Should I remove drive shaft for inspection? from my 2000 Valkyrie CT

[Gary Mc]

 when changing my rear tire I found the final drive flange spines to be dry of grease and 6 of them showing minor ware. My bike has 44,000 miles should I remove the drive shaft to re-grease the splines while I have the rear tire off?? I am planning to change out the somewhat hidden o'ring in the final drive. I haven't done this before so I am  hesitating as to what I should do, any advise is appreciated.

[The emperor has no clothes]

Read up in shoptalk about it. And yes I would grease the driveshaft.

[Patrick]

It sounds as if this bike is new to you, so, my answer would be yes. This is something that should be done at every tire change or 10-15K miles.

[Pete]

Just finished doing an IS with 29,000 miles.
The drive shaft splines and cup were nice and wet and greasy with lube from the differential and the grease applied during assembly.

Really did not need doing was working fine and in pristine condition.

[houstone]

It's easy to take the drive shaft out and have a look.  Not too hard to re-install either, so definitely worth the trouble.  Have a look, and save a bad day.
Jeff

[valkyriemc]

http://www.valkyrieriders.com/shoptalk/TireChangeSplineLube.htm

[Gary Mc]

Thanks for the help and encouragement. I have pulled the final drive and inspected the drive shaft. Found some grease, not much and almost dried out. I am very happy that I went ahead and re-greased the shaft. Now I am wondering about the U-Joint??

[hubcapsc]

Thanks for the help and encouragement. I have pulled the final drive and inspected the drive shaft. Found some grease, not much and almost dried out. I am very happy that I went ahead and re-greased the shaft. Now I am wondering about the U-Joint??

You can easily get some grease on the shaft side of the u-joint by just putting
the grease on the shaft splines... it is harder to get grease on the output-shaft side,
since you have to mess with the danged boot. Where the u-joint connects to the
output-shaft is a real splined connection, not a wobbly pinion connection like at
the other end of the shaft. You might be more likely to be OK skipping that, your
call...

-Mike

[Pete]

Thanks for the help and encouragement. I have pulled the final drive and inspected the drive shaft. Found some grease, not much and almost dried out. I am very happy that I went ahead and re-greased the shaft. Now I am wondering about the U-Joint??

Whoa!  The pinion cup and splines should NOT be dry! Should show signs of rear end lube (moist). Make sure that the passages to/from the rear drive are clear and that the rear end lube is at the proper level (amount).

[Patrick]

The subject of lube oil in the pinion cup has been discussed and argued over for a dozen years. Some bikes show oil in the cup and others don't. Its just one of lives little wonderments. As long as everything is kept greased as they should be, it'll last forever., almost.

[Pete]

The subject of lube oil in the pinion cup has been discussed and argued over for a dozen years. Some bikes show oil in the cup and others don't. Its just one of lives little wonderments. As long as everything is kept greased as they should be, it'll last forever., almost.

Dry joint is usually traced to stopped up entry/exit holes, low rear end lube or wrong rear end lube (to thick).

[hubcapsc]

The subject of lube oil in the pinion cup has been discussed and argued over for a dozen years. Some bikes show oil in the cup and others don't. Its just one of lives little wonderments. As long as everything is kept greased as they should be, it'll last forever., almost.

Dry joint is usually traced to stopped up entry/exit holes, low rear end lube or wrong rear end lube (to thick).

I believe, for me, it was caused by using too little grease there... I finally weighed the grease...

All grease doesn't weigh the same, but here's the approximate volume to use:



Using less than this is probably not going to produce consistently good results...

-Mike