Why You Need to Grease ATV Swingarm Bearings
If you know anything about the Honda Rancher line of ATVs, you know they’re basically “bulletproof”, as long as you maintain them properly. That includes greasing the swingarm bearings.
Unfortunately, our 2003 Honda Rancher TRX350 got lost in the shuffle of our collection of motorcycles, ATVs and side-by-sides we have in-house, and one important maintenance task got neglected on that particular machine: greasing the swingarm bearings.
The rear swingarm bearings on our Rancher 350 were pretty much shot due to lack of maintenance, specifically proper greasing. This catastrophe was totally preventable had this simple maintenance task not been overlooked.
All ATVs have a swingarm and pivot points. On this particular model, Honda designed pivot points on the outside of the frame that connect to the bearings. Most units have an axle that goes all the way through both bearings, and is secured with a bolt and nut on the other side. But what they all share is the need for some type of dust seal or grease seal, along with the bearings that require regular greasing, or else they’ll fail.
We should have pulled the swingarm apart far enough to inject some fresh grease in there. Had we done so, we wouldn’t have had to remove the entire swingarm, extract the worn-out bearings, replace them, grease them, and then put it all back together.
The following is a screenshot gallery from the video above that shows the hassle you’ll have to go through to replace neglected swingarm bearings on a Honda Rancher 350.
Our Honda Rancher 350 is more than 20 years old, but with a little bit of grease application and keeping up with the tolerances on the rear end, we could have avoided having to pull it completely apart and replace practically everything inside because it’s all worn out.
Part of the process of replacing the swingarm bearings is disconnecting the rear brake cables while you're taking everything apart.
If the brake cables are damaged or simply worn out, you should replace those while you're at it. Watch the video above to see how to replace the rear brake cables on a Honda Rancher 350.
Some of the parts we had to remove and/or replace from our 2003 Honda Rancher 350 for the video above include the following:
For removing and replacing swingarm bearings and other types of bearings, we often rely on bearing driver kits from Motion Pro. Watch the video below to learn more about Motion Pro’s bearing driver kit.
Partzilla sells a variety of bearing puller tools from Motion Pro and other brands to help you get the job of removing and replacing bearings done, which you can check out here.
Ninety percent of all the work shown above could have been avoided if we had greased the bearings on either side of the swingarm. All you have to do to prevent all of this trouble is to remove one pivot point at a time, put a grease gun in all the way back, give it two or three good pumps, and then release.
That little bit of preventative maintenance could have made the bearings last a whole lot longer, and saved us a whole lot of trouble. Regardless of what kind of swing arm setup you have, pull it apart and grease it, as long as they’re not sealed bearings.
Bearings aren’t the only part of an ATV that require greasing as part of regular maintenance. Zerk fittings also need to be greased from time to time. Watch the video below to learn how to use a grease gun and grease the zerk fittings on an ATV.
