My original intention was to bring the SV and get the suspension set up but Friday while I was heading up for an overnight camping trip with Rita, the 'busa experienced some issues with bumps. A little squirming and when I pulled into the camping spot, I heard fender scraping as if I'd caught something.

On the way home Saturday, I did some testing with brakes, engine braking and just using the rear brake and the feeling in the front end changed with each of the different stopping techniques.

Sunday morning, I pulled the calipers and replaced the pads (at about 30% left) with new ones I had and went for a ride around the block. At each of the right turns it was basically ok except for one when I heard the scraping again.

Puzzled I decided to run it up to tech day instead of the SV because we're supposed to be heading up to Custer SD tomorrow (Tues). I was looking for some troubleshooting advice so I knew what the problem was.

Pilot and I ran the bike around in circles to see if the problem could be identified. While we heard the clunk and scraping, we couldn't find it.

After the suspension session, Matt (MattTLR) offerred to take a look. I brought the 'busa over to the shade and we snagged a couple of Pit Bull stands. When we got the bike up on the front stand and wiggled the front tire it was pretty clear that the right bearing was shot. It moved a good quarter of an inch. Ah, problem identified.

Matt was kind enough to offer to show me how to replace the bearings, unfortunately we didn't have any with us so we arranged with Scott to leave the 'busa in his garage and we'd chase down a pair of bearings and seals and come back this afternoon to make the swap.

After Pilot finished up with the chain session and backed the bike out of the garage, I pulled the 'busa up and we put it up on the stands (and there was much grunting; the 'busa's a heavy bike ). Matt and I pulled the calipers off. Matt undid the pinch bolts. Dave had a front axle nut so we could remove the axle (which Matt did). The bike wasn't high enough to get the tire out so we used a hex wrench and lifted the fender up and got the tire out.

Problem though. The bearing was so bad that a little less than half the ball bearings were gone and there was pieces of the last ball bearing all throughout the right side. The inside race was off center by quite a bit because of the missing ball bearings. Matt popped off the seal and the bearing came right out. We shook out the rest of the bearings and the spacer.

(continued...)