So your thinking....front wheel maitenance - thats a little different. Well, this all started with flipping my front tire around. Done this because of some freaky wear. But I think this is probably normal for knobbies. You can somewhat see what I'm talking about in the next pic.




Anyway, considering there seems to be a few here changing tires soon, I figured I'd post up this little maintenance thread. Some may find it useful.
While I had the bike jacked up, I figured I would check the bearings. Grabbed the top of the wheel and gently pushed/pulled sideways.....a very small bit of movement. Guess the bearing are starting to get bad. Might as well pop em out and stick in a new set. Bearings are dirt cheap and once they start to get bad, they won't last long. Plus they'll more than likely cause problems at the most inconvenient time and/or place.
Popping them out is fairly easy. Hammer and some sort of long drift. Keep in mind that before you start hammering, remove any lip seals. Sometimes there may be a hidden circlip holding stuff in place. A lesson I learned a long tome ago.
The first one is the hardest because the edge of the bearing is hard to get at.Once that one is out and the centre bushing removed, the second bearing is much easier to get at. It was a good thing I decided to do the bearings. For some reason the original bearings didn't have an inside seal. As you can tell in the next pic shes not too healthy looking. I don't think it would have lasted much longer.



The replacement bearings I bought are sealed on both sides. You don't need to buy the bearings from the dealer, most commercial supply shops will have them.Normally you can get the bearing number off the bearing itself. In my case - 6202. This a standardized number, and all major manufacturers will make it to the same specification.


OK....Once you have everything removed, clean up the surfaces including the circlip groove. Dental pics work great in grooves and 3M scrubby pads make cleaning metal parts easy. Don't use emery cloth to clean the bearing surfaces of the hub- you want the bearings snug fitting. To much emery clothing and you can get a loose fitting bearing after a while. Here's what I call cleaned up good enough.



In most cases your bearing is gonna be a snug fit. But if for some reason the bearing slides in and out of the hub easily, this has to be remedied. A loose fitting bearing can spin inside the hub later on down the road if it starts to seize . Then your hub is ruined. There are a couple remedies for this situation. First you can buy some bearing retainer liquid. It's basically thread locker for bearings. Place some on the outside before you install. I personally don't like this method - you are basically hoping it works. The second method, which is what I prefer, is to centre punch lightly around the surface where the bearing sits. keep the sacing even all the way around. What this does is that it causes the metal to raise slightly around the punch mark. Now when you try to place the bearing in you'll find you have a snug fit.

OK....now it is just a matter of putting the new bearings back in. Don't forget to install any circlips and lipseals that were removed. Good idea to change the lipseal as well, even if it still appears good. They are dirt cheap and keep water/dirt/mud out--cheap insurance if ya ask me.
Another tip: Always install bearing in a hub by tapping evenly to the outside race. Hitting the inside race can cause damage to the *****. Some people use a socket of the same diameter. My method is to take one of the old bearings and take a slight skim off the outside race using a bench grinder. Do this before installing the new bearings so that you can tell ya have enough skimmed off. It should be easily installed/removed into the bearing pocket of the hub. If you use the old bearing for installing without skimming some off the outside, well... it gets firmly seated with the new one. Another lesson I learned the hard way. Hold onto this modified bearing for future changes.

Lastly, seeing as how you have the wheel off, greasing the speedo gears and cable is a good idea if you haven't done it for a while. Here's my speedo all disassembled and cleaned up:


It all comes apart faitly simple. Remove one bolt and the hub can be disconnected from the cable. The remove circlip from centre shaft and then the washer and plastic gear can be removed. Then the small gear can be gently pried out thru the cable opening. Nuttin' to it.
In my case the speedo cable is easily removed from the cable housing. Take note of how much cable is stuck out. Mine looked like this:

Then just pull down on it and out it comes . Give her a coating of grease and feed back up through. Should go all the way back to original position. It may take some turning of the cable to get it right.
Phew....that was a lot of writing just for wheel maintenance. I know most of that was straight forward and boring for most but if it helps just one person it was worth it.
I probably missed some stuff. Others can feel free to add anty extra tips. Anyone has further questions...fire away.

 

relic, that tire wear is definitely common, especially on dual sports with knobbies that see a little more pavement time than pure dirt bikes. It's caused by braking. Good info on the bearings and speedo drive.

 

Nice write-up! Thanks.

I spent a couple of hours doing front wheel maintenance of a different sort - the spokes on my 2nd set of rims. It seems it had been so long since any of them were turned that every single nipple was seized, so I had to use vice grips to hold the spoke in place while I used the spoke wrench to crack the nipple open. Before I did that I sprayed some WD40 on each nipple (from both the inside of the rim and the outside) and left it over night. I managed to un-seize all but one of the spokes which I ended up having to cut off. Will be ordering a new one from the dealer this week as fortunately Kawasaki are one of the few manufacturers that sell individual spokes (rather than selling them in full sets).

Once I replace the 1 spoke I will have to go through the process of "truing" the wheel which should be fun. I would advise you guys undo then redo each spoke nipple a quarter or half turn every few months to make sure they don't seize on like mine. It's a goo idea to make sure none of the spokes are too loose at the same time, and make sure the wheel is still true as spokes stretch and bend over time and stressing.