Broke down yesterday

[Fazer]

Maybe Daniel Meyer will chime in.  I am sure he said in his tech session at Inzane back in Morgantown that the holes should allow lubricant into the pinion cup--he passed one around so we could all see the holes.  I also thought he said to pack it with waterproof grease (not moly).  This is a topic I have been wondering about like you all.  My splines have always looked good, nice and greasy.  Bob Smith (Attic Rat) did mine last time. 

[Valker]

I've had several rear wheel bearings go out. First one was at 32,000 miles and replaced under warranty-always bike tires. I replaced the next set while feeling 'roughness' when mounting another bike tire at about 53,000 miles. I've replaced probably five total over the years. Lost another one last summer. I did the double row mod after that last one.

[Jess from VA]

Next, a question (for Jess):

You said the right rear bearing was a source of trouble. I've probably got 200k miles cumulatively on 5 Valkyries ('99 through '03 model years) and have yet to experience a wheel bearing problem. Tires used have been stock Dunlops (Elite 3s), Metzeler ME880s or Avon Cobras - no car tires, no hole shots or drag racing either but I don't ride slow or sedately. None of my area Valkyrie buddies have replaced bearings in their rear wheels and a couple are approaching 100k or 200k (on '97 and '99 Standards). The latter bike belongs to a rather large couple; aside from normal PM, tires, shocks, forks and shock bushings are about the only things replaced on that particular Valkyrie.

Thus, I'm curious about why these parts fail.


No John, I said the left rear wheel bearing failed.  Many left rears have failed, and the common belief is that it is because the left is a single row bearing, while the right is a double row.  Enough failed that someone came up with a double row left bearing mod, accomplished by having the rear wheel spacer cut down to accommodate the greater width of the double row bearing (see Shoptalk). After breaking down in Bumfok WVa (real far from home), I did that mod to both my bikes.

There was some discussion of whether those of us running car tires put more stress on the rear bearings, but there was never any real data to support that. 

I have no idea why Ujoints fail other than hooligan operator throttle craziness.  It seems likely there are other reasons like metallurgy and manufacturing defects.  Certainly a well tuned Valk can put the powerful engine to that trans output shaft in spades, and the Ujoint.  

Our bikes are damn reliable.  But they are not perfect or without occasional troubles.... esp after 20 years of fun.    

[Bagger John - #3785]

No John, I said the left rear wheel bearing failed.

In your post on 04-08 at 8:33 - linked here: http://www.valkyrieforum.com/bbs/index.php/topic,116696.msg1179937.html#msg1179937

The right rear bearing fails a lot.

There's the source of the confusion.  

[Jess from VA]

Yeah, in that post, first I said left (correctly), then ended referring to right (wrongly).  Whoops.

I fixed it.  Late. 

[RonW]

I ran across a youtube video of a Valk with a bad wheel bearing, here. The owner than demonstrates how easy it is to remove a wheel bearing
with screwdriver and a bolt, here. Well, at lease the front wheel. I've seen it done with an anchor bolt but this is a bit faster.

[The emperor has no clothes]

I ran across a youtube video of a Valk with a bad wheel bearing, here. The owner than demonstrates how easy it is to remove a wheel bearing
with screwdriver and a bolt, here. Well, at lease the front wheel. I've seen it done with an anchor bolt but this is a bit faster.

One of our B.C. members. 

[hubcapsc]

That's just how the Honda special tool works...



-Mike

[Bagger John - #3785]

Thread is timely and germane to a project. Found a set of wheels to get powdercoated and needed to buy the bearing removal tools - seeing them served as a reminder.

[Tfrank59]

I ran across a youtube video of a Valk with a bad wheel bearing, here. The owner than demonstrates how easy it is to remove a wheel bearing
with screwdriver and a bolt, here. Well, at lease the front wheel. I've seen it done with an anchor bolt but this is a bit faster.

One of our B.C. members.  

BC = really really old. But probably still younger than you Meathead.  

[rug_burn]

I've had to replace those propellor shafts (honda's term) twice.  First time I got a used part with seal on it, and used it as-was.   That was a mistake,; when those seals get old, they harden up and soon fail again.  Powdery rust, again. The seal  is cheap, and it's critical.     If it fails, you will get a case of the dreaded powdery rust syndrome.
   But let's keep it in perspective-  the propellor shaft, seal and a new pinion cup still cost less than a chain driven bike's  drive chain, which lasts about 20k miles.
   And about those holes in the pinion cup:  my splines stay lubed by the final drive oil, like shown in our pal's photo, except I don't have the moly paste on mine.  If you have to, use a little hardwood stick, or even a q-tip if the grease isn't too dried out but those holes are good, and need to be kept open. 
   Remember to grease the splines going into the u-joint whenever you take it apart, too.   Never had a problem with those.

[98valk]

I'm doing a lot of research on all of this, will give full response later on.
 So far the red dust is from an erosion condition called fretting, it is not rust.
Using the spline cup and splines on the drive shaft is a poor use of and application of spline joints.
There could have been a better way to make the connection.
more later.....

[The emperor has no clothes]

Maybe it’s because it seldom rains around here. But I’ve been in plenty of rainstorms over the years. I’ve never got the red dust pinion cup. Maybe half the time I can detect gear oil on the teeth. 1/2 the time it’s just the lube I put on it. I think I’ve got over 110k between both bikes. I’ve also been carrying around wheel bearings for all those miles, and never used them.

[Bagger John - #3785]

Maybe it’s because it seldom rains around here. But I’ve been in plenty of rainstorms over the years. I’ve never got the red dust pinion cup. Maybe half the time I can detect gear oil on the teeth. 1/2 the time it’s just the lube I put on it. I think I’ve got over 110k between both bikes. I’ve also been carrying around wheel bearings for all those miles, and never used them.

My experiences mirror this.

I'm going to be changing wheels on both of my Valkyries within the next year and this will give me another data point to compare.

[RustyValkry]

I was reading the manual when I was working on my final drive and noted that, during reassembly of the diff., one step is to insure the breather passage is clear by blowing compressed air through it.  Not something you'd want to do with the diff. assembled but if you roll your diff. over on its side you should get diff oil out the breather pretty quickly (I know this cause while fighting with reinstalling my final drive I lost oil out my breather a couple times).  I'm wondering, for those who are seeing diff. lube in their pinion cups, might your breather passage be clogged or at least restricted and the oil is then forced out the pinion seal by pressure build up?

[hubcapsc]

I was reading the manual when I was working on my final drive and noted that, during reassembly of the diff., one step is to insure the breather passage is clear by blowing compressed air through it.  Not something you'd want to do with the diff. assembled but if you roll your diff. over on its side you should get diff oil out the breather pretty quickly (I know this cause while fighting with reinstalling my final drive I lost oil out my breather a couple times).  I'm wondering, for those who are seeing diff. lube in their pinion cups, might your breather passage be clogged or at least restricted and the oil is then forced out the pinion seal by pressure build up?

Not me. Fluid comes easily out of my breather cap if I hold my
final drive upside down D'OH! by mistake.

And fluid drizzles out of my pinion cup if I hold my final drive with
the pinion cup pointed down for a long enough time (a minute or
something, never timed it).

That the pinion cup is lubricated by the final drive fluid is the opinion of
some smart people, but I don't know anywhere that it is documented.

My opinion is that your pinion cup will be nicely lubricated if you fill
it with plenty of blue bel-ray waterproof grease and check it each
tire change.

I look forward to seeing mine in a few months. Two bikes keeps me
from changing tires quite so often, and with covid I've gone on fewer
long rides... mostly local "gas tank" rides... I don't believe I changed
the tires on either bike last summer. I got a Metzeler Roadtec 01
for the black bike, the Suzuki shop called me and said it was here
yesterday... I'm going to try and scrub a little more rubber off the
Pirelli I have on there now before I take them my wheel to install
the new one.

-Mike "it is good to try new things, but maybe not to instigate thread drift  "

[98valk]

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. I also installed a new driveshaft to spline cup seal every other tire change.

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?

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