final drive maintenance

[hubcapsc]

Not much to say here except that everything looks OK still 

The little bit of wear (you can see it best on the pumpkin) is about the same
as for the last few tires, so no worry there.

I used waterproof BelRay blue grease on all the parts last time. That's not what
Honda recommends, but several others here have always used it with good
results.









Part of the way through my assistant deserted me...



It has been 95 degrees every day. Today it is 75 degrees 

-Mike

[9Ball]

How many miles total on those splines...

[hubcapsc]

How many miles total on those splines...

As best as I can tell from trying to read my records, written by a sharpie on the
wall inside my Valkyrie shed, I had around 57,000 miles on my bike in the summer
of 2010. There's about 97,000 miles now. In August of 2010 I put this final drive
on my bike from a triked bike.

-Mike

[hubcapsc]

I checked through my old pictures... the main point of them is to have a reference to
gauge wear through time... unfortunately, old pictures = old cameras  ... this next picture is
2012, everything but the face of the splines is in shadow. The little wear stair-step is there
you just can't see it well, or gauge how different it is from the current picture...



This 2017 picture is better... I think because of the sun, not whatever camera I had then...



-Mike "my camera is an iphone now..."

[RWhitehouse]

For 97k miles those look virtually new. Whatever you're doing, I'd just keep at it.

Being I run darkside I pulled it apart at 15k (about 52k total) to check even though the tire was fine, and it looks like I'd just greased everything yesterday (maybe 9 months ago actually). Everything was still sloppy wet with grease and zero signs of wear or rust residue. I used just an ordinary wheel bearing grease I had on the shelf- Molykote.

I actually discovered 2 of the 3 o-rings were MIA during that interval as well. I didn't know to look for them the first time, which was shortly after I got the bike.  I installed the Redeye o-rings before putting it all back together. I didn't find them to make reassembly unduly difficult as I'd read here a few times, guess YMMV. Also left the pumpkin bolts loose until getting the axle in and snugged down to allow the splines to self-align, then tightened everything up.

[pancho]

Yeah, wear on the final splines, I blew them up, but can't really tell weather it is any worse or not... ?  Lose faith in the properties of moly, or just run out?

[hubcapsc]

Lose faith in the properties of moly, or just run out?

I think moly paste is probably the safest thing to use...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molybdenum_disulfide#Lubricant

When you look in your final drive and it looks dry (I don't mean
the red surface-of-mars phenomenon  ) the caked on molybdenum
is, I guess, still doing a good job of lubrication.

The blue BelRay waterproof grease I used last time was anything
but dry, but still the engineers at Honda who specified moly probably
knew what they were doing. I have enough to put moly-60 in there
this time, I just was pretty confident of the BelRay since others have
put 100,000 miles on their bikes using it with good results.

-Mike

[Steve K (IA)]

Lose faith in the properties of moly, or just run out?

I think moly paste is probably the safest thing to use...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molybdenum_disulfide#Lubricant

When you look in your final drive and it looks dry (I don't mean
the red surface-of-mars phenomenon  ) the caked on molybdenum
is, I guess, still doing a good job of lubrication.

The blue BelRay waterproof grease I used last time was anything
but dry, but still the engineers at Honda who specified moly probably
knew what they were doing. I have enough to put moly-60 in there
this time, I just was pretty confident of the BelRay since others have
put 100,000 miles on their bikes using it with good results.

-Mike

My Dealer is the place that directed me to Bel-Ray grease.  They said that was what they always used.

[baird4444]

doing a tiar change and found some serious wear....   
gonna button it back up with plenty of Moly and get another month and a half riding and
worry about it this winter....  will have many questions!!
         - Mike

[hubcapsc]

doing a tiar change and found some serious wear....   
gonna button it back up with plenty of Moly and get another month and a half riding and
worry about it this winter....  will have many questions!!
         - Mike

If you start looking for a 1500 wing final that's still good, you can put it's splines
into your ring gear... the only hard part is pressing the splines out of the ring gears
and pressing them back in (the NAPA guy did that for me).

-Mike

[baird4444]

doing a tiar change and found some serious wear....   
gonna button it back up with plenty of Moly and get another month and a half riding and
worry about it this winter....  will have many questions!!
         - Mike

If you start looking for a 1500 wing final that's still good, you can put it's splines
into your ring gear... the only hard part is pressing the splines out of the ring gears
and pressing them back in (the NAPA guy did that for me).

-Mike

Good INFO!!!!
any 1500 wing or specific year?

[Gizmo]

Here's a couple

I was recently heading down this path but found a decent Valkyrie diff and I'm just putting that in now.

http://www.valkyrieforum.com/bbs/index.php/topic,46978.0.html

http://www.valkyrieforum.com/bbs/index.php?topic=64159.0

[gordonv]

Good INFO!!!!
any 1500 wing or specific year?

I think any GL1500 GW, but the 88'-89' drives had 6 pin hubs, instead of the 5 pins we are familiar with. But those rear drives can take any rim with the right matched hubs. I put on a 92' 5 pin rim onto my 88' GW 6 pin dampeners, had to change the dust cover.