Seized rear suspension relay arm nut removal hack

HOTSHOT III

Here's a copy of a post I did on a DTR FB group a while back showing how to remove the rear suspension relay arm nut (it's a nut which looks like a bolt) which always seizes on the DTR.
Some people chop them out with an angle grinder; this risks damaging the frame if you slip and you'll need to buy/recondition another relay arm which can be expensive.
It's also difficult to beat the nut out because the sidestand bracket is in the way and you can easily damage its internal thread. This method presses the nut out square and you can usually re-use it.

You need:
A length (approx. 160mm) of M6 studding (hi-tensile is tougher than stainless)
M6 nuts or studding connectors (studding connectors in the pics are much deeper and stronger than normal nuts)
A 24mm socket (nut hex is 22mm but the spigot on the frame prevents a 22mm socket from fitting over it squarely)
Loads of different sized M6 washers

First take off the lower chain roller and spray the whole area with WD40 or similar to let it start to work.
Take out the retaining bolt from the chain side and put that and its washer to one side. Find 2 or 3 washers small enough to fit through the hole in the frame but big enough to sit on the end of the nut like in pic 1 (if they disappear inside the nut they'll damage the thread).

alt text

Pic 2 shows the brake side. Put the socket over the head of the nut followed by some bigger washers and then the M6 nut.

alt text

Start doing up the nut on the brake side (the one on the chain side will disappear inside the relay arm). This pushes on the nut on the chain side, pressing it out square while allowing the head of the nut to move into the socket. Pics 3-6 show why it seizes; even with a grease nipple to lube the bearing, no grease ever reaches the surface where the nut and the bearing's inner race contact each other. Clean these up with wet and dry an make sure you get loads of copper grease in this space when putting it back together!!

alt text

If your relay arm doesn't have a grease nipple, now is the time to fit one!! Pic 7 is the original needle roller bearing from my '93 DTR which is still fitted in the bike now and passed an MOT in April 2021. Grease nipples cost pence, drilling and tapping a hole is an easy job for any engineering shop and a grease gun costs £25 on ebay. If you keep greasing the linkage/swingarm bearings they take years to wear out and you'll hardly ever need to take them apart (the 1990 bike I owned in 1992 as a teenager covered over 30,000 miles without my ever needing to do anything to the rear linkage; a big part of what swayed me to choose the DTR as a hobby 30 years later), I do mine every time I wash the bike.

alt text