing mysterious or mystical or requiring Einstein to put it back together. The only part that I had to think about when I was reassembling everything was, that rubber air tube that comes from around the shock absorber and goes up and loops over the frame under the seat. I didn’t see Exactly where it was routed to when I removed the shock. And I had to do some figuring when I put the shock back on about the routing of that rubber tube..
to do everything I did, you’re going to need fork oil to replace the oil in the shock which you just drain out through that air hose, and replace through the air hose. You’ll need some copper or aluminum anti-seize for the exhaust flange studs/nuts and for the drive shaft splines, if you choose to use anti-seize, some people will use white lithium grease, or maybe Molly Grease.. now would be a good time to change the final drive gear oil, which is 80w gear lube and it’s pretty important. That oil goes through a lot of sheering.. I also like to put a little dab of anti-seize on all exhaust mounting bolts and straps so they come apart next time..
I cleaned up my shock absorber and I can see that there was some oil seepage past the seal which ventures are known for. I lubricated the outside of the piston/shaft that the Seal is supposed to be wrapped around. I put some grease on that to lubricate it. I thought about putting some oil that is made for high mileage engines in the shock absorber instead of shock/fork oil. Those oils that are for high mileage engines, I think mobile one makes a high mileage engine oil, and I’m sure other companies do too, but that oil has an additive that swells seals to make them More oil tight.. i’ll see how it goes. There wasn’t a puddle under my bike, it’s just that that rubber bellows cover over the shock was obviously getting some oil from the shock on it and dust was sticking to it. I’ll keep my eye on it. There are people out there that can service the shock, change the seal, change the oil, and have the shock back to you quickly for around $100. I might do that..
Anyway there was nothing particularly difficult about taking off the swingarm or putting everything back together. Now that I’ve done it, I could probably do the job in three hours next time start to finish
Additional update to the video May 2022
I did some Internet research and I couldn’t find anything that said there should be zero lateral play where the swingarm pivots. But I took the swingarm off anyway To grease the bearings and check them out. I found conflicting torque settings for the swingarm.. as I was Torqueing the right side hex drive bolt, I kept checking the up-and-down motion of the swingarm without the shock installed. It was getting tight.. so I backed off and torqued the swingarm pivot bolts by feel. The one on the left side, that large 32 mm nut goes all the way against the frame and his torqued to something like 72 pounds. The Swingarm bolt on the right seems to be the one that preloads the angled roller bearings on the left side.. It’s sort of like adjusting steering head bearings. You do it by feel, or trailer wheel bearings on your trailer, there’s not an exact torque , you have to do it by feel. on tapered roller bearings on a trailer, you tighten the nut, then you back it off slightly and put the cotter pin in. You do it by feel. Same thing with car front wheel bearings. These swingarm bearings are not high speed bearings like the conditions that car wheel bearings have to survive in.. so I just torqued the bolt on the left side to 72lbs 1st, then I torqued the bolt on the right side by feel , constantly checking the up-and-down movement of the swing arm and the side to side movement. I had no side to side - left / right swingarm movement, and I had smooth up and down movement. So I then torqued that right side large nut down to 72 that locks the right swingarm bolt in position..
removing the rear cylinder exhaust pipes was very easy, to give me access to the Swing arm bolts. Not a tough job at all.. in fact, removing the muffler is just one bolt under the saddle bag and a clamp. And removing the rear cylinder exhaust pipe on each side is two nuts, and a clamp, and I believe there’s one bolt holding the pipe to the frame somewhere with a hanger.. I was expecting to have to fight with rust and snapped bolts and stripped exhaust studs. It was not like that at all. That was the easiest part of the job actually removing the bags and the exhaust pipes..Of course I used a little spray of blaster penetrating oil before I tried to turn any other hardware on the exhaust, and when I put it back together I used Aluminum anti-seize so it will come apart even easier next time..
While I had the mufflers off, I gave them some TLC underneath and on the inside where you can’t see with metal polish to prevent corrosion..
The hardest part of the job was getting the driveshaft to index with the yolk at the U joint. if your driveshaft pulls out of the final drive housing which is very easy to do, be sure not to lose the little spring it will go straight to China if it falls on the ground. It’s a small spring like a ballpoint pen spring but much stronger and longer but it’s about the diameter of a pencil and around an inch and a half long..
I finally remembered that there is a rubber plug on the swingarm itself just above universal joint which is pretty much right at the parallax of the swingarm pivot. You can remove that rubber plug and steady do U joint yolk with one finger, and you can see the yolk if you peel back the rubber bellows covering the U-joint at the rear of the engine where the swingarm meets the engine. You’ll need a good flashlight. And it is much much easier if you have a second pair of hands there helping you. It took me about two hours doing it myself and figuring out how to take advantage of that access hole with a rubber plug in it above the you joint to get the driveshaft back in, and then find that spring that bounced when my final drive fell off the end of the drive shaft. Luckily it landed on a piece of cardboard I had there for me to lay on the ground when I was trying to see down the driveshaft tube..Now that I have learned the hard way, I could probably put a driveshaft in my in a few minutes now..
I drained the old oil out of my shock absorber while I had it off. The shock absorber holds about 125CC -i used fork oil.. I drained the old shock oil by removing the Schrader valve out of the air hose line and letting it drain for a couple hours upside down into a ratio right ( measuring cup) That told me exactly how much oil to put back in. The oil that drained out of my shock was absolutely black.. I got the fresh oil to go backin that shock hose using a small plastic syringe..
it pays to pay attention to all of the facets of your suspension and maintain them because my bike feels completely different now. Of course I put new tires on which also are part of your suspension. So after draining the oil out of the shock and replacing it with fresh oil.. removing the swing arm and shock to lube the swingarm bearings and the shock absorber bearings in the linkage, and lubing the splines on the driveshaft. Then installing the lubed driveshaft and adjusting the lateral swingarm Play, Side to Side play and torquing the swingarm correctly. Then installing the shock with the fresh oil change, and all of the shock absorber linkage lubed. Then putting 20 pounds of air in the rear shock, and 7 pounds air in each fork .. my machine feels different. It feels as though the suspension is working for me. The bike feels more solid and stable in corners..
While I had the wheel off to change to a new tire front and rear, I pulled/ serviced the clutch hub/damping hub that is held into the six bushings in the rear wheel with a large snap ring. all six of those studs, pins, whatever they are called that go into the wheel rubber mounted bushings that are about 2 inches long each, those things were dry and rusty. I’m sure that cleaning and lubricating those and the rear wheel splined drive hub ,All of those parts that are now cleaned and lubed and torqued along with a new tire, all of those little improvements add up to one much better riding/ tracking/ motorcycle .. not to mention the peace of mind. All of that work I did won’t have to be done again until I install new tires probably. I always always replace tires in sets, and always the same brand front and rear. New tires is an improvement you feel immediately…
I never paid much attention to that wifes tale that new tires are something you have to break in for at least 100 miles or you will crash head first into a chipper..I just take it easy for the first left-hander in the first right hander, and that’s it. They’re scuffed in.. there is no feeling like a brand new set of meats..
anyway, I did a little over 400 miles over the memorial two day weekend 2022 on the Venture. I have not owned the venture even for a year as of the making of this video, but I can say, it never felt better..
the Only system I have not serviced yet, is the front forks. I was debating changing the fork springs to Progressive brand fork springs.
as of September 2022 I still have not changed the fork oil because I recently discovered that Yamaha does not recommend changing the fork oil. The way they word that is, it is not necessary to change the fork oil..
I don’t buy that because fork oil and shock oil gets cooked. not only that, the bushings in the shock and fork wear, and there’s no oil filtration system in the shock or the forks. And there’s one other thing that makes it absolutely necessary to change for coil and shock oil. When you add air to your forks or shock.. that air has humidity in it. Have you ever bled the condensation out of a compressor air tank? Have you ever painted a car with no air dryer system for the spraygun? It just isn’t done. I am positive that there is water in my forks from adding air over the years.. so- I am still going to change The fork oil. I have already changed the shock oil which was really easy. I just took the Schrader valve core out of the air hose and let the oil drain. and I can tell you that oil that came out of that shock was absolutely black. I let it drain for hours into a measuring cup. I simply replaced the oil with fork oil, and exactly the amount that I got out of the shock.. and I don’t know if it’s psychological, but servicing the swingarm bearings taking the side play out of the swing arm with that simple adjustment and changing the shock oil and greasing all of the shock linkage. The bike feels solid and it just appears to ride better..
that scissor lift that I have videos here on CZcams made the job much much easier. That scissor lift with the two adjustable perch cradles, at the time I bought it a few years ago for my Goldwing maintenance, was $50 free shipping.. The last time I checked a few months ago it was up to $67 still free shipping there are many of them on there from different sellers. I would pay $250 for one of these things. Very well-made. I can tell it’s well-made because I worked in a steel fabricating plant as a fitter/welder for years. I can tell when something is made out of quality material and good workmanship.. it’s a must have tool, since the ventures do not have a center stand, I park my Venture on the motorcycle scissor lift jack over the winter. It gives the springs and wheel bearings and tires a break
Update after riding season is over here in November/2022
I have a list of maintenance chores I am going to do on my venture over the winter. One of them is, replacing the top bushing on the shock absorber. You can see in this video that the up and down slop/ movement in the swing arm is the top bushing on the shock absorber, which is made of rubber, and it is long past its service life. I should have replaced it while I was taking the swingarm off in this video..I will make a video and put it here on CZcams. While I have the shock off to replace that rubber bushing. I am also going to change the shock oil again..
I will make a video about changing the shock absorber oil also..
and I am going to change the fork oil which I did not do since I got the bike in October 2021. Mainly because, in the owners manual that came with the motorcycle. Yamaha specifically spells out that there is no need to ever change the fork oil. So I didn’t..
but after thinking about that, I am going to disobey Yamaha and I am going to change the fork oil and I will make a video showing why. I believe I will be able to show that that oil coming out of the forks, is going to look nothing like new fork oil. And there’s another very good reason for changing fork oil. These forks have Schrader valves for putting air in the forks..
when you put air in the forks, you are also putting in moisture from the humidity in the air in the forks. Have you ever bled your air tank on your compressor. There is a lot of water in the air depending on where you live. Have you ever seen motor oil with a lot of water in it?? water and oil does not mix. Also, that water in the forks along with air, is going to promote corrosion. The fork springs are made of carbon steel. if they start to corrode, that rust is going to circulate through oil that is not filtered, and it’s going to be bouncing around in your oil and your forks, wearing your bushings out, wearing out the fork slider,, it’s not good. That’s why I’m going to directly disobey Yamaha‘s maintenance suggestion that fork oil never needs changed. I’m changing mine. I will also make a video about that and put it on CZcams..
One thing I noticed last week here in November 2022. If you look at my video you can see oil staining on that cover/bellows accordion looking cover over the shock absorber. There’s a lot of chatter on the Yamaha venture sites that all mentioned that the shock seems to lose a little bit of shock oil.. when I change my shock absorber oil here. I am going to measure precisely how many cc of oil I drain out of the shock. Because, I put in 125 cc of oil into the shock after I drained it last year. Let’s see how much I get out of it this year because, it does not look like it is leaking. I’ve never seen a drop of oil about to drip off of the shock at the bottom, and I have never seen a drip on the ground below by Venture. Since I am going to change the shocks oil maybe every year, and I am going to use a high-quality fork oil inside the shock, maybe that fresh clean oil Will keep the shock oil tight. I know that the oil that came out of this shock was absolutely putrid black. That Original factory shock oil was cooked.. so, when I was checking things out here in November 2022 laying on the ground looking at everything with a flashlight, I didn’t really notice any dampness caused by oil leakage from the shock absorber. We will see how much oil I get out of the shock and I will make the video and put it on CZcams. I am very pleased with the way the shock absorber felt after I did the oil change..
like I said earlier, I really should have replaced that top bushing while I had the shock off when I made this current video, because I could see and you can see in this video that that top bushing had play in it..
You’re the best on this bike I have seen on here I have the same bike same year have to do the carbs i will be checking this next
Lucky for your bike, you’re a motorcycle mechanic. The rest of us pay $115 per hour fee.
just start doing your basic simple maintenance like changing your own oil, greasing your clutch and brake lever pivots with grease, changing your own air filters, on the Venture, that’s one of the simplest jobs on any motorcycle I have ever owned, Venture has very easy air cleaners to change. It might take you five minutes to change each one..For checking things, get a little book to keep records of the date, the mileage, and the maintenance procedures performed, keep a record of the date in the mileage when you put new tires on, when you change the brakes, when you change the spark plugs, the battery, the air cleaners, the oil. I have a ledger book that an accountant would use.. I have my last 40 or 50 motorcycles cars and trucks mechanical records all in there..
go on CZcams and see how to do certain things. Watch several videos because some people are better at explaining things than others. I have a tendency to assume you know how to do things when I say do this or that. Other guys are better and they show you every little step..
Just take your time
this gave great insight on my unknown final drive noise. it seemed to go away after i changed the final drive gear oil though.
got an 07’ royal star midnight venture
Austen..
if you still have that oil that you drained from the final drive. I would take a serious look into that pan with a strong flashlight. Look for tiny shiny specs, run a magnet into that, see how much magnetic debris you get out of that oil… that’s final drives don’t really hold a lot of oil. How much did you get out?
The reason I mention this is, I can’t imagine how changing the oil could make a noise you were hearing go away. If you were hearing noise, if it was a whining noise, that would be the ring and pinion gear I am guessing. But if it was not a whining noise, that could have been one of the bearings in the final drive housing.
did you check for play by grabbing the wheel while it is off the ground( if only you had a center stand) and see if you can get it to move side to side from many angles as you can get a grip on it..
if it is a bearing or the ring and pinion gears. You should see the debris in the oil. But if it is the bearing supporting the driveshaft behind the pinion gear.. you may not be able to detect that by just moving the wheel. You may want to put it into gear with the engine not running, and turn the rear wheel in both directions and see how much play there is, or if you can hear clicking noises. Then see if you hear the noise when the bike is in neutral with the rear wheel off the ground. You are going to hear some noise when you move the rear wheel/rotate it in his normal motion in both directions with the bike in gear, that is just play in the splines of the driveshaft and the final drive and at the end of the drive shaft where it connects to the engine..add all those gaps/play up, and that is probably about 5°of play..
if there is a problem in your final drive. I would buy a used one off of eBay before I would have somebody rebuild that because, if there are fragments of bearings that have been floating around in that final drive. They would have damaged the ring and pinion gears also. That’s a pretty precision piece of machinery inside those final drives. I have never heard of one failing on a Japanese motorcycle however. i’ve heard of them failing left and right on BMWs, but not on Japanese bikes ever since driveshaft started showing up with the 1975 Goldwing..
I don’t know how many miles your motorcycle has on it, or the maintenance that has or has not had if you are not the original owner. But it is just possible that someone may have drained the oil years ago and forgot to put oil in and put it in miles later.Or someone put in the wrong oil. I do not know of a final drive on any motorcycle that does not require gear oil.. or even possibly, that motorcycle might have been in a flood, maybe just covering the wheels, and water got into the final drive through the breather and was not changed.. I once went to buy a Honda XL 250 dual sport motorcycle from a guy that lived in an area that had flood problems about a month earlier. He told me the water only got up to the wheels barely. The bike was perfectly clean. It would not start.. so what’s the first thing you check? Air, gas, spark.
it had gas, it was getting air, so I wanted to check to see if it had spark. I pulled the spark plug, connected the wire, and grounded the base of the spark plug to the cylinder, then I turned the engine over with the Kickstarter. Orange rusty water shot out of the spark plug hole.. I just walked away without saying a word..
check that oil you drained for magnetic and shiny little particles smaller than grains of sugar. Even if you drained that pan, there will still be lots and lots of tiny shiny particles that will show up under a flashlight, and a magnet. Not all of it will be magnetic..
transmission and final drive issues scare me. I have had two transmission lock ups on me. Pulling the clutch in does not save you. The clutch only disconnects the crankshaft from the transmission. It does not disconnect a locked transmission or final drive from the wheel.. The wheel will stay locked till you stop.. ect
on the other hand, that noise you were hearing could be that part that is called a clutch for some reason , It’s the hub with large pins that plug into rubber mounted bushings in your rear wheel. On the outside of that hub is a gear that indexes with your motorcycle final drive. I did not hear a noise from mine but I am reading on the Internet that if you have a noise you can’t figure out what it is, it is that clutch hub attached to the rear wheel that has the gear on it that plugs into the final drive..When I had my wheel off I used to snap ring pliers to remove that clutch hub that plugs into those six rubber mount bushings, and those bushings were rusty. I greased them up with waterproof grease, I put lithium grease on the gear that plugs into the final drive, and I put everything back together. If you’re going to remove that large snap ring to get that clutch hub off of your rear wheel. You’re gonna need a pair of snap ring pliers it opens to just over an inch wide. That is one of the toughest snaprings I ever had to deal with because my snap ring pliers only opened up to about 7/8 of an inch..
Good luck
@@Jodyrides the gear oil i drained was shiny for sure. The sound i was hearing was almost like a whistle between 60-70mph. The last owner did not do maintenance on it. just a gas and go type of person
@@OACSOME
I just thought of something that may be the cause of the whistling noise you here with your Venture at60 to 70 miles an hour
I could be wrong about the year. But I believe 2007 was the last year for what may be the primary gears being straight cut gears.. The primary gears are the gear around the outside of your clutch basket, and the other gear is on the end of your crankshaft. The most efficient types of gears four primary gears are what is known as straight cut gears. They have a side effect. It is whistling whirling noise. Old trucks had it. I remember when I was a kid when milkman used to come around the neighborhoods, their trucks always had that straight cut transmission gear noise.. so if that is what it is, that is normal. Because I do remember reading somewhere that Yamaha changed something to get rid of that noise in 2008 to the Venture’s, and probably to the other motorcycles that share that basic engine design..
I also noticed that my GL 1800 Goldwing had that whirling whistling sound at idle. Kawasaki‘s were famous for having that noise starting in 1973 when they introduced the Z 1 903 four-cylinder. Which later became the chips California highway patrol standard police bike when they upped the CC to 1000. Pretty bulletproof motorcycles even by today’s standards but they had that straight cut primary gear whine..
some manufacturers knew how to get rid of that whistling noise by using what is known as helical cut gears. They are cut at an angle. They are quiet but not the most efficient because some of their energy goes into pushing away from each other sideways as they mesh with each other at an angle..They also have a side effect because of the angle cut to the gears, they have to compensate for that somehow with thrust washers or roller bearings so the shafts don’t walk in the cases with end play..
The next time you change your motor oil, see what the highest weight oil you can use in that engine is in the owners manual and try that. I’ll bet a slightly heavier oil will muffle that sound somewhat. And then, there’s always earplugs. The best earplugs I have found are swimmers ear plugs available in the sporting goods department of Walmart.. they’re made out of some type of a silicone like wax, they fit perfectly, and they are the most quiet earplugs I ever used. The only cost a few bucks for a dozen..
i’d like to know what happens to the sound if you go to the heaviest oil recommended by your owners manual
@@Jodyrides I’ve also read about the gears being cut differently! Just wasn’t sure if it was factual. I use 20W-50, the thickest you’re allowed to use. Thank you very much on this information. I stress less now about this situation now
Really good educational vids for us unknowingly people
I forgot to mention in this video that my 2008 royal star venture has 31,000 miles on it..
I just went through this also. Bad bearings in the swingarm. Manual calls for zero side to side play.
I thought about that. There is no radial play.. just and play side to side. The swing arm does not swing left and right, it only moves completely left and right sliding on whatever those large diameter centers are. The swingarm freely rotates up and down in its normal motion. I felt no roughness in the bearings. I’m gonna have to put a dial indicator on the end of the swing arm, and see if I can get a sidewards swing to it at the end of the swingarm, sort of like a pendulum movement horizontally..
if there was zero allowance for endplay, you would not be able to get the swingarm into the frame. Are there thrust washers that should be in there or that are in there that may be worn?
I reasoned, with no good reason, that the swingarm must be permitted to find the rotational center to allow the driveshaft to self center.
I don’t have a Yamaha official service manual. I’m gonna have to get one to find out the specs.
thanks for pointing that out to me. My machine only has 30,000 miles on it, and all of the shock absorber linkage was thoroughly greased when I took it apart. So I am assuming, which I should never do, that the previous owner had the shock linkage and the swingarm lubed because of how well lubed the shock linkage was..
I wanna take the shock absorber off anyway and change the oil in it..
I pulled the Schrader valve out of the air hose on my 2002 royal star venture, and I let that drain upside down overnight out of the hose. That oil in the shock was cooked/black. I noticed that my bellows over the bottom of my shock is stained, so the seal is probably seeping.. The oil in it currently is still damping..
i’m glad you told me this because now I have an excuse to take it apart again and change that shock oil, and look into how much end play that swingarm should have. I also want to lube the drive shaft splines. Yamaha‘s are not known for the splines wearing, but Hondas have a history of splines wearing…
Thanks for the heads up
Chris, how many miles are on your machine that you had to replace the swingarm bushings?
Your pivot shafts are loose. Not good, surprised you don't have a wobble.
Doesn't look like I can attach a picture to these replies. I have 48,000 on my bike. I didn't need to replace anything, I just took things apart to grease them. It is not good to have any side play in the swingarm. Do you have a manual? Is there a way I can send a picture of the relevant page?
i’m going to take the swingarm off and repack the bearings. They have to be done every 26,000 miles, I am going to assume they’ve never been done even though they move smoothly. I do not think my bearings are bad. They move smoothly and there is no playing them. The swingarm has about a 30 second of an inch side play. But no movement within the bearing in a pendulum movement, trying to get The swingarm to rock. I can get it to move side to side, but I can’t get it to rock. That means the bearings are probably OK fairy but I’m gonna take it off anyway because I want to change the oil in the shock and lube the drive shaft splines. That whole job should take less than two hours
I noticed on the parts diagram that the right side is a roller bearing and the left side is a needle bearing. The right side is the side that would get the torque, because needle bearings cannot tolerate radial loading
Thanks for posting ! . Please keep us posted , and do you have a link for that scissor lift ?
I just went on eBay now to make sure that this works. I typed in the words-
motorcycle scissor lift jack
A page opened up and there were dozens of them exactly like the one I bought. The price is a little higher and what I paid for mine a year or so ago..
on eBay right now here in April 2022. The price seems to be averaging around $68. If you buy one of those on eBay, just make sure you get the one that has those two adjustable perch parts. I used to be a steel fabricator in a fabrication shop. I don’t think you could buy all the materials and make one of these for less than you can buy one already made for here on eBay. It is very strong very heavy duty. 3/16 inch thick steel, looks like about a half inch thick all thread. It actually looks exactly like a miniature of my pneumatic motorcycle lift table. The design is the same. I have showed friends of mine my Lyft Jack, One of my friends bought two of them..
I was watching a video from a company called traction dynamics that seems to specialize in Goldwing maintenance and parts like suspension upgrades on CZcams… they have very first rate videos. When I had my Goldwing, and I had already bought my scissor lift/Jack. I was watching one of their videos, and I was surprised when I saw that they had exactly the same jack under eggs Goldwing they were changing fork springs on. They’re Jack was painted black. Mine is red. I believe you can buy black ones on ebay also..
Just ordered that lift, my bike also needs a tire. Interested to see the condition of my suspension
You won’t regret buying that lift/ jack..I think you will be surprised how strong and sturdy that scissor lift is.
I did have one concern when lifting my venture
make sure you solidly block the front wheel.
I was concerned that I was getting too much angle and I thought that the bike could slide off of the perch’s .. it did not slide because I didn’t go up that high but I figured a fix just to be extra cautious
get two stainless steel screw straps/radiator hose clamps. Put one on each side under your machine and have the screw section at the bottom under the bike. It might take you two minutes to install them..Wrap them around the frame and tighten them just in front of where the perch/stand contacts the frame. That will stop the machine from sliding on the perch of the stand
they will act as stops to prevent the bike from sliding forward on the perch’s..
I had the two stainless steel hose clamps ready to install as I started jacking up my Venture high enough to roll the rear wheel out. Those two perch saddles have some type of a hard plastic or rubber coating, that protect your paint on your frame, and they also prevent metal to metal contact which could cause the bike to slide as the angle increases. That was my only concern ..
It comes with a socket for jacking up the lift, but if you want to do it faster you need a 22 mm socket.I also lubed the all thread. that always makes it easier..
You will have to remove both saddlebags which will take you 5 minutes each.. and you will have to remove both mufflers which will take you two minutes each. Because They are in the way for removing the axle ..
One thing I did that screwed me up when I removed the shock to lube all the linkage… routing the brake caliper hose on the outside of the swingarm, not the inside when you put the shock back on. I almost had to remove the back tire again to get the caliper and hose routed on the outside of the wheel well. I ended up just removing the brake hose from the caliper and rerouting just the hose..
I watched some videos, and I decided not to pull my swingarm off to check the bearings because, all of my shock linkage was greased and in great shape..The swingarm went up and down very smoothly through its arc. It concerns me that it had end play, but I think that is normal so that the swingarm can self center, and because everything else was in great shape as far as clean and lubed on the linkage, I assumed that the swingarm bearings were also in the same shape. I could get them to move side to side, but I could get no movement up and down.. i’m satisfied with that..
The up and down play in my shock linkage was the top bushing of the shock absorber in my video.. about the only thing I could do to remedy that that I can think of would be to replace the rubber bushing and the metal insert it has. I just greased it up and put it back together.. The play in the bushing between the bolt and the bushing was so slight. I’m not gonna worry about it. It’s just when you multiply it by the length of the swingarm, you end up getting about an eighth of an inch of movement at the end of the swingarm up and down. That rubber insert in the top of the shock takes a beating. Even though it is very hard rubber like motor mount rubber or those six bushing inserts in the wheel that that Cush drive rides in. But these machines do not have center stands so all that weight sits on that suspension all the time..
when you pull that cush drive hub.. you are going to need a pair of snap ring pliers that opens at least 1 inch. That is the toughest snap ring I ever had to fight with.. getting it back on is the tough part..
while I had my rear wheel off for the new tire, I also pulled the spacers from my rear wheel bearings and inspected and re-greased them with wheel bearing grease. Wheel bearing grease is not just grease, And Grease is not wheel bearing grease all the time.. wheel bearing grease is a very high speed high temperature grease. I used EP molybdenum black wheel bearing grease. And I cleaned the dust seals and re-greased the seals on the hub/ wheel..
now would be the time to change your brake fluid. I do all my brake fluids and clutch fluids every year. Brake fluid is alcohol based and it absorbs moisture right out of the air through the breather on the reservoir.
I have a brake bleed tool .. I think I paid $35 for it at AutoZone years ago.
I use that to suck the old brake fluid out of the reservoir before I do anything. Rather than send that crappy brake fluid through the reservoir and through the system.. then I refill the Reservoir with clean fresh brake fluid and go down to the bleeder and suck it through with the tool…
brake fluid scares me. If you get that on your paint, you can kiss it goodbye if you don’t clean it off right away. When I change the brake fluid and clutch fluid in the handlebar reservoirs, I get a large black plastic garbage bag and I cut it in half, and I cover my gas tank with that just to be safe. I have a Roll of paper towels ready, and every time I use one of those paper towels, it goes right in the garbage can because you don’t wanna wipe something up with a used paper towel or rag that already has brake fluid on it..
My Venture has a dual braking system.. they had that back in 1983 with a very first venture royale and regular Venture that didn’t have a radio. And 83 they had a stripped-down model of Venture. 19 8060 decided to include all the options on all the ventures and they called at the Royale.. they wanted to be a one up on Honda with the Goldwing. Which at that time, everything was extra. I know because I sold motorcycles part time jan- may for 17 yrs..
in my hub maintenance video. I mentioned that the new tire weighed more than the old tire I had just removed. I am attributing that to the new tire having a lot more meat on it..
On my Goldwing which I sold in June 2021.. I put new tires on. Dunlop elite 4.. The Goldwing head elite threes on it. The worn out Dunlop elite three I removed from the rear of my Goldwing weighed 25 pounds. The brand new Dunlop elite four made specifically for the Goldwing tape machines, only weighed 19 pounds. that was brand new with all the meat still on it. That worn out tire still weighed 25 pounds. When I put those lighter tires on that gold wing, the transformation was unbelievable to the way the machine road and took bumps. It felt like a much lighter machine..
I always replace both tires when one wears out, and always the exact recommended size..
One last thing. When you pull your shock off to grease the bushings/bearings. Pay attention to which way the bolts go in, and don’t mix up the two shorter bolts. One is darker colored , And one is silver/lighter color.. The shock is easy to remove. You might want to put a jackstand under your final drive or a floor jack to make it a little easier to line everything up. But there is an air breather hose connected to the boot around the shock. You’ll have to remove the seat and look on the right side under the seat where that hose comes up and it’s shaped like a J… there is also a Nut. it takes a 19 mm socket for removing the air hose fitting. Don’t lose that nut. I placed my filthy shock absorber inside my parts washer on a tray I have in there just to put it somewhere safe. I didn’t know at the time that that nut fell off the end of the air hose valve. When I went to put the machine back together, that night was not around. I spent three days off and on looking for that nut with magnets under all the stuff I have in the garage, I was out in my driveway with a large magnet in a plastic bag sweeping through, I was out in my driveway with a metal detector looking for that nut. I went to hardware stores, nothing even close. I finally remembered that I had placed the shock absorber in my parts washer when I first removed it, and there was laying in there.. I was just about to buy a new one online
@@Jodyrides thanks for this extremely informative message. I have received my scissor lift and will attempt my tire replacement and suspension inspection.
@@thomasl4953
The way I used my scissor lift to remove the rear wheel.
remove both saddlebags. Should take you about 10 minutes
remove both mufflers, should take about 10 minutes. If they are stuck on and you can’t pull them straight back, rotate the very end of the muffler in a circle just a little bit to spread out the part of the muffler where the clamp is just a little. I like to put anti-seize on these fasteners and on the portion of the pipe that the muffler slides on for next time
now that you have the mufflers and bags removed, place the scissor lift under the motorcycle making sure you tighten the wingnuts after you center the perch on each side to the frame. I started jacking up a lift and it would contact the left side of the motorcycle first. Then it would push the bike up straight up and down, and as it does that, make sure you have the perch on the right side in the exact position to take the weight
Now you can loosen the axle nut
Pay attention to the hose routing for the brake hose feeding the caliper. That Hass to be rotted on the outside of the swingarm when you put the bike back together. I had the caliper on the inside after I removed the shock linkage and the shock, and then I put the wheel on, and I could not get the caliper back in the correct position with the hose on the outside of the swingarm. I had to take the back wheel back off, and move the caliper to the outside.. minor rookie mistake
Pay very close attention to the washer location on the axle on the right side. That is a big thick washer about as big around as the old silver dollars. That is critical where that washer goes..
get the axle to come out while you have the bike relatively close to the ground. You don’t want to be wiggling and pounding on things while it’s up high. I only jacked it up as high as I needed after all the work was done and all I needed to do was lift the wheel away from the final drive..
with the weight of the tire on the axle, it’s a little tough to get it to just slide out easily. If you have a floor jack. Put the floor jack under the tire itself to take the weight off of the axle so it will slide out easily. When you remove the axle. The wheel will not fall down. It is meshed with the final drive..
when putting the wheel back on, start the axle into the wheel, and have the wheel held up by the floor jack again. That makes it 10 times easier to get the gear on the hub to match with the final drive..
then after everything was removed or loose. Then I jacked the bike up just high enough to remove the wheel.. then I lowered the Jack back down. It just makes me nervous having anything up higher than it Hass to be..
getting that snap ring off of the hub so you can remove it and clean it, you’re gonna need a pair of snap ring pliers and open at least 1 inch. That is the toughest snap ring I ever encountered because I didn’t have the right to snap ring pliers..
to get that hub to slide out of those rubber mounts built-in to the wheel. I just used two screwdrivers opposite each other. So it would pry out straight instead of using one screwdriver and having it come out crooked. It doesn’t take much effort to get that out. I hate trying on things with screwdrivers but I think you have to in this case..
while you have the wheel off, now would be the time to pull the drain plug on the final drive and let it drain. Don’t be surprised when you see how much shiny metallic particles come out of that final drive with the oil..
when I let things drain a long time, a lot of times I will let oil drain out of my motorcycle overnight. I have a little orange card that I put my key through and plug the key into the ignition switch. That sign says NO OIL.. just in case.. when I let the oil drain for hours in my truck or my wife’s car. I put the new oil bottles on top of the engine so I can’t close the hood while the oil is draining for hours so I don’t forget to put oil in.. I have seen that happen a couple times we’re people forgot to put their oil in after draining..
One other thing I warn people about. Do not over tighten the hell out of your axle nut. Ball bearings cannot tolerate radial loads.. The axles on this and many motorcycles has a pinch bolt that squeezes the axle from coming out. So don’t put a pipe extension on the end of A breaker bar to tighten the axle nut if you don’t have a torque wrench..
I myself have crushed the spacers between the two rear wheel bearings on the rear wheels of my motorcycles, causing the ball bearings to fail because I over tightened the axle nut like it was the final nut holding a bridge up..
putting it back together, a jack under the tire helps line the tire so you can get the axle in and so you can mesh the splines on the hub with the final drive. That was the toughest part.. don’t forget to put grease on the splines and on the seal.. and make sure you route that caliper on the outside of the swing arm before you put the wheel in there.. once you get the wheel back in under the fender. Lower that bike down before you start tugging and pulling on things. I had my machine up as high as it needed to go to get the wheel out for less than five minutes. Then I jacked it back up to get the wheel back in, once it was in there, I lowered it back down again, just to be safe..
Got my bike running, the fuel cock was screwed up.
how was the petcock not working? What kind of machine? Was it a vacuum operated petcock? Was it plugged up? Do you have rust in your gas tank possibly? Have you checked your fuel filter? you might want to check your fuel tank, breather, hose, or the fuel cap if there is not a vent hose. I don’t know what kind of insect they are there’s some kind of a bee.. They like to plug up hoses. They fill them with like mud and hardens. I have to put golf tees in my hoses and fuel lines hanging in my garage because of Bee’z.
The three things in internal combustion engine needs are
Air--Gas--Spark
Hey Jody, what type of noise were you experiencing prior to looking at the final drive and clutch hub? Was it the "jetsons" type of noise like a whining flutter, hard to describe I guess. And did cleaning that up get rid of the noise? I had read on the venture tech site that sometimes it can be the clutch cage or final drive gear to driveshaft backlash, but not sure. For the exhaust, It's not that bad if you remove the cylinder cover with the three bolts first next to it, number three. I did just loosen both exhausts at 3 and 4 to replace the clutch spring due to slipping when hard throttle in 4th and 5th gear. My cheap ass $43 fix. Left it on the side stand and didn't need to replace the new oil change I had done previously. Also, did you pull the driveshaft and grease it? Some say that is a pretty good idea to do as well. TIA
dirty here, sorry I didn’t get back to you months ago, I just noticed your questions now, the week before Christmas 2022..
that whirling whine sound you hear coming from the Venture engine is nothing to worry about. That is if we’re talking about the same sound. That is simply the primary gears whining. They are located on the right side of the engine .. when you had your Side cover off to service your clutch, you could see both of the primary gears.. The big one is around the outside of the clutch basket, and the small one is on the end of the crankshaft. That is the most efficient simplest least number of parts ways to get the power from the crankshaft to the transmission.. my GL 1800 Goldwing had that same whirling sound from somewhere in the engine that had straight cut primary gears or some kind of a drive gear maybe on the alternator, maybe on the flywheel, I don’t know about the gold wings. My Kawasaki Z 400 original owner also has that sound. My 1973 Kawasaki 900 Z one had that same sound because they had primary gears instead of a primary chain.. it’s just one of the little quirks that all motorcycles have of one kind or another..
as for the driveshaft on my venture.. yes I did lube the splines where they plug into the yoke of the universal joint. It’s a simple job. I used molybdenum grease mixed with copper anti-seize. I remember the 1980s Honda shaft drive bikes driveshaft spline suffered and some of them failed if the owner did not lube them..
The most difficult part of lubing the driveshaft on my Venture, was getting the driveshaft to slide back into the yolk on the u-joint .. it wasn’t that the driveshaft would not slide into the yolk, it’s that I couldn’t hold the u joint still and slide the drive shaft into the swingarm myself.. you need a helper to do that job. One guy holds the you joint still using a screwdriver or his fingers under that rubber boot at the output shaft of the transmission. There is a rubber plug just above the you joint that makes the job a lot easier to hold the u joint still.. I was able to do it myself but it did take me about two hours because I kept trying different ways to hold that thing still while pushing the driveshaft in by myself..
just be aware that there is a spring at the final drive end of the drive shaft that goes on the end of the driveshaft as you inserted into the final drive housing. I believe that’s to keep the driveshaft pushed forward while allowing it to float front to back when necessary as the swing arm moves up and down… don’t lose that spring. When the driveshaft comes out of the final drive housing, if you are not aware of that spring being there, it could fall on the ground and go straight to China. It’s about an inch and a half long, and it’s a heavy coil spring similar to a spring inside of a ballpoint pen, only much thicker. Don’t lose it..
I wish I had your knowledge
wow.. i’m not somebody to be as smart as, I’m somebody to be smarter than..But thanks anyway
@@Jodyrides I'm just about to get my first yamaha 1900 stratoliner it's 2007 13000 miles on it what should I look out for but it's been well looked after I'm told
U2
I just put a video on here yesterday in titled --buying used motorcycle do’s and don’ts
That should cover the basics when anyone goes to see a motorcycle they are considering buying
@@Jodyrides fantastic thanks for letting me know 👍👍👍🇮🇪🇮🇪🍀🍀👌
Swingarm bearings destroyed... Need to get other ones
I thought I should do an update. Actually the bearings were fine, the end play adjustment from the right side with the hex head on the swingarm bolt just needed turned in and re-torqued after I removed the swingarm and cleaned the bearings and relubed them. They were smooth up-and-down motion, and there was no end play after i took out the end-play with the hex head adjuster on the rt side with an allen wrench..i was over thinking it…I have put about 15 hours of riding time in since I serviced the shock linkage, changed the oil in the shock absorber, and repacked the swingarm bearings, not to mention lubed the drive shaft splines at both ends.
my bearings on the shock linkage and the swingarm were not dry. The owners manual calls for relubing the swingarm bearings every 16,000 miles I think it is. And what I think happened was, the original owner had the bearings serviced and did not adjust out the end play on the right side correctly.
while I was doing the job I tried to find out the sequence of tightening those bolts that the swingarm pivots on. I couldn’t find anything about sequence. But I thought about it, and it made sense to me that you have to torque the left side to 72 pounds first, because that bolt goes all the way in, and torquing it to 72 pounds, just means it’s not going to come loose.
The bolt on the right side with the hex drive in the center is the one that is for the adjustment side to side play. The right side is the one that is going to determine if the swingarm moves side to side. I did that by feel .. The same way you have to torque trailer or even front wheel bearings on a car, and steering head bearings. That is an educated feel, and that’s how I adjusted the right side swingarm pivot bolt, then I tightened the lock nut on the right side to 72 pounds. With the shock not even in the bike yet , I moved the swing arm up and down and there were no bumps or grinding or notches in the motion. It was a nice smooth up-and-down action/motion. That’s good enough for me..
February 24, 2023… update
I removed the shock and changed the oil in the shock again. It’s been a year since I changed it the first time. The oil that came out of the shock was dark. Not black like the original oil that was in the shock when it came out. I did notice that there was some Oil staining of that rubber cover over the shock absorber again just like last year. But last year I put in 124cc of oil.. this year, I can’t be sure that’s how much oil I drained from the shock because when I had the shock upside down I pulled the Schrader valve out of the air hose, and the shocks still had air pressure, which by the way it was holding for almost 6 months, since the last time I put air in the shock was September 2022.. that’s a good sign.. but I did drain the oil into a measuring cup, and I had about 110 cc in the cup, and about 15 cc on the workbench and on the ground due to my carelessness.. I replaced the oil with 7WT fork oil. 124 cc..
I was able to remove the shock without removing the rear wheel, but I did take off the saddlebags, The little side covers, the right side passenger floorboard, and the seat.. do you have to do that job with the bike on a scissor lift like I have in my video, to get the rear wheel slightly off the ground. Then to line up the shock absorber holes with the shock on the reinstall of the shock, you have to raise or lower the bike with the wheel on the bike, to line up the holes so you can get the bolts back in at the top and bottom of the shock.. to line up the holes that way it was actually pretty uneventful..
@@Jodyrides wow.. Pretty impressive answer :D
@@Jodyrides later I wanna buy a Royal Star but a Tour Deluxe version... Theres one thing which is useful to know... Bolts and dimensions are Imperial or Metric?
Im in Europe... But 'cause our emission laws its realy hard to get a bike like this... So maybe I should import one from the US
The bike is Japaniese (they use metric) but made for US market... So I do not know a correct dimension system!
@@danielszabo-pal2685
I think it’s a safe bet that all of the Japanese motorcycles are all metric..