I am glad I read this thread and one on ADV before starting this project. Lots of great info. This rear wheel is no harder to deal with than any other bike I have owned. The first time is always a learning curve. The one thing that I found makes all the diff in the world is run a strap over your seat and around the rim to take the pressure off the axel. This also makes putting back together much easier. Set the wheel back on the hub and run the axel in without putting brake or spacers back in. Then strap it in place and remove axel. Now I had two hands to put everthing back together, very easy. Someone wrote they had trouble putting the axel back in. If you look in the hub you will see a part that floats in the middle, I stuck my finger in the hole and centered it. The axel went in no problem. As for the rubber damper in the hub I sprayed a little Teflon chain lube on the parts and it went together no problem. This product will not damage the rubber. The rest off this info was posted on ADV by WASP and is a must read. Thank you Wasp.
Originally Posted by Wasp
The washer does go between the swing-arm and the caliper mount... Outboard of the caliper and against the head of the rear axle bolt.
The rear swing-arm is assembled similar to a set of front forks. The axle is tightened against the final drive side and floats in the right hand side until tightened by the pinch bolt. This removes compressive stresses from the swing-arm.
At assembly, tighten the axle pinch bolt on the R/H side of the swing-arm, fully tighten the axle nut (final drive side), then loosen the axle pinch bolt and tap the top of the swing arm several times with a rubber/nylon mallet to allow the swing-arm to spring back un-stressed.