First of all I'd like to thank Dana for sending .gifs of the X1 shop manual. The instructions and pictures in the manual are execllent and were a big help.
If you would like to download the shop manual pages required for this job here they are:
Spring in Colorado means lots of snow on the ground. . . I guess it is time for a new tire, time for a new pulley, and time to polish this X1's swingarm. When the polisher said "$80" I said "sounds good." I had to go buy some stuff for the job. First off was a $10 tie down strap with hooks. I removed the tail section and took it to the polisher. This thing looks like a guppy or something.
I really thought the exhaust system needed to be removed even though the manual says nothing about it. I went ahead and removed the exhaust system and then remembered to look at the manual pages. Ooops, wasted effort, and I scuffed the black finish on the side of the engine. arrgghh! Kinda defeats the purpose of making the bike look nice. When I removed the headers, I noticed the gasket was protruding into the port a little.
In the mean time, I hoisted up the rear end and removed the tire. Those are some big ol' axle nuts. I used a 36mm socket.
Everything works pretty well IF you follow the instrucitons in the shop manual. One thing I did not want to believe was that I had to remove the oil filter. I think this picture proves that as the frame moves upward, it pivots into the area of the oil filter. Yes, you have to take it off.
On the other hand, I got away with not fully separating the swingarm mount from the frame. As you can see in this picture (left side) they are still making contact. I was still able to remove the bearing adjusting bolts and entire swingarm without lifting the frame any higher. I think this will make assembly much easier.
You will probably have a hard time finding a hex driver large enough for the swingarm pivot bolt. It is a 1/2" hex, most auto parts and even the Matco guy I called only had up to 3/8". I used a 12mm hex driver I found at Sears, with two layers of rags stuffed in to take up the .7mm slack. It worked OK. And I should be able to get the 100 to 110 ft lbs of assembly torque on it without any damage.
I used a jackstand and scissor jack under the transmission/engine. Not much bike left. :)
4/28/99 Got the bike back together no problem. Nasty weather means no good outside pics, but here is one inside.
Ride Safe,
Chris