Replaced my drive shaft after U-joint failure

Two weeks ago on my way home I noticed increasing vibrations at speeds over 70mph.
Initially I figured the bearings were finally on the way out - a week before when mounting new tires I noticed some rough spots in the bearings - but when I put the bike on the center stand and turned the wheel I heard clonk-clonk noises coming from near the engine.

So I got a used drive-shaft from the dutch version of Craigs-list and pulled the swingarm.

Not sure if you can see but in the photo below you're looking at what's left of a bearing. The outside of the casing had completely broken off, on the other side there was a big crack running along the bearing.



While I was at it, I also replaced the rear disk and wheel bearings this weekend

Sounds like you caught the problem before it caused bigger problems on down the road. Good job and doing the repairs yourself.

glad you got it taken care of I had the rear end problem and just recently got it fixed also I figure at 150,000 miles something had to eventually go wrong

Good catch and nice work!

The one on the '01 went bad at 120,000; but, it damaged a bit more because I didn't catch it as soon as you caught yours.

Mark

Glad you got it sorted without being stranded. Good work.

Woonjas said:

So I got a used drive-shaft from the dutch version of Craigs-list and pulled the swingarm.

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Good that you caught it when you did and repaired it yourself.

A question. Did you need the driveshaft? Or was it just easier to replace the whole thing? Could you not have just pressed the spider out and replaced that in the old driveshaft with new bearings?

My wing's shaft went out last year. It was amazing to me how bad of shape it was in, yet the vibration that tipped it off was not that bad.
If you feel a vibe, don't push it till you check it out.

SMSW said:

A question. Did you need the driveshaft? Or was it just easier to replace the whole thing? Could you not have just pressed the spider out and replaced that in the old driveshaft with new bearings?

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Technically I guess I could've done with just replacing the U-joint part of the drive shaft, but I've only seen complete (used) drive shafts for sale.
45 Euros wasn't a bad price I think.

Mark said:

The one on the '01 went bad at 120,000; but, it damaged a bit more because I didn't catch it as soon as you caught yours.

Mark

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What else did get messed up?
Hope you didn't end up wiping out

My drive shaft looked much worse on my 06ST when it failed. Glad it didn't leave to stranded on the side of the road.

970mike said:

Sounds like you caught the problem before it caused bigger problems on down the road.

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On on the road! +1 on the good DIY. I couldn't pull that off.