Is Yamaha afraid of grease?

Originally posted by crazycarl
The yellow material is actually a solid grease poly-lube pack. This lubrication offers several advantages over conventional grease. Longer service intervals because the grease leaks less staying in the area, this also keeps dirt from getting into the rolling contact point.
There seems to be much confusion on this subject. Many think that these bearings are inadequately lubricated, when they probably offer the longest service life from the factory before needing to be regreased.

Hope that this information helps.

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yeah, it helps me a bit, but i don't know how the rollers are supposed to turn when they are sealed in the grease. i'm guessing it is easier to assemble the swingarm with the needles sealed in their housing. how far off am i?

Has anyone not torn their bike down to grease and if so,how did it standup?

As the 3rd owner of my '95 300exc, I just tore down the swingarm & linkage for first time?. Found all bearings had some dirty grease, I cleaned, repacked and replaced seals. Now the '99 Xr is next. What are the yellow chock marks for on the Honda nuts?

I was really impressed on how much grease KTM puts on their bearings, even the stem bearings. After 2 years, I tore down my 00 KTM250exc and everything was great. I clean up everything and did a regreasing job.

Now I have seen other bikes just under a year old and it was a scarey sight. Frozen linkage bearings, frozen swingarm bearings, and rusty stem bearings.

I agree, for a $5,500 bike, they could put a little more grease in those places.

utah nate, you need to lube all the bearings and linkages (Wheels, steering head, rear suspension (top and bottom)), grease the chain, oil the air filter......anything I've missed? Oh yeah, the swingarm too.

Get yourself some waterproof grease and start lubing. Pack as much as you can into the bearing rollers and around the outside of the bearing as well.

Hope this helps.

If you open it up and see only a little dab of grease, you must first understand how much grease is needed for friction surfaces. There are actually calculations to estimate how much grease will be "consumed" during operation of things. You can bet that a mfg will only place as much grease as needed until the first recommended service. Even with your warranty truck, there is a recommended service schedule and the length of time between recommended sevice takes into account how long the servcie (or greasing) should last.
I hear y'all saying that grease is cheap....well it isn't cheap. Grease, like many other things, usually gives you what you pay for. Good grease is not cheap, trust me. Oh yeah, that little tube of 14 oz. that you bought from PepBoys didn't cost too much, but tens of thousands of squirts of a quality lubricant costs plenty. I know of greases that cost about $2 a tube and some that cost over $100 a tube.
Bottom line is, if you think the mfg and dealer should put enough stuff on your bike to make it maintenance free, you are in the wrong sport.
Shoulda, coulda, woulda....don't get the job done. Now go get your wrenches and grease gun and be happy! :)

You can get a tube of red Mobil-1 synthetic heavy duty waterproof grease for around 3.99.

My guess is that during the assembly of the bike they are not adding anything like grease or Loctite.

In a high volume assembly environment, screws (where necessary) are purchased with “Loctite” already painted on them and the bearings are purchased with the grease already applied. The assemblers just pull the parts from a bin and install them. I know that some of the fasteners on my YZF have that same dull red compound that I have seen on many purchased fasteners. It works pretty darn good too. As for the bearings, there must be some kind of standard that Yamaha specifies regarding the application of grease. This standard would be imposed on the supplier of the bearing and monitored by Yamaha’s receiving inspection function.

So, apparently the supplier is slacking off on the grease application and Yamaha is not catching it, or, they are meeting a grease application specification that Yamaha has deemed adequate. My guess is that Yamaha has determined that the supplied amount of grease is adequate to meet their lifecycle testing requirements. My only hope is that their testing was performed on production representative units and not bikes that were hand assembled using great care in an Engineering lab (much like we would do in our garages)!

If Yamaha’s quality system is adequate and certifiable, they will have performed validation testing on production built bikes. They will also be assuring that the bearing supplier is applying the correct amount of grease (no less, but also no more than the specified amount). So, the real question is this……….does Yamaha have the same life cycle expectations as we do?

Bottom line…………….pull it apart and grease the heck out of it. Maybe only for peace of mind, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Originally posted by BadgerMan


Bottom line…………….pull it apart and grease the heck out of it. Maybe only for peace of mind, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

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AMEN :cool:

Yup Yup just bust uot the impact and get to work it really doesn't take that long to do and if you don't do it you will end up having to replace the bearings within a matter of time and that isn't a fun job so just take it apart and grease the damn things.

Originally posted by Jaybird

Bottom line is, if you think the mfg and dealer should put enough stuff on your bike to make it maintenance free, you are in the wrong sport.
Shoulda, coulda, woulda....don't get the job done. Now go get your wrenches and grease gun and be happy! :)

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Good point. :)

Originally posted by KDX220rm
You can get a tube of red Mobil-1 synthetic heavy duty waterproof grease for around 3.99.

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Is the Mobil1 REALLY waterproof? I think on the tube it says something about water, but I don't think it says waterproof. I just lubed my suspension with Bel-Ray Waterproof grease. I tried to get the water washout value from Bel-Ray and the wouldn't tell me what it was..... I told them what the WWO value was on the Mobil1 and they said theirs had a much better rating and beat nearly all of the Mobil other ratings except the high thermal rating that you can get with a synthetic grease.

Jaybird, what are your thoughts on this??

Mike,
First, the high temp rating is very pertinant when you are dealing with applications that are indeed in high temps (200-500 deg f.) as commanly seen in industrial settings. But, we will never see those temps if we are practicing good maint. Only if you let a bearing run dry will you see that sort of temp. Doesn't mean that a good higher temp rated grease won't hold up better when heated...it will. We just don't need to concern ourselves too much with the heat part.
On water washout....some crappy greases just don't have enough integrity to keep water out. They seem to mix very easily with water and make a hyrdo/petro paste. A grease that has been designed to resist water wash without comprimising lubricity, is a good choice for wheel bearings, linkage bearings, etc. I happen to thnk that the Bel-Ray product is a good one and will work just fine since it has been designed to resist water wash and provides good lubricity. I also feel that the Mobil1 synthetic universal will do the same job. It does in fact resist water washout and has unsurpassed lubricity. Neither are completely "waterproof" per se....for that you may want to use silicone rtv. (I'm kidding ya know)
Both products will do the job and do it well. With that said...look at the pricetags now. (grin)

I'd like to add here....Mike, you can do research and find out just what product has the highest numbers and buy a boatload of it, but it won't help you near as much as increasing your frequency of preventive maint.
I guess what I'm saying is, even using a cheapo grease, a man will have good luck if he replentishes it according to schedule.

Originally posted by Jaybird

I'd like to add here....Mike, you can do research and find out just what product has the highest numbers and buy a boatload of it, but it won't help you near as much as increasing your frequency of preventive maint.
I guess what I'm saying is, even using a cheapo grease, a man will have good luck if he replentishes it according to schedule.

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You've got that one right. That was the general feeling I had about the whole thing. :D