Dave in Frisco (TX) & his new U-Joint are in the house

[Disco]

Sorry to post so late, but by the time I got home last night all I wanted to do was get warm & dry, hug Janet, pet the puppies, and go to sleep.  5_19, Wanderer & I left HG's & FB's about 3:45 and rode together up Highway 6 'til I cut off on 14.  The last 120 miles were wet and much cooler.  Home at 9:40.

Went for the fun, camaraderie, and BBQ.  Got a wrench party as a bonus!

The VRCC is the best.  What a great bunch of folks!

[Joe Hummer]

I am SO glad I am not the only one who breaks those things when on a trip.  Makes me feel MUCH better about it all.    So Dave...I know what led to the demise of my u-joint...what caused yours?   

Joe

[Disco]

When we got it apart we found that the boot was not properly installed.  I've never messed with it (at 22,537 miles, why would I?), and given the fact that there was no grease on the u-joint end of the drive shaft, we assumed it was not assembled properly.  I retrospect, there were a number of symptoms I'll detail in a new thread.

[Joe Hummer]

Gotta love it...and these are the people we trust our bikes/lives to??  That is one reason I do most of my own maintenance. 

Joe

[Disco]

By the way, when I made it to the Toyota dealership's parking lot with f-stop and volvobob, I called Wanderer, who was at hotglue's, to ask him if he could try to rustle up a u-joint and catch Richard Graham to arrange for the pickup + trailer retrieval.  HayHauler looped back to find us and started calling the 3 Houston-area Honda dealers to try to find a u-joint.  Before HayHauler was finished with three phone calls that yielded ZERO u-joints, Wanderer emailed me a picture of Willow's new-in-the-bag u-joint and said if I didn't like that one, there were two more (Lady Draco & I believe Crazyhorse) I could choose from!  NONE at three dealerships serving the sixth largest (almost 6 million people) MSA in the country, and THREE at Hotglue's!  The bike was on the trailer in less than 45 minutes and we were on our way to eat (& wrench)!  One beer, a big plate of some of the best BBQ I've ever had, lots of wrenching, and another couple of beers, and I rode back to the hotel.  What a great bunch of folks!

So, if any of you are planning a crippling, if not catastrophic failure any time soon, please do so in coordination with major VRCC events.  Cheaha, Tucumcari, and InZane are coming up soon!   

[fudgie]

So what did it do that you knew it was a u-joint? Did it go fast or did you know awhile?

[Michael K (Az.)]

Ha! You just made me nervous enough I went to Pin Wall and ordered one! (46k, hopin for the best!!)

[Joe Hummer]

So what did it do that you knew it was a u-joint? Did it go fast or did you know awhile?

You feel some odd vibrations in the pegs while riding.  When you rock the bike back and forth in gear, you can hear clicking or feel grinding.  With your hand on the axle tube, you can feel it popping.  Mine went while at InZane last year. 

Joe

[Disco]

It was going on for a while, I just didn't realize what was happening was u-joint. 

I thought the vibration I felt on the way to Hotglue's was a combination of 1) needing a new rear tire - the Cobra with almost 13K is cupped, 2) the surface of the secondary roads we took most of the way, and 3) the newly installed VTX1800C handlebars and 6.5" risers that I rationalized must not isolate inputs as well as stock bars.  New u-joint = no vibration

I thought the lash I felt easing the clutch out for the last few weeks was my low-miles, but 11 year-old dampers.  New u-joint = no lash

I also had been chasing what I thought was a fuel leak somewhere.  I would occasionally get a whiff of something petroleum after our petcock rebuild/vacuum line wrench party in December.  Upon inspection, the 5/16" line to the petcock had been significantly scuffed on install, so I replaced everything with 3/8" a couple of weeks ago.  Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but the aroma seemed to go away for a while after the 3/8" was installed, but came back swirling behind the airwings on the way down.  It really pissed me off because I was very careful re-doing the fuel lines.  It wasn't fuel.  It was the grease in the bearings burning off and coming out of the (improperly installed) boot.  I'm still glad I re-did it with 3'8" - it fits much better, but...  New u-joint = no aroma.

And finally, when f-stop and I left Galveston, it was just the two of us running up 45 at 70-75 mph.  Over the course of a minute or less I heard 5 or 6 pops that sounded like a rock being shot out from under a tire.  It felt like the rear, but I didn't feel anything hitting the front tire.  So, I started staring at the road surface to see if it was rocks or expansion joints or whatever.  Nothing to explain the last pops.  Then, there was a series of pops accompanied lurching and big vibration.  I though it was the rear tire delaminating.  I eased into the left shoulder and inspected the tire.  It looked fine, but when I eased out the clutch to resume the ride, there was lurching and loud clunking.  Thankfully, the traffic was very light as I eased it over to the right shoulder and limped to the next exit.  There was lurching and clunking everywhere but 3rd gear at 20 mph, but no over-revving in gear, so I was confident it was not spline/pinion cup.  New u-joint = new bike!