Final drive hot to the touch???

[Dereckt94]

Hello all again I had the Valkyrie on the jack for routine maintenance got the rear final drive all greased and sealed back up and followed the procedure for re-torquing the alxe nut and Final drive. The old oil that came out looked really good no metal shavings nothing odd also replaced the Avon on the back with another Avon cobra. I was curious if you guys ever noticed the final drives getting hot to the touch? I’m assuming it’s normal but wanted to ease my mind with some Honda experts hahah I did make sure the rear caliper was not dragging

[Chrisj CMA]

It does get warm. Warm vs Hot... I suppose that’s a judgement call. I would say pretty warm as opposed to hot. Someone with more feelings may call my warm hot instead. Synthetic oil will be the only thing you can do to try to cool it.

[Daniel Meyer]

After a couple handfuls of miles, too hot to keep your hand on. Normal

[Dereckt94]

Okay so it sounds normal I will leave my thoughts in peace hahah I thought maybe there was a specific trick to the rear drive but I followed it by the book. Thank you guys Again I’m sure I will have more things to pick your brains about in the future

[DGS65]

As my mother would say don't touch it.

[Bagger John - #3785]

As long as the rear wheel rotates freely when it's in the air and you have an adequate amount of a quality synthetic gear lube in the final drive, you're good to go.

About the heating bit:

For the sake of argument, let's say that our Valkyrie drive train is putting an even 100HP to the pinion cup (the input of the final drive). Also for the sake of argument, let's say that frictional losses through the drive are 5% of the total applied power (though the actual figure is probably higher).

742 watts per horsepower x 5HP is a bit over 3600w...3.6KW. The average electric space heater puts out 1500w (1.5KW).

Yes, it's going to get a bit warm under load. Even when run at less than maximum available applied power.

[Dereckt94]

I feel better now and that’s some science or math or physics hahaha thanks for the reassurance  : 

[9Ball]

Are you running synthetic gear oil?  Seems to run a bit cooler with syn, at least that was all the scuttlebutt from the early days when the bikes were new.

[Dereckt94]

Yes I put synthetic in it