RIVA said:
Has anybody noticed lateral play in their swing arm and if you did, were you able to correct it. I am talking of about .5 to 1 mm.
Just from what I've noticed from working on a ton of Tenere's. I've seen several with a bit of movement, check to make sure the swing arm axle its at the correct torque spec. Also, I've noticed that about 50% of the bearings are dry when I remove the swing arm. I know the bearings are 'self lubricating', with that being said I've seen rust on the dry bolts. I take them apart and just add grease to all the surfaces and torque everything back to spec. Most of the time this does wonders for the whole rear swing arm. I've seen one or two customers bikes that the bolt was darn near 'glued' or rusted in the down in the suspension linkage and the swing arm pivot bolt wasn't much better. If you ride off road, cross streams, and generally beat on your bike off road like I do, I would suggest pulling the swing arm once a year.
You also can inspect the drive shaft. I recently found this, there is a drain hole on the bottom of the drive shaft side. A customer had a rock, mud, leaf, or something blocking that hole. When I pulled the swing arm about 3/4 of a cup of mud, oil, crap poured out on the floor.. The drive shaft had rust and the rear diff seals at the bottom were nasty from holding all that liquid garbage. If you don't get around to pulling your swing arm to inspect all this stuff make sure to poke a Q-Tip or something up that drain hole and make sure its not blocked.....
Last note, because I see many Tenere's its a very good idea to go over the bolts on your bike at least once a year. I think I have a syndrome, when I have a bike come in I eye-ball it over and find loose bolts, missing bolts, parts about to fall off, right in front of the customer. They are always, "im glad you found that before it fell off on the highway"... look over your bike for safety !