My girlfriend got a 96 KDX200 from an old guy that had put a number of new nice shiny aftermarket parts on the thing. We picked it up and it seemed pretty good until I went to grease the bearings in the rear. They had turned to dust, and what hadn't turned to dust was seized up.
Great.
So after a couple weeks of using penetrating oil and pounding on it, we decided to just cut the swingarm and suspension linkage off. We found an 01 swingarm with the linkage attached for $60 on ebay, so we put it on order and I headed out to chop the bike up.
First the swingarm gets lopped off with the sawzall.
Next I went side to side on the left arm with a grinder. I made one cut and then rotated it around and made another. Then it hammered right off.
After getting that side completely off I was able to get some freeze off in there. The bolt pounded right out after that.
Do these bearings look normal? Of course I saved them because you could always use spares. Hell, I might even put them back in to save a little money.
Next I cut as far through the linkage as I could and hammered the rest off.
Next I made 3 lateral cuts with the grinder. The disk couldn't reach in to get the edges without taking out the mount so a hammer and chisel separated what little was left.
Done!
Never again will I buy a bike without thoroughly going through the suspension. I've never taken one a part until now, so it was a good learning experience I guess.
