A bit peeved about U-Joint Yoke

[mrtidy]

I ordered a drive yoke for the Valk and a boot a bit over a week ago.
Today I get the boot in the mail, and a boot in the rear end, saying
the yoke is back ordered. I had to call to get the info that it's backordered
till Feb...

I'm a bit peeved that HDL didn't at least tell me my parts are backorded and have
to wait till a partial order is delivered and then have to call only to find out
it's several months away..

It's hard to believe that as many wings and valks on the road they can't keep
a vital drive line part in stock...  Beemers are looking better all the time.

Mike

[Joe Hummer]

There has been a few posts about this matter.  It looks like Honda has changed the source of the yokes and it will take at least until Feb to start delivery of the parts.  I too am bummed about the availability of the part.  I sent my spare u-joint to a member with hopes of getting the one he had back-ordered when he got it in.  Luckily, it was only my spare and mine is still in good repair (just changed it last summer).  As suggested in other posts, the general suggestion is to look for a trike shop near you and see if they have either a 1500 Wing or Valk u-joint from a bike they converted to a trike. 

Joe

[wild6]

Mike-

Did you try www.cheapcycleparts.com?

-Dan

[Joe Hummer]

Hey Dan,

While you may have had good luck with CheapCycleParts.com...I have not.  I placed an order with them for a few parts for a friend about 3 weeks ago, I have still not received my parts and on every attempt to contact them, I have been frustrated with their service.

My story...I placed an order online with them online.  The transaction did not go through due to an error on their site...but my credit card was charged for the transaction.  It took me a week of calling every day to finally get that straightened out.  When it was finally straight...they told me my pars were in stock and that my order was being shipped.  That was two weeks ago.  The website shows the status as "On Order".  I sent them an email this afternoon and hopefully will hear back from them soon.  Due to this poor customer service, I will never order anything from CheapCycleParts again. 

Joe

[wild6]

Joe-

Sorry to hear about your experience.   I've only ordered some small hardware pieces (clips, screws) once from them since their prices were lower than hdl.  They did ok for for that.  I've never ordered anything larger. 

Just thought that if they had one (yoke) in stock, it might be quicker than February.

-Dan

[Joe Hummer]

My order consisted of small parts also...screws...handlebar lock,...and pumpkin breather cap...order total $28.57 including shipping. 

Joe

[mrtidy]

Thanks Joe,,

That is a good idea. 

I guess with the hot summer we've had here, it's such a downer to have the
best part of the ride season coming up and this happen.  We went up into NY, Canada, and back
down the Blue Ridge Parkway in June. On the way back I noticed that I had some vibration in the pegs when I'd let off of the throttle. It would quit if I put a load on the bike in accelerating or decelerating. I keep a good watch on the rear drive splines so the Yoke is the most probable winner in the possible bad parts list. 
As much as they are wanting for bikes now days seems like they'd realize that some people ride bikes for transportation and not just recreation... I imagine your summer up in Arnold has been pretty hot also. I"m about 300 miles south of you in LR,Ar..

I'll see what I can find tomorrow in that area..
Mike

[Joe Hummer]

Thanks Joe,,

That is a good idea. 

I guess with the hot summer we've had here, it's such a downer to have the
best part of the ride season coming up and this happen.  We went up into NY, Canada, and back
down the Blue Ridge Parkway in June. On the way back I noticed that I had some vibration in the pegs when I'd let off of the throttle. It would quit if I put a load on the bike in accelerating or decelerating. I keep a good watch on the rear drive splines so the Yoke is the most probable winner in the possible bad parts list. 
As much as they are wanting for bikes now days seems like they'd realize that some people ride bikes for transportation and not just recreation... I imagine your summer up in Arnold has been pretty hot also. I"m about 300 miles south of you in LR,Ar..

I'll see what I can find tomorrow in that area..
Mike

Hey Mike,

Yeah...it has been good riding weather up here.  But it really doesn't matter...I pretty much ride every day it isn't raining first thing in the morning or there isn't snow/ice on the ground.  Yeah...my valk is my daily driver...that is why in 4 years 3 months I have amassed 60,000 miles  (or about 14k miles per year) on my bike. 

Joe

[98valk]

how many miles does one usually last for? are they a high failure item? at one time during any given yr they seam to be on back order.
do I need to stock pile?

[Joe Hummer]

how many miles does one usually last for? are they a high failure item? at one time during any given yr they seam to be on back order.
do I need to stock pile?

Mine went out at about 60k miles.  A friend's bike only went abut 38k miles on it before it failed.  Once the back order is lifted, I will be getting myself another spare. 

Joe

[sandy]

I replaced mine at 92K and it was still good. I travel cross country and was just removing doubt about dependability. My local trike shop usually has a few of these from trike jobs. They're shutdown till next Tuesday (not tomorrow). I'll find out if he'll sell any on the internet.

[mrtidy]

Thanks Sandy,,,

I got ahold of a trike shop near here and I might just be able to get one from him
in the morning, I have to call him again in the morning while he's at the shop...

Mike.

[Joe Hummer]

Hey Mike...that is great news.  See if he has two.  I wouldn't mind having my spare on hand. 

Joe

[GOOSE]

what is hondas part # for the u-joint yoke?  thanks.

[Joe Hummer]

It is...      JOINT, YOKE  40200-MZ0-A00

Joe

[Daniel Meyer]

how many miles does one usually last for? are they a high failure item? at one time during any given yr they seam to be on back order.
do I need to stock pile?

I tore mine up after 140,000 miles of enthusastic abuse.

I keep a spare...mostly to avoid things like this backorder...

[fudgie]

What do trike conv use then?

[Tropic traveler]

What do trike conv use then?

Most likely a straight shaft coming from the engine with a u-joint {non-Honda} at the new axle. Maybe no u-joint at all if the rear is IRS & the center section is rigid mounted?
I'm curious myself. I guess I'll look under some trikes at bike night this week. 

[Tropic traveler]

If anyone is desperate for a "get by 'till later" U-joint, I have a 102,000 miler from my '97 that was good & tight feeling. It was showing a little grease coming from the caps but felt as good as the 20K trike take off that I put back in.
PM me. Don't want nothin' for it just promise to send me back a replacement when this U-joint backorder situation is over. 

[wild6]

Thanks Joe,,

That is a good idea.  

I guess with the hot summer we've had here, it's such a downer to have the
best part of the ride season coming up and this happen.  We went up into NY, Canada, and back
down the Blue Ridge Parkway in June. On the way back I noticed that I had some vibration in the pegs when I'd let off of the throttle. It would quit if I put a load on the bike in accelerating or decelerating. I keep a good watch on the rear drive splines so the Yoke is the most probable winner in the possible bad parts list.  
As much as they are wanting for bikes now days seems like they'd realize that some people ride bikes for transportation and not just recreation... I imagine your summer up in Arnold has been pretty hot also. I"m about 300 miles south of you in LR,Ar..

I'll see what I can find tomorrow in that area..
Mike

Mike-
The symptom you describe may not be the u-joint.  

I replaced my u-joint at about 75k.  The symptom I had was a squeak under moderate acceleration early on.  Then about 1k miles later, there was a vibration at higher speeds (>55).  About 500 miles after that, the vibration would happen at lower speeds when torque was applied.  It would actually clack under heavy torque.  

At one of Daniel Meyer's tech sessions at Inzane, he showed us how the other end of the drive shaft connects to the final drive and how it can go bad.  The back end of the shaft has big splines which fit into a pinion cup on the final drive.  There are two small holes in the bottom of the cup through which oil from the final drive is supposed to circulate to lubricate and cool the pinion joint.  When these holes clog, the lube stops and the joint wears quickly.

I did my u-joint before I found out about this, so when I pulled apart the pinion and found what looked like dried moly packed in there, I cleaned out the cup and shaft and put new grease on it without clearing the holes.  At that time (about 10k miles ago) there was a little wear on the splines.

I recently started having vibration similar to what you are talking about and feared that the pinion was causing this.  Two weekends ago, I pulled apart the pinion and found that it was filled with rust and the splines were worn to 20% of their original width.  I cleaned up the parts, and this time cleared the holes.  I ordered a new shaft and pinion cup from hdl (about $85) and will do the repair when the parts come in.

I think you should pull apart the pinion to see if you have the same problem.

-Dan

PS: There seems to be a debate about the holes at http://www.valkyrieforum.com/bbs/index.php/topic,20471.0.html.

[mrtidy]

Hey Dan, Joe and all...

Thanks for the info on the pinion, I will check that out.. Mine only vibrates when I am coasting, and didn't know about the cup and holes. So that will be checked out also...

Joe, I did find a yoke at a trike shop, he had two and would only sell one. He said he'd had an area Honda shop trying to buy his spares but he needed them from time to time also and he was not going to more or less give them away to them like they thought he should.

I've always kept my splines cleaned and kept molylube on them in the wheel hub and keep the lube
checked and changed in the rear drive but will make sure I check it all out when I tear it down in a day or so.

I did talk to a trike shop about 120 miles from me that do Motor Trike conversions. He said that Motor Trike has their u joints made for them by someone other than Honda. He wasn't at his shop last night and the Secretary was gone so didn't know how much they were. But I found this one
thanks to yawl and the tip on the trike shops is what did it..

Thanks Very much...

[Joe Hummer]

Hey Dan, Joe and all...

Thanks for the info on the pinion, I will check that out.. Mine only vibrates when I am coasting, and didn't know about the cup and holes. So that will be checked out also...

Joe, I did find a yoke at a trike shop, he had two and would only sell one. He said he'd had an area Honda shop trying to buy his spares but he needed them from time to time also and he was not going to more or less give them away to them like they thought he should.

I've always kept my splines cleaned and kept molylube on them in the wheel hub and keep the lube
checked and changed in the rear drive but will make sure I check it all out when I tear it down in a day or so.

I did talk to a trike shop about 120 miles from me that do Motor Trike conversions. He said that Motor Trike has their u joints made for them by someone other than Honda. He wasn't at his shop last night and the Secretary was gone so didn't know how much they were. But I found this one
thanks to yawl and the tip on the trike shops is what did it..

Thanks Very much...

Hey Mike,

I am glad you found one.  Mine should be good as long as I can keep that front wheel on the ground...you can't imagine just how hard that is to do.   

Joe

[mrtidy]

Thanks Joe,

Yawl have some good riding up there this fall. I don't think we'll have much color down here due to the lack of rain. A lot of our trees are leafless due to the heat and lack of water. Some are trying to put new leaves back on.

I see mileage has little to do with when one has problems with the drive line. 30K to 140K is a pretty wide range as myself is 130K. I do pull a bunkhouse trailer but other than that, no wheelies or wild riding. I do run a car tire and have run it for the life of the bike so that has not seemed to hurt the
drive train.

If I find something else, I'll be back and update....

Mike..

[Art708]

Hey Mike...that is great news.  See if he has two.  I wouldn't mind having my spare on hand. 

Joe

   Make it 3 please.... I'd love to change mine also.   

[dipstick]

My local trike shop just sold me a complete rear end for $150, I have not opened it up to check the slpines yet but with a new Metz tire and rim all the other parts are worth well over that so Im pretty happy.

[GOOSE]

i called honda vehicle support in california today, and after listening (and a little reading between the lines) here is what i make out:  honda at the present time does not have a vendor for the universal, and there is no definate e.t.a. on the yoke:  it could be 2-weeks, 2-months, 6-months, but they will absolutely eventually get them......sometime.   why couldn*t you take out the yoke, and if the splines were good, just take out the cups, and replace them?

[mrtidy]

At this moment on Ebay...

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m570.l1313&_nkw=yoke+gl1500&_sacat=See-All-Categories

one yoke for 45 plus shipping from CAnada,,,
one drive shaft and yoke for 150 + shipping $17

Sounds like I was really lucky in finding one fairly locally. My next step was to call Motor Trike
if the dealer 120 miles from me didn't have one... and see what they want for their yoke's since
they suposidly have some one that makes them for their conversion units for them..

It sounds good that Honda is making an effort to get them, but it's a slap in the face to us that
Honda has put GL1500 owners in this fix.

[3W-lonerider]

Mr.tity..calling a motortrike dealer will be useless..motortrike uses the stock honda u-joint on their drive shafts. then the shaft goes back to a car universal coupled to the rearend.

[mrtidy]

Mr.tity..calling a motortrike dealer will be useless..motortrike uses the stock honda u-joint on their drive shafts. then the shaft goes back to a car universal coupled to the rearend.

Ok, no problem here,

I guess the Motor Trike dealer mis-spoke what he told me yesterday.

[2qmedic]

While we are on the subject, I have never seen any conversation on the lubrication of the U-joint splines.
 
I find it interesting that the manual states to lube all the final drive components , but mentions nothing about lubing the forward driveshaft splines or the U-joint splines on reassembly . On 10K maintenance of drive splines, I have always applied green grease to the forward driveshaft splines on reassembly .
 
I would think that the forward U-joint splines are lubricated by the engine oil  and the rear U-joint splines are lubricated by the application of molybdenum disulfide (I use green grease)  .

Also seems as if the rear end splines (input and output) are the only ones that people post about...
Wat's ya'll think???

[Jeff K]

i called honda vehicle support in california today, and after listening (and a little reading between the lines) here is what i make out:  honda at the present time does not have a vendor for the universal, and there is no definate e.t.a. on the yoke:  it could be 2-weeks, 2-months, 6-months, but they will absolutely eventually get them......sometime.   why couldn*t you take out the yoke, and if the splines were good, just take out the cups, and replace them?

The cups are staked in. They are not serviceable. I tried to find a generic replacement but never did find one that worked. One that I found that did fit didn't last 500 miles and exploded.

[Jay]

I just dropped mine off at Drive Line Service in Colorado Springs.  Hal, the owner, has been in business for over 30 years.  He is going to replace the u-joint with one that has a grease fitting in one of the caps.  Due to the way the yokes are made, there is no way to use clips to hold the caps in place, so he will spot weld them to the yoke. He said he has done similar work on Subaru's with no problems.  We'll see how this works out.

[Jeff K]

I just dropped mine off at Drive Line Service in Colorado Springs.  Hal, the owner, has been in business for over 30 years.  He is going to replace the u-joint with one that has a grease fitting in one of the caps.  Due to the way the yokes are made, there is no way to use clips to hold the caps in place, so he will spot weld them to the yoke. He said he has done similar work on Subaru's with no problems.  We'll see how this works out.

The only one I found that was the same cap size and width, had smaller pins, it didn't last too long let me know what he finds please.

[Jay]

I just picked up the yoke joint.  It looks good, and the guy said it is a u-joint for a Honda CRV.
Hopefully, the rest of the parts will get here soon.

[mrtidy]

If anyone is desperate for a "get by 'till later" U-joint, I have a 102,000 miler from my '97 that was good & tight feeling. It was showing a little grease coming from the caps but felt as good as the 20K trike take off that I put back in.
PM me. Don't want nothin' for it just promise to send me back a replacement when this U-joint backorder situation is over. 

Thanks Tropic Traveler,,, that is a really gracious offer, wanted to let you know that is really nice of you to offer that.  Luckly I found one yesterday so my ordeal is about over.. ha ha...

Thanks again  Mike...

[mrtidy]

Ok, got my wheel off this morning and took the final drive loose and dropped the swingarm down.
The final seemed ok so I wiggled the U Joint out and gave it a good look.
It had play in it and I found one bearing cap shattered. cleaned out the loose metal in the tube and
cleaned things up a bit.  I had a new boot so I greased everything up with Moly Paste good and put it all back together. I'm just short of putting the axle back in , I got a little wore out so tomorrow I'll get a fresh start and get the wheel on , tighten the final bolts back up and get this puppy back on the highway. 

[Jay]

The only one I found that was the same cap size and width, had smaller pins, it didn't last too long let me know what he finds please.
[/quote]

The u-joint he used is a Spicer # 430-9A.  I believe it fits a 2002 and up Honda CR-v.

[R J]

The only one I found that was the same cap size and width, had smaller pins, it didn't last too long let me know what he finds please.

The u-joint he used is a Spicer # 430-9A.  I believe it fits a 2002 and up Honda CR-v.
[/quote]

That sounds like the part # JeffK used to get to an InZane.   He'd put in this U-joint for a repair.   It never made it 500 miles and it was toast.

I tried to help him but all I was was in the way, so I went and set on a chair and watched.   

[Sodbuster]

I replaced mine at 92K and it was still good. I travel cross country and was just removing doubt about dependability. My local trike shop usually has a few of these from trike jobs. They're shutdown till next Tuesday (not tomorrow). I'll find out if he'll sell any on the internet.

I was digging around on some of the GoldWing forums and found that some riders had replaced the u-joint with the now common u-joint between the 1500 Wings and Valkyries. Because the Valkyrie u-joint is bigger (stronger) than the original Wing u-joints they were having trouble with the original boot fitting over the larger u-joint.  So, if you're checking out trike shops I'm guessing you'll want to be sure you're you're actually getting a Valk part and not an older Wing u-joint ??

[Jeff K]

As I remember it was a joint from a Honda Odyssey, it was some time ago. It fit fine and had clips that held it from the inside, but it exploded about 50 miles from IZ. It made one hell of a mess. I'll do some digging and see about this part.