My friend and I just pulled his rear swing arm and shock linkage apart on his 2000 400ex and found that the factory grease was minimal at best. Another friend found the same thing on his 2000 400ex's a-arms. I took a 97 300ex swing arm off and 1 of the needle bearings was shot and the other was almost as bad. This was the first time the swing arm was off. I strongly recommend new quad owners regrease the suspensions. This is a widely known fact with the motocross crowd.

 

I'll second that. I had my '99 300EX about 4 months and decided to check a-arm bushings, lower shock bushings, and everything else that needs grease. All were in serious need of grease!!!! Grease is your friend. It's worth the trouble to pull stuff off and look. It's cheaper to invest time than money. I grease all my bushings and pivots every 20-25hrs now.

 

hey thax for letting me now about this, but how do you regress the shocks?

 

On the front shocks there's a bushing on the lower shock mount that comes out. Your upper shock mount is stationary(doesn't move) where as your lower mount is the pivot for your front suspension, that's where you really need the grease. I'm not familiar with the linkage on the 400, the 300 rear shock doesn't have removeable bushings. I just slap some grease in the mounting hole on the top and bottom of the shock. Hope this helps.

 

Same deal on mine. Except I waited a year to take the rear components apart. The disk side axle seal was wasted. The parts inside had a not so nice coating of dust, rust and what little bit of grease Honda put in there. I drilled the housing and put grease zerks on it so I can give it a shot every once and a while. I am still going to tear it down again next fall to see if the zerks help at all.
It kinda sucks because I bought a new quad so I could just go ride it. Who is going to want to take apart their brand new quad right away just to regrease these things?

The front end components were very well greased from the factory.

 

The grease zerks seem like a good idea but the seals aren't made for that therefore you risk blowing the seals out when you pump them with grease. Also the wheel bearings are sealed so the grease wouldn't help them. From my experience a once a year going over is usually enough. But you 4x4 mud guys might need it more

 

Honda just doesn't seem to think about grease too much when they build quads. No grease fittings and the grease they put in there is a joke. My neigbor works at a machine shop where they use a nuclear grade grease. This stuff costs about $50 per tube (but he gets a real good deal on it if you know what I mean) and it will makes bearings and anything else last for years longer than normal grease.

jason
96 350XX

 

depends where you ride, if your wheel bearings get submerged in water or mud this gets inside the external seals and corrodes the internals and eventually gets through the bearing seals.
If the space between the external seals and bearings is totally filled with grease then it is much harder for the water to get in.

 

I don't think it matters where you ride. There is not enough grease in there from the factory. The seal wears out, you go through a mud puddle or wash your quad, there is water in there. It is pretty simple...

I put the zerk on there to lube the seal and displace any water between the seal and the bearing (hopefully not forcing the contaminated grease into the sealed bearing. I Haven't blown it out yet. It is possible to force out the seal, but if you do it once, you should learn (as I have...) how to grease it right. It is an experiment, I am telling members about it, not telling them to DO it.

I was at NAPA the other day and saw some needles for greasing sealed bearings. Putting in zerks is too much work, so I am going to try the needle on my 350X and 250R(if I ever get it running)

 

I went riding today and noticed a squeaking sound from my lower front left suspension mount. I only heard the sound when going slow. When I press down on the front suspension, the lower mount squeaks. What should I do?