Got a question/favor to ask for Inzane.......

[Stanley Steamer]

My Old Green Dragon is coming up on about 113,000 miles.....I have a new pinion cup, drive shaft, and u-joint with new boot in hand......I had planned on getting Big BF to replace them this year but now that he's in the Heaven Chapter of the VRCC, that's not an option....there are only a few people I know and trust to help me get them replaced......I know Daniel doesn't like to tear into other people's rides at a major event.......Hubcap has always been gracious to help me in the past...even suffering a broken tooth when a tire tool snapped up and hit him in the mouth a few tire changes ago.....the last two tire changes I've just taken the wheel and tire to a small Harley shop and paid them to swap the tires for me and then I've assembled and re-greased everything...

I made a note on my last maintenance log entry that I'd like to swap the pinion cup(driveshaft out) the next tire change because there's just a little wear on the pinion cup side of the driveshaft...minimal, but I know it can only get worse.......I have about 5300 miles on this last rear Avon tire and looking back over my maintenance log, the last few have averaged around 6,500 miles......most I ever got was 9,300(on a tire I plugged with regular string plugs after picking up 2 screws in the first 200 miles then installing Ride-on which I use for tire balancing anyways).....I'm a little nervous to start my trip out with that many miles on that tire even though there's still some meat left in the middle.......

To make things worse, it felt like I felt a little vibration in the rear end on a test ride yesterday.....may have just been some rough roads that I was traveling on....

I have a new Avon rear tire and Ride-on that will be here before the weekend hopefully....I'm just leery to try to change all that stuff out the weekend before a main ride....be nice to throw those parts in the saddlebags and hope someone at Inzane with even more mechanical knowledge than me could supervise me through it......seems like someone is always having to get something done at our rides now as the Old Girls are getting a lot of age on them....but that's not fair to ask anyone to mechanic when they are there to enjoy themselves....

I've ordered almost $400 of parts off of Honda Direct line yesterday to have on hand for future maintenance of things like brake pads, wheel bearings, etc etc.....the delivery man is getting a good workout delivering to my house....

I've basically got this weekend to figure out if I'm going to replace that stuff, or put it in a saddle bag and hope I don't need it or maybe someone would have the time or tools to help me if I need it..... .... I'd prefer not to be breaking anyone else's teeth out...... .......And that's my dilemma.....I remember when I first bought her in August of 2004 (29K on her), I'd jump on her and not be scared to ride anywhere......other than a petcock coverset change, the front and rear wheel bearings, and a pre-emptive alternator changeout,..(Big BF adjusted the valves once too) the Old Gal really has only needed tires and oil changes.....I'm still not ready for an Oldwing......

[Oss]

you can do it  

But if minimal wear leave it alone as long as the 0 rings have lube and no red dust

When you do rear end work just go slow and take pics so you can remember the order things go

Heck I did it once with help from Lady Draco & Don and once with G-man.....  just try not to bugger the plastic/rubber parts like I did

If you start now you should finish in a week

[Chrisj CMA]

Stanley,  if you bring the bike here. I’ll install those parts for you. You can stay here the night and return home the next day. I know you may like it to be closer but it is what it is. I’m in Crestview Florida. Google it and let me know

Ps. The queen approves

[Stanley Steamer]

Stanley,  if you bring the bike here. I’ll install those parts for you. You can stay here the night and return home the next day. I know you may like it to be closer but it is what it is. I’m in Crestview Florida. Google it and let me know

Ps. The queen approves

Wow....that's a very generous offer....I did look it up....about a 12 hr round trip....If I had of caught this earlier, I'd probably have taken you up on it.....but Hubcap said he'd be willing to come over and lend a hand and he's only about 60 miles away.....I think he likes me taking him to the Taco Stand more than the actual work... ..he's pushing me to Get-R-Done so I can ride up to Inzane with him and another Valk rider from the SC area.......I have a new Avon that's supposed to be here Thursday Night....got my Ride-on on hand for balancing....I'll check those other parts out and hopefully they are ok....One thing I love about the VRCC..members willing to help a Brother/Sister out......

[The emperor has no clothes]

Stanley,  if you bring the bike here. I’ll install those parts for you. You can stay here the night and return home the next day. I know you may like it to be closer but it is what it is. I’m in Crestview Florida. Google it and let me know

Ps. The queen approves

Wow....that's a very generous offer....I did look it up....about a 12 hr round trip....If I had of caught this earlier, I'd probably have taken you up on it.....but Hubcap said he'd be willing to come over and lend a hand and he's only about 60 miles away.....I think he likes me taking him to the Taco Stand more than the actual work... ..he's pushing me to Get-R-Done so I can ride up to Inzane with him and another Valk rider from the SC area.......I have a new Avon that's supposed to be here Thursday Night....got my Ride-on on hand for balancing....I'll check those other parts out and hopefully they are ok....One thing I love about the VRCC..members willing to help a Brother/Sister out......

Try not to knock his tooth out 

[Chrisj CMA]

That’s cool Stanley. I’ll break the news to Queen Dinky. She’ll probably get over it

[Stanley Steamer]

That’s cool Stanley. I’ll break the news to Queen Dinky. She’ll probably get over it

My wife likes the Destin area.....we've been there on vacation a few times......I'll give y'all a holler the next time we come that way...

[Chrisj CMA]

That’s cool Stanley. I’ll break the news to Queen Dinky. She’ll probably get over it

My wife likes the Destin area.....we've been there on vacation a few times......I'll give y'all a holler the next time we come that way...

Ok perfect 

[98valk]

http://www.valkyrieforum.com/bbs/index.php/topic,116696.40.html

So my conclusion is to make sure the U-Joint splines are correctly lubricated, to prevent the drive shaft to final drive splines aka spline coupling (SC) from wearing out.

The SC in a perfect application would have zero forward/rearward movement and would be submerged in oil which would result in zero wear and fretting.
Fretting is a type of corrosion which gives that rust powder look. Is not from water intrusion. In some applications they actually glue the splines together to stop movement.

Honda provided the locking spring clip on the SC end of the drive shaft to help reduce movement of the SC, but it is still not a solid zero movement connection. So this is where the lubricated U-joint splines come into effect, thereby doing all of the movement, to reduce or actually eliminate any SC movement.

In a few of the links I provide it is stated that the SC splines should be hardened to greatly reduce wear.  Did Honda do this to the parts?, it doesn't seem like they did, since that would have been a much higher cost.

In my case I inadvertently mixed greases with different bases for the u-joint splines, by re-greasing and not cleaning off the old grease.
My fault, at the time, I didn't realize they had different bases. So what happened the greases started to dry out and not provide the easy sliding movement as needed and the SC failed in 17k miles.

For re-installing the U-Joint boot I coated the inside lips with silicone grease and it pops on with zero problems. suggest not to use a silicone spray which has petroleum products in it and other things which could degrade the boot material.

So to bring this all together, proper lubrication of the u-joint splines is extremely important and should be done every tire change to protect the SC. 
This time I used moly bearing chassis grease for the U-Joint for even more friction reduction and easier sliding.

For the SC I mixed TS-70 moly paste with some high temp grease so there would be about a 50/50 moly to grease ratio as recommended by the Dan Foss pdf which is a much higher percent of moly than the 3% moly grease the Honda manual calls for.

The following documents have some very good info about SCs and lubrication requirements.

https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/693/fretting-wear

https://www.powertransmission.com/issues/0214/spline-couplings.pdf

https://assets.danfoss.com/documents/76142/AI152986482538en-000304.pdf

https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=423609

https://gearsolutions.com/departments/tooth-tips-a-brief-overview-of-splines/

https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=383504