This 02 1150RT i bought has these installed. Anyone have opinion/experience with these? Just curious. http://rubberchickenracinggarage.com/bushings.html
RCRG recommends Honda Moly to lube them. I don't know anything about grease but I was told that Moly will ruin them. They looked like this after 2 seasons, probably less. Bushing Race I'm not blaming anyone, I put a new set in lubed with synthetic grease without an EP rating. We'll see how that goes.
If they're installed correctly they seem to work well. They're a little tricky to get right. I couldn't do it, so I went back to the OEMs.
Hey twinsig, Timely posting, I've just got a set that I'm going to try to install in a 2001 GS. Do you know how many miles your bike has since they were installed? As Jamming said, I've heard the RCRG ones last longer. For what its worth, I had my original ones replaced with stock at about 55 000 kms, and they're due again at 115 km... Jim and JVB, thank you for the heads up that they can be stubborn - might have to get a mechanic for this one...
The trick is getting them to fit over the pins. The set I installed were .0015" smaller inside diameter than the factory needle bearings. The instructions state you may need to lightly sand the pins to fit inside the bushings. It's usually not a good idea to modify factory parts to fit aftermarket parts. I lightly honed the inside of the bushings to get the proper fit on the pins. The hardest part is getting the driveshaft splines to line up! They are not maintenance free, installation instructions recommend cleaning and lubricating every 10,000-20,000 miles.
I dont know how many miles, but i do know the guy used Moly 60. I am wondering how much side-to-side movement is allowed. I dont have very much but I am new to BMWs. Motoradmike: that looks pretty bad, could they have been in a bind? Everyone: These are supposed to facilitate FD pivot while attaching FD to the paralever, correct? It seems to me there's not much/shouldnt be much movement (what it took to gall-up that bushing in the photo), and primarily the thing is needed strength & durability for attachment.
I'm about to fit a set of these, still wondering whether high temp wheel bearing grease would be better than a moly, thoughts anyone?
please tell your story when youre done... it appears i must inspect & adjust mine. hope thats all i have to do! the list is growing on this old RT: TB rebuild + valves + zero & sync Parabushing adj ABS Brake bleed Rear Brakes done! (has anyone ever let thier carrier pins corrode to the point one of em is siezed?) Hm! well, i wanted something to do, and i got it... HA!
Jebus - is reading really this hard from Rubber Chicken website We recommend the HONDA MOLY 60 PASTE for lubrication of the Paralever Bushing kit as well as many other spline lubrication needs on your BMW. You can conveniently order the Honda Lube here: HONDA MOLY 60 PASTE. We also recommend Loctite 263 Threadlocker for the BMW OEM pivot pins as well as for our Paralever Bushing Replacement Kit. Loctite 263 can be found here: LOCTITE 263 THREADLOCKER And if you want to know the manufacturer installation instructions (rather then how Billy Bob did it) http://http://rubberchickenracinggarage.com/Downloads/PBK_Instruction_Insert.pdf
got a reply from rubber chickenhead racing and they said "no discernable movement...", i'll go along with that. guess im going to order the replacement bronze bushings ($25ea) moly & loctite and be ready before i take it all apart.
After having done 120.000 km on one set of bearings, I am convinced that "my" BMW tech is correct when he says that if the bearings are cleaned, re-lubed and properly installed once per year, they lat the lifetime of the bike. [TaSK]
In general rules, Moly is for high pressure steel to steel contact, like in gears, ball joints, tie rod ends etc. For bronze busing on steel surface, conventional general purpose grease is better. A small moly content of 5% or so no problem, but the 60% type greases would be a mistake in my opinion. Rod
Rubber Chicken bushings: After looking at the bushings and the need to sand the pins/bushing to fit and locktite the bushings on to the pins and the annual refit/retorque, I decided to just put new OEM bearings in...
The material, by the RC website is Bronze - 660 OILITE...in a perfect world it should not be greased at all - but it is a pourous material by nature wunder how carbon inpregnated bronze would work - except for the corrosion issues with the graphite....
That's in interesting point. If the RC bronze bushings need to be cleaned and re-lubed each year too... then what's the advantage over OEM bearings?