DRZ Rebuild Begins!

Motorcycling
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For those that don’t know, the engine on my DRZ 400 went pop last year, and it’s not been fully repaired since. I’ve not got the bike home and plan on doing the rest of the work myself. In true DIY style, I’ve gone completely out of my depth and am taking on a huge project.

The engine went pop, but it’s been rebuilt with all-new internals. There’s a problem with the gearbox left, so that needs the engine pulled out and dismantled. A mechanic’s best guestimate is that the selector forks have gone, failing that, the cogs are buggered (ouch!).

The engine is ready to come out, only the swingarm pivot is keeping it in place, and for some reason, I can’t get it out! The bolt on one side is off, so it should just pull through like a wheel axle, but it doesn’t, bugger! Have tried the universal big-hammer technique, to no avail.

So I’ve been picking other bits off to either throw away, clean or repaint. The tank is off and currently being sanded back to be resprayed by us black, and Acerbis replacement fairings will go on. I did think about sanding the existing fairings back and spraying, but it’s soft plastic and I fear it bending and the paint cracking. New plastics aren’t that expensive at around the one ton mark.

The bike is going to be mint again when I’m done with it! It’s not really economical to repair professionally, with a street value of around under two grand, but it has a lot of sentimental value to me, after taking me motocrossing, a little enduro and a hell of a lot of city riding. With the odd bit of private-estate fun (as pictured) thrown in.

Here’s how the bike was last time I rode it, and how it looks now. The great thing about this bike is that it’s quite simple so I’m quite optimistic about being able to take this job on. I mean, what can go wrong?

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Good Luck Jay,
With the bike stripped down it looks like its been hit up the arse LOL
I can’t wait to purcharse one of them im pretty sure i’ll be getting one shortly i had some trouble with a dealer telling me the 2001 was 40bhp and needed restricting so i told him forget it.
I also need to do my A2 test so ill have to that first then i’ll have some piccys of my DRZ I hope.

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There’s a lot to do Trix-8 It’s got a lot of dirt on it from the last Motocross outing. Restricting a DRZ has got to be as simple as putting in a smaller jet in the carb, surely (I’m no expert here)? 40bhp sounds about right. Good luck on getting one, they’re fab bikes for the city.

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Jay isn’t the DRZ 2001 models power output around 32bhp tho? the only reason i say that is because on the akapovic site they got the standard bhp from 7,500 which is 32.8 and with the systerm it puts out 34.8.
Is the dealer tryin to rip me off? cause im young

Anyways beside the point this is about ur rebuild well good luck again and i hope i dont start people talkin about something else besides ur rebuild soz.

Im goin to try and make it down to the Cubana this followin wednesday as long as worrk finishes earlier if not then i’ll bump in to ya some over time.

Good luck again

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Good luck mate! Regular updates please!

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Hi Jay

glad to hear the rebuild has started.
I think the swingarm pivot is just a brute force thing but be careful to avoid damaging the threaded end. It is supposed to be a tight fit.

Cheap plastics can be had from Off Road Only among others:
http://www.oro2u.com/acatalog/SUZDRZ400.html

Good luck

Duncan

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Looks to me like you buggered the end of the pivot pin from what I can see in the picture. In that case you’ll need a hub puller coz you won’t have the strength to deburr it by pullin it thru. Try lots of penetrating fluid also, but leave to soak for a few hours.

Have always found the best way to get these pins out is to keep pulling whilst unscrewing, even tho the thread is prolly an inch long it still finds a way out.

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Thanks Duncan. New plastics will come towards the end of the project.

Puppy, it wasn’t me that removed the nut from the end of the pivot you can see there. It was done by a mechanic friend, who said he had a nightmare with it, it was jammed in. The nut’s off, and as far as I can tell, the pivot is like a big nail, i.e. the other end has a flat cap which holds the pivot in place when the nut on this side is secured.

It should just push from from this side, to the otherside now that the nut is off. I’ve tried pushing it through, but it just doesn’t budge, even when considerable force is applied via a block of wood and a hammer on this side of the pivot.

Any ideas?

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A bigger hammer!!

It sounds like the pivot pin might have worn and now have a step on it stopping it going through the frame. I’ve had similar problems in the past and found the best way to get the pins out was brute force.

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That makes sense, okay, I’ll work something out. I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t something inside I could damage by using excessive force.

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Hiya Jay Hows it going?

I dont know if any of these will help but it was on a search engine,

did u try to remove or atleast loosen all the motor mounts then try to take out the bolt??? i did that to a friends bike before and it worked, it wasnt a DRZ though. hope that helps if not then im out of ideas

Get the bike on a work stand (well, ahem, i asume youve already done that.) and wiggle the swingarm.
Is there a lot of play??
If there is an excessive amount you may have cracked the bolt.
This happened to my YZ400 and where the bolt split it mushroomed a bit. :eek:
Yea, it was …hades.
Had to remove the rear wheel and engine and hacksaw that $@%& bugger out. :scream:
Hopefully this hasnt happened to yours, but then again…
Soak that bugger -w- PB1 or WD40 overnight and use a sledge.

I have had great luck with a product called break free.It works 10x better than most nut breakers.They have a web site,I think its breakfree.com.

Wheres that industrial estate piccy gone?

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Hi Jay, check out www.thumpertalk.com on the DRZ forum and search for pivot. Loads of info on how to get it out (along with photo’s). By the way, there is also a DRZ gearbox on eBay.co.uk at the moment if yours is screwed. Let me know if you need a hand with anything.

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Good lucky mate, never tried to rebuild a bike so i’m little to no help but keep us posted

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Don’t know if this is of any help Jay, it’s an old trick to remove stuck wheel spindles, so I don’t see why it shouldn’t work.

brace the bike in a gateway (or any two parallel strong posts) to one side, block out from the otherside a bottle jack, use a flat ended drift from the top of the jack onto the end of the bolt/spindle/pivot and pump it out.

Not expained well, but you should get my drift?

I’ve never worked on a DRZ, but if it’s anything like the WR400 swinger, then it’ll have the 4 normal bearings fitted ,two internal & two external (unlike my old CR250 which had just the two needle bearings) as well as a longer coller each side between them, if the swing arm hasn’t every been off or re-greased these can stick to the pivot as they come with that white powder stuff on that the manufacturer seem to love, you may have to destroy the outer bearings if this is the case

the last job like that I had wouldn’t move at all, no matter what I tried, in the end I had to take an angle grinder to it, cut through a couple of spacers and remove it in three sections, hope you find an easier way.

Just another thought, is the pivot weight bearing from the engine? try jacking the lump up, it might help.

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Ah, thanks Sutcir. I will have difficulty bracing the bike as I’ve taken so much apart, but I’ll try and form a suitable brace and get a heavier hammer and a block of wood to perform the actual pushing, and I can look at jacking up the lump, because the pivot goes through the frame spars and into the engine as you say. The bike is currently suspended by the frame rails running under the bike, so the lump is putting weight on the pivot. I hadn’t thought of this!

I have the service manual here, and the diagram for it just shows a set of needle bearings and other collars, with a simple pivot pin to push through. I’ll have a look at the techniques mentioned in this thread, though last time I tried, I used a metal object to sit on the pivot pin to get room to strike it with a hammer, and this made more noise than I was happy with (neighbours).

Thanks for all your help guys, it means a lot, as I’m working blind here to a degree!

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Don’t use a block of wood, use a metal drift.
If the pivot is stuck in by eg. corrosion then the ringing that you get from a metal on metal contact will help get it moving.

Duncan

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Progress at last! Thanks to the advice I received here, I’ve got the pivot out, which was just corroded and jammed by the look of it. Some very healthy brute force saw it removed and the engine yanked out.

The service manual says to steam-wash the engine before removal, but I don’t have one of those, so took it into the garden and soaked it with the nastiest degreaser/brake cleaner I could find and set about destroying two scubbers and untold rags. It’s still dirty, but clean enough to put onto the dining room table now

I’m a little anxious about starting the engine work as I don’t want to get into the situation of not being able to identify all the bolts for when it’s re-assembled. I think I’ll get some jars and labels ready so I can keep everything compartmentalised.

I’m watching a new gearbox on ebay. It’s for the e-model, which is the more hardcore off-roader than the s-model I have, but it seems to be the case that it’s the same gearbox, with only engine differences between them (higher compression, etc). I suspect slotting in a new 'box will be easier, but we’ll have to see how it goes, no point replacing when just the dogs are bent (hopeful).

The chassis will get stripped down as well, as I plan on painting the sub-frame and perhaps the frame again. I also had great fun removing the helmet-lock from the sub-frame with a hacksaw and large hammer. Quite theraputic really.

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Aaaaaah the taking apart and cleaning. Love it a lot. Hate putting the bloody thing back together though. Jay, in order to keep all those bolts, screws etc in order use an egg box! No it sounds odd but you can number the egg box with the screw/bolt number references as in your manual. Helped me in the past. Good luck!!

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I think I’ll also get a service box of nuts & bolts. A lot of the stock ones have seen better days, and I’m bound to lose some Thanks for the egg-box tip, hehe.

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Like I said before good luck taking apart and cleaning it all good fun but I would be lost when it come to putting it back together

Practice makes perfect, or so im told… Bike No10 here I go again lol