Is there supposed to be this much play in the rear skid arm?

[Phazed]

Well, my front skid arm is demolished (surprise, surprise), so I'm in the process of refurbishing my entire skid on my 07 base model. While dissembling, I noticed that the rear arm and the bracket that it attaches underneath of it, both have a lot of wiggle room producing a lot of free slop when no load is on there. Take a look at the video. I tried to show what exactly I'm talking about the best that I could. You can slide both brackets 1/16-1/8" left and right and there is slop lifting up and down as well.

Is this normal? If not, how can I correct it? New shafts and washers to shim it?

VIDEO: http://youtu.be/gKyjn-DBAic

 

[cannondale27]

Its almost normal as long as the shafts arent wore. Those are the grease fittings that liked to leak out the sides before getting grease in there. They can be rewelded. The almost normal is because it looks like the rear arm Pivots are really lacking grease,

 

[ATV PRO #11]

Just redid my skid. All new shafts for me and I didn't have that much play.
Grease every 2nd ride for sure.
How many KMs or Miles you have?

 

[DigitalFusion]

seems like a lot of play. Thats normal? Cause Im about to order like 150 bucks worth of hardware and shafts for my phazer project, and if thats normal, I can save quite a few bucks. Dont want to regret it tho?

 

[Phazed]

Its almost normal as long as the shafts arent wore. Those are the grease fittings that liked to leak out the sides before getting grease in there. They can be rewelded. The almost normal is because it looks like the rear arm Pivots are really lacking grease,

I see that the fittings are only tacked on 2 sides. Can I just weld it where it isn't tacked to fix that? Maybe I will do that and pump them full of grease and see if it tightens things up. I haven't pulled the shafts out to look at them yet, though.

Just redid my skid. All new shafts for me and I didn't have that much play.
Grease every 2nd ride for sure.
How many KMs or Miles you have?

Just over 3000 miles.

 

[ATV PRO #11]

Its almost normal as long as the shafts arent wore. Those are the grease fittings that liked to leak out the sides before getting grease in there. They can be rewelded. The almost normal is because it looks like the rear arm Pivots are really lacking grease,

I see that the fittings are only tacked on 2 sides. Can I just weld it where it isn't tacked to fix that? Maybe I will do that and pump them full of grease and see if it tightens things up. I haven't pulled the shafts out to look at them yet, though.

Just redid my skid. All new shafts for me and I didn't have that much play.
Grease every 2nd ride for sure.
How many KMs or Miles you have?

Just over 3000 miles.

10500 here and wasn't half as bad and has never been apart until couple weeks ago. Maybe more of an issue in there or just lack of grease as cannondale stated. I'd pull both shafts and inspect. Would suck to have it fail on the trail for ya. Never mind the cost of damage compaired to maintence.

 

[Phazed]

Well I got back into the shop to mess with is some more. I pulled the shafts and they looked good. So I cleaned them up and pumped them fulled of grease and they are nice and tight now. That saves me 40 bucks anyway.

 

[ATV PRO #11]

Honestly I don't think grease will hold it tight for more than a couple bumps. I don't think it's a major issue, but that was alot of play despite the lack of grease initially.
Keep us posted