Hello I am Max, and I want to as a question about replacing the swingarm on my 1980 Harley-Davidson FLH with a new one, along with new bearings and seals. My Harley-Davidson service manual says that when doing the installation I should “attach a spring scale to the end of the swingarm and tighten the pivot bolt to preload the bearings to 1 to 2 lbs” I was thinking that somebody might know of an alternate way to install the swingarm since I don't have a spring scale available.

There's a cheap and easy solution, Max: Just go to your local bait-and-tackle (fishing) shop and pick up one of those little spring-type fish-weighing scales. Those are what quite a few Harley-Davidson mechanics use, and they're accurate enough for this particular job. I've seen some scales priced as low as 150 THB, but maybe you want a bit better model.

To use the scale for this purpose, hook it to the end of the swingarm, right at the axle slot or on one of the shock-mount tabs, and see how much the end of the arm weighs before applying any preload whatsoever on the bearings. Then tighten the bearings until the scale indicates that an additional 450grams to 1kilogram (1 to 2 pounds) of force is required to lift the swingarm. At that point, the bearings should have the prescribed amount of preload.

Quote by: ThaiDesign

There's a cheap and easy solution, Max: Just go to your local bait-and-tackle (fishing) shop and pick up one of those little spring-type fish-weighing scales. Those are what quite a few Harley-Davidson mechanics use, and they're accurate enough for this particular job. I've seen some scales priced as low as 150 THB, but maybe you want a bit better model.

To use the scale for this purpose, hook it to the end of the swingarm, right at the axle slot or on one of the shock-mount tabs, and see how much the end of the arm weighs before applying any preload whatsoever on the bearings. Then tighten the bearings until the scale indicates that an additional 450grams to 1kilogram (1 to 2 pounds) of force is required to lift the swingarm. At that point, the bearings should have the prescribed amount of preload.

Thanks for the advice, it worked fabulously