I offer the full rebuild service on these swingarms (all vintage Honda arms) now. It consists of custom-fitted 841 Oilite Bronze bushings, made on my lathe, and custom-aligned bore centers to match the collar (or new collar) to those bushings after installation. A full rebuild gets the Lifetime Warranty, a partial rebuild gets a 50,000 mile warranty. These warranties are for 100% replacement, if anything goes wrong with my work, or if it wears out in that time. You just have to grease it on schedule. The Oilite will forgive you if you are a little late, like on a long touring ride, and won't damage anything.
I started doing this in late 2006 because Honda has changed their replacement parts to inferior parts, for whatever reason. Their bushings are now made of pressed steel, and since the collars are hardened steel, this wears very quickly: most arms I get for rebuild have these parts inside and have worn or rusted to lockup in 5000 miles or so. It is simply not possible to lubricate steel-on-steel: any lubrication manual will tell you so.
The collar for the "F" arms and CB750K5-later arms is not available from Honda anymore, but the older style collar is: I am also beginning to make collars in case Honda stops theirs. I 'convert' these "F" and late K arms to the earlier design during rebuild, which includes the original grease seals that worked and end cap spacers (Honda calls these a "bush" now) that accurately center the arm in the frame. I am just now beginning to make bronze versions of these end caps, too, for the more performance-oriented rider.
I highly recommend the installation of the earlier style swingarm bolt, which has grease zerks on both ends, with American zerks installed (I do those, too). This will ensure perfect lube action in 5 minutes total time, from the sides of the bike, instead of by standing on your head under the swingarm to get at the center fitting. This bolt is required (at this time) for the Lifetime Warranty because the center-zerk arrangement does a poor job of delivering any lube to the ends of the collar. The center-zerk can work, if you use the RIGHT grease and lube it exactly the RIGHT way, but it can take 30 minutes to do this task, so few do. Without this older style bolt, the warranty must be 50,000 miles on the "F" and later K arms.
I can also replace those shock bushings: they go out toward the inside of the arm, in from the inside, too. The holes in the arm are tapered .0012" from the factory. Use a pair of 3/8" drive sockets, one large, one small to fit the OD of the old bushing. Install a 5/16" grade 8 bolt and lots of washers and pull the old ones out, press the new ones in. Use lots of penetrating oil on the way out, grease on the way in.
I don't make and sell just bushings, because the tube on the swingarms is usually oval and/or flared toward the outside from years of riding stresses, so the bushings must be tapered or oval to match on the OD. This is what generates the need for the final bore alignment procedure I use to make a perfect fit. It is simple for a manufacturer to make a bronze bushing with an oversized center hole so the collar will still fit after such a tortured installation, but it will leave side-to-side motion at the rear axle even after all your hard installation work, or within 1000 miles thereafter. You won't find that with my rebuilds, guaranteed.
A few $$ from the work goes back to SOHC4.net for support. If you'd like more info, contact me at my e-mail: mgparis@concentric.net .
