Zerk Fitting-stock Steering Stem?

[Drtridr18]

I lube the **** out of my steering stem every time I ride, and every time, it stiffens up and squeaks soo loud it's embarrasing...Honda stubbed thier peter on that design for sure.

Anyways, I thought of machining a split bushing out of teflon, with a grease groove in the middle, but I think what I'm gonna try first is drill a hole in that front retaining plate and thru that rubber bushing deal, braze or tig weld a threaded bung onto the plate, drill and tap for a grease fitting with a little remote hose so I can get to it w/o removing the plastic. That way i can shoot some bearing grease in there every now and then, and theoretically it should work a lot better smoother.

Any thoughts????

I'll let ya know how it works....every now and then I impress myself.

Thanks

[Sparks425Ex]

Dude what are you using for grease? I hope you not like some ignorant people and are using WD-40. because if you are i would like to let you know that it is a De-Greaser. Use jsut about any bearing grease and it should stay there for a while. How tight are you tightening the bolts that hold teh rubber bushing in. They should be 24 ft-lbs. I do about 30 ft-lb just to be safe and make it good and tight.

Other wise, If yo are using the correct grease and it si still not working then you ridea sounds like it would work but damn that is alot of work just to keep it greased.

[Drtridr18]

No it's factory tihtness, i've never removed it till yesterday, and I use white lithium grease...maybe that's not the right stuff, it does work fine for a little while, i was kinda thinking that it would be a good way to grease the thing without removing the plastic or the stem clamp again.

Thanks

[SGA]

I thought about installing a grease fitting also.
I used to use white lithium but I found out over time it tends to dry out. Now I just use good quality wheel bearing grease on everything. I grease the steering shaft about every 6 months. Everytime I pull it apart to grease it, theres alway some grease left from the time before. It never squeaks since I started using wheel bearing grease.

[Drtridr18]

Well I made the thing today at work, came out real real well-like it's supposed to be there. Bead blasted the stem clamp, drilled and tapped a piece of 5/8" 12L14 Steel hex(what we had in the scrap bucket) for a 1/8-27 NPT pipe thread(for the grease fitting) cut it off about 1/2" long, countersunk one end extra deep so it would center itself on the convex of the clamp, Tig welded it on, thru-drilled the hole, and painted it all black again. I used an elbow fitting with about 2.5-3" of tube and a zerk on the end so it would route itself thru the cable retainer and so I should be able to grease it easier. Now all i have to do is drill a thru hole in that rubber bushing so the grease can get in there.

Maybe a lot to go thru, but I thought it was pretty easy, and a relatively cool idea-looks factory. I hate the idea of having to take off all that stuff to stop a stiff steering stem...that squeak irritated me reaaal bad, if i wanted it to squeak and make noise, I would have bought a Yamaha-j/j...banshees are awesome too.

While I have all the plastic off and out of the way, I'm gonna get in there and adjust my valves, might as well I figure. But when I get it all put back together, I'll tell you how it actually works.

Thanks!