Side (Kick) Stand Pivot Lube

[36654]

I've had a few recent instances where my side stand doesn't fully retract, hanging 10~20-degrees off vertical towards the "up" position.  I'm thinking the pivot joint needs some lube, but the owners manual only states ......... "use a suitable lubricant".

Only opinions on what's a suitable lube?

[Grumpy Goat]

Heavy duty grease. Good enough for any mechanical interfaces low down to the ground where there will be road debris. When so contaminated there is a better chance that the outer surface of the grease would get the grit and the inner surfaces would still be reasonably lubricated. That would be my guess.

That said, if the stand is lazy in retracting it could be the spring that needs to be changed. For me that is the likely root cause.

[Duckbubbles]

Heavy grease is great but would require disassembly of the pivot.
If you don't want to do that, just give it a shot of some WD40 while you work it up and down.
The side stand on my R11S was getting lazy retracting and I did that with good results. If it gets lazy again I'll repeat.
A curious fact- I was considering replacing the springs on the S with some R12XXRS springs since the side stand on the RS retracts much more smartly.
Looking up the part numbers I discovered that exactly the same part number springs are used between the two bikes 21 years apart!

Frank

[BobAin'tStoppin']

You could try chain lube also. The light, violatile stuff evaporates out and leaves the heavier stuff after evaporating off.