Hi all,
I own a 2010 G450X, it only gets used for green lanes (trail riding) - I must say what a great bike. I do however have a question - on the subject of greasing the swinging-arm pivot bolt / spindle - according to the manual I have (appears to be the genuine BMW repair manual for my bike - it's on CD - I got it when I bought the bike 2nd hand) there should be an m6 cap headed bolt screwed into both ends of the swing-arm spindle, however, on my bike, only the gear change side has said bolt in. Anyway, following the manual, remove both bolts and pump grease in both sides. It is not very descriptive of how you get the grease in but I refer to common sense and if a thread is there, I would screw an m6 grease nipple in, attach my grease gun and pump away until I seen clean grease coming out of the countershaft exit points. Upon further investigation, the clutch side of my bike is not only missing an m6 cap headed bolt as the manual suggests it should have, but it is actually missing internal threads! So I can't see how I can attach anything to get the grease in. I've tried contacting BMW about this, and unfortunately they have been of absolutely no help whatsoever. I started with my local dealer, which was a complete waste of time. I then went on to contact customer services, which was a waste of time at first (no response for a few months) but I finally got through to someone who was very keen to help. However the query then got passed on to the "Technical Manager" (I think it was) and he suggested I "press the threaded grease nipple against the hole which has no threads and pump it in that way" which I thought was rather poor advice coming from BMW, I'd end up with grease everywhere but in the swing-arm shaft! I'm convinced this is a manufacturing error. The Technical Manager suggested that it was a cost cutting exercise on the later bikes (apparently, he had an earlier [08?] bike in front of him which had threads on both sides). Surely though, if they weren't going to put threads on 1 side to save money, they'd do the same on the other side too, as both sides serve the same purpose as far (as I'm aware)?
Anyway sorry to rant on and I know it probably seems quite minor to some but as the bike is used off-road and is subjected to a lot of muck/grit/water I want to make sure I can prevent any premature wear and keep her in good working order. I'd say there should be an internal thread there to accommodate a grease nipple but perhaps I'm missing something and there's a special tool I need or something?
Any help much appreciated.
Josh