125-200cc linkage kit

08 cr 144, gotta do the bearings on my linkage and swing arm .....
seems all balls is the way to go? oem??

Just got done doing the '09 WR125 swingarm and linkage...The allballs linkage kit and swingarm kit does come with the new metal inserts/spacers, bearings and seals.

The problem with the kits, in my opinion, is the bearings. I think the bearing manufacturer can vary. The stock type of bearing has the needle bearings in an internal cage; can't fall out and look to be a German made bearing. The allballs needle bearings are loose needles in just the outer shell and may be made by whoever. If your metal inserts/spacers are in good shape and can be reused you may want to find a local bearing company and buy better bearings/seals. The sizes are in the parts manual for the bearings and seals.

By the way, getting the bearings out is no fun at all. If it has the same linkage as the WR there is a small ridge between the bearings in the linkage rocker arm. You can't press the first one out...you can try to get it to move with a drift pin and then use a deep well socket to press the other side out. If you can't get the first one out...well cutting the bearing outer casing with a Dremel tool might be the only way.

If any anyone out there is waiting to do this, don't. Get in there early... inspect, clean and grease. If you replace just the seals once in a while the bearings should last a long time. Skid...Good luck.

And I'm sure others will be glad to lend their '2' cents, insight and war stories.

all balls kits on the way. Not looking forward ot this ....
will look into the bearing up grade.
going to dig into this next week ....
how bad was it putting everything back together?

Just did mine last week on 2008 cr144. My bike has over 100hrs and all the bearing where good but the one that hooks the shock to the linkage on the bottom the needle fell out as soon as I took the bolt out. The other looked great I do give them a shot of grease every 5 hours which is great the bike has grease nipples to do this. I just took lower linkage to a machine shop to push out old bearing and put in new. Took them 10-15 mins and cost $20.00 well worth the money.

Skid, the disassemble and reassemble is a piece of cake. It's all about the bearing removal...
Remove the rear tire, wire up the rear caliper to the frame, pull the plastic frame protector pieces - and take it apart. I lay my pieces out on the floor and mark them with small scratch marks; a 'V' on top - pointing forward. There really is only two pieces and the swingarm...At the swingarm, make sure the built-in rubber seal in the bearing is on the outside and on reassemble both metal spacers go on the inside. The rest is remove and replace, with the removal being the issue. Again, getting the first bearing out of a set is no fun. Maybe someone here has a good procedure, like I said I ended up cutting the outer bearing casing to get them out. After the first one is out you can use a large socket as a catcher and a deep well to push the other side out. I put them back in with the bench vise as my press with small pieces of wood between the metal to metal stuff. You'll find different sockets that are good pushers, just make sure to keep the bearing square to the hole. Using the vice you'll need three hands, if you have accesss to a small press, it would really help.
Just make sure when you have all the bearings, seals and spacers in and the parts are still off the bike that everything rotates freely and smooth.

The reassemble of the parts is real easy, swingarm first(manual calls this the 'fork') - torque it down. Make sure you have a torque wrench thats adequate. If I remember right the swingarm is around 90 ftlbs. Linkage arm to the frame, rocker arm to bottom of swingarm, rocker arm to bottom of shock, linkage arm to rocker arm.

Any real specific questions...let me know. Again, Good Luck!

Just to clarify Skid...I am assuming that your linkage is built like the '09 WR125 we have...

If it is...remember there is a built-up ridge between the two bearing sets in the rocker arm!

They can only come out of, and go back in the side they are on, do not try to press them both out of one side!

This is my "special tool" it's the Mk1 version the Mk11 has two sockets of the required size. Ithink we can all see how it works. I will generally use a drift to remove bearings but i've used this to press out bearings where there is no obstruction.
I use it to fit the new bearings and it works a treat.This is the swinging arm from our little Kawasaki KR1s 250 that we are restoring. I've used it on all sorts including the Husky. Hope this helps

done ... used the all balls kit. it had everything except the shock mount bearing which was really the only one that needed to be replaced! If I knew better I would have just cleaned and replaced the linkage bearing, I think the oem stuff is probably of much better quality. the swing arm bearings were pretty raunchy so I did those too. It all went pretty well. I used the vise as press method to get it all back in. Thanks for the replies guys!!

The All Balls was too wide about .020 to fit in the swing arm, had to grind it down to fit, it was the same on the last kit but I used a buddies lathe.
Also they shipped me 6 of the rocker link bearings instead of 4 and 2 for the link to the frame

Got an email back from All Balls, confirmed that the there was a problem and must have gotten old stock and the problem has been corrected.
As why there where 2 wrong bearing in the package, who knows but I'm hoping he is going to send me the right ones.

If any anyone out there is waiting to do this, don't. Get in there early... inspect, clean and grease. If you replace just the seals once in a while the bearings should last a long time. Skid...Good luck.[/quote]

I just pulled my shock out of my 11 310 after 14 hours to fit a different spring and thought I better have a look at the linkage bearings.

Well the shock bush (steel part) is badly worn already, and one of the linkage bushes is the same. I wish I would have done this earlier and greased them up from new, they had bugger all grease in them from the factory.

Needless to say, I am now going to check my swingarm bearings and steering head as well !

When I got my bike new we stripped it down and re greased and never seized everything, I got two years out of my linkage and just changed my front wheel bearings and just changed my rears last year. My bike has around 200 hours of year round riding, rain, mud, dust and only on the 5th top end.