856 (pain in the) Rearend

[will]

Friday was a great day to have off work - and actually be home. Nice and cool with gray skies and the woods were full of deer & wild turkeys.

Sadly I couldn't get very close to any wildlife because my main rear pivot was making horrible noises.

So tonight I pulled the whole thing apart with a mind toward putting in a set of bearings. As many of you know, the through hole is off center with the pivot on these bikes, so boring it out is a little tricky. Turns out it's so far off center that boring through would actually blow out the sides of the slender center section of the pivot "block."

So back she goes with new o-rings, polished bushings, and a gob of Pedro's. This probably won't last 24 hours of riding before it starts to self destruct again. Harrrumph!

My best guess is somebody screwed up in the design, so they just counterbored the pivots off center until the next major design revision. Looks like this was a quick fix for an unforseen swingarm clearance issue.

Wish Proflex had made the main pivot like my old Schwinn S-Series. That was caveman simple, but stiffer n'hell.

[Simon]

Thats a pain Will,I was going to convert my old (now my wife's) 856 to pivot on sealed precision bearings but also found the hole going though the mount also offset so I didn't bother,others on this site have said there's are central (Tmaybee say's his is fine)have to agree the one I'm currently converting is central like Trevor's and I've already bored it out and the s/arm, modified a through shaft and converted to sealed bearings,
Simon