Final Drive Fluid Change

[MFP]

@semmyroundel - Do not spin the wheel in an attempt to get more in is all I would suggest as a caution.

Eric,
What is the reason for caution regarding spinning the rear wheel while filling it up with new oil?

 

[EricV]

Eric,
What is the reason for caution regarding spinning the rear wheel while filling it up with new oil?

If you spin the rear wheel it sucks some gear oil around the gears and you can actually get more oil in before it starts spilling out the fill hole. If you do that, you end up over-filling the final drive and it spits it out the vent, making a mess and in many cases, concerning the owner needlessly. I've tried it, and honestly, a little makes no difference, but I have also spoken to an un-named S10 owner that really worked at getting as much oil in as possible by spinning the wheel and continuing to add oil until no more would go in w/o immediately puking out the fill hole. He just created a mess later and was stressing about a bad seal, but the seal was fine in the end, it just had too much oil.

 

[MFP]

If you spin the rear wheel it sucks some gear oil around the gears and you can actually get more oil in before it starts spilling out the fill hole. If you do that, you end up over-filling the final drive and it spits it out the vent, making a mess and in many cases, concerning the owner needlessly. I've tried it, and honestly, a little makes no difference, but I have also spoken to an un-named S10 owner that really worked at getting as much oil in as possible by spinning the wheel and continuing to add oil until no more would go in w/o immediately puking out the fill hole. He just created a mess later and was stressing about a bad seal, but the seal was fine in the end, it just had too much oil.

Understood, thanks for the quick reply.
I have moved the wheel once or twice while pouring in the new oil but never to the point it spills out as you
have mentioned.

 

[EricV]

I used to fill until it puked out the fill hole, then give the wheel a spin to stop it puking out while I threaded in the fill plug. Sometimes when the oil starts to come out, it seemed like I got a siphon effect, even though I knew it wasn't excessively full, just had reached the full point. Spinning the wheel stopped that, but I didn't keep adding, just re-installed the plug.

 

[Cycledude]

I prefer a little below full

 

[semmyroundel]

Cycledude, that's interesting, although I'm now not obsessing about being slightly under/over, I do wonder why thay put 200ml in manual and not to fill hole.
Being a heating engineer, I'm normally accurate about measures

 

[Don in Lodi]

How many more milliliter can go in after 200? And I fill mine while on the center stand.

 

[Jlq1969]

How many more milliliter can go in after 200? And I fill mine while on the center stand.

If the S10 is on the “center stand”, if you "level it” using a support on the front wheel, and fill it with 200 cm3, it will be filled up to the mark. If you want to put a little more ... it will begin to drain….

 

[semmyroundel]

If the S10 is on the “center stand”, if you "level it” using a support on the front wheel, and fill it with 200 cm3, it will be filled up to the mark. If you want to put a little more ... it will begin to drain….

Interesting, I had it on side stand and with rear of bike ever so slightly down, this one would assume make pouring out of filler hole more, not less likely.
I put 3x60ml syringe-fulls plus 20ml more. Then as nothing came out I added a further 10 to 25ml, I can't be sure, but as was mentioned earlier, a little more or less shouldn't make much difference, having new oil in there will make all the difference.
I didn't spin the wheel either.
Also interesting, the waste oil was black, now the bike's done 7500 miles, is 3 years old, and assuming they took out the disulphide oil at first service (which I don't know that they did tbh) I wouldn't have thought it would be black, any thoughts?

 

[BaldKnob]

Interesting, I had it on side stand and with rear of bike ever so slightly down, this one would assume make pouring out of filler hole more, not less likely.
I put 3x60ml syringe-fulls plus 20ml more. Then as nothing came out I added a further 10 to 25ml, I can't be sure, but as was mentioned earlier, a little more or less shouldn't make much difference, having new oil in there will make all the difference.
I didn't spin the wheel either.
Also interesting, the waste oil was black, now the bike's done 7500 miles, is 3 years old, and assuming they took out the disulphide oil at first service (which I don't know that they did tbh) I wouldn't have thought it would be black, any thoughts?

Did you expect it to look pristine? The fluid should be discolored after all that work, get concerned if there are pieces of metal in it!

My procedure is to measure out 210-220ml in a squeeze bottle and attach a section of tubing. Using 2 straps, I’ll lean the bike to the right-side down position (nothing too extreme) and fill the diff case. Usually, the extra 10-20mls will remain in the bottle and tubing. Check the fill hole after the next ride and Bob’s screwing yer Mom. No stress.

 

[semmyroundel]

Did you expect it to look pristine? The fluid should be discolored after all that work, get concerned if there are pieces of metal in it!

My procedure is to measure out 210-220ml in a squeeze bottle and attach a section of tubing. Using 2 straps, I’ll lean the bike to the right-side down position (nothing too extreme) and fill the diff case. Usually, the extra 10-20mls will remain in the bottle and tubing. Check the fill hole after the next ride and Bob’s screwing yer Mom. No stress.

pristine no, but there's no carbon deposits in the final drive to be picked up as opposed to engine.

 

[Don in Lodi]

I changed my fluid three times in the first 5000. Once every 5k for the next three or four changes, then whenever I think about it. It comes out clean now.

 

[EricV]

It's quite normal to see black final drive oil. Funny thing... I was religious about using the Yamaha final drive oil for high speed for a few years when I first got my FJR. I even called Yamaha and spoke at some length to them about what constituted "high speed", (over 70 mph sustained for more than a hour, is what I was told). It always came out black at change intervals specified in the manual. Then I changed to Valvoline 75W-90 full synthetic gear oil. The first change was pretty dark, but not as black as before. 4k miles later, (early), I changed it again and it was medium brown. 4k later it was almost the same color as when I put it in. After that I went back to the specified interval and it was still nearly as clean as when I put it in. The final drive also ran noticeably cooler with the full synthetic Valvoline oil. Before you couldn't keep your hand on the final drive after a few hours of freeway speeds. After, you could rest your hand on it and leave it there, though still hot, not enough to burn.

And just FWIW, I didn't change to synthetic until maybe 40k miles, so all the break in was done long before I changed it, and long before several changes with the Yamalube 'special' high speed final drive oil.

 

[semmyroundel]

It's quite normal to see black final drive oil. Funny thing... I was religious about using the Yamaha final drive oil for high speed for a few years when I first got my FJR. I even called Yamaha and spoke at some length to them about what constituted "high speed", (over 70 mph sustained for more than a hour, is what I was told). It always came out black at change intervals specified in the manual. Then I changed to Valvoline 75W-90 full synthetic gear oil. The first change was pretty dark, but not as black as before. 4k miles later, (early), I changed it again and it was medium brown. 4k later it was almost the same color as when I put it in. After that I went back to the specified interval and it was still nearly as clean as when I put it in. The final drive also ran noticeably cooler with the full synthetic Valvoline oil. Before you couldn't keep your hand on the final drive after a few hours of freeway speeds. After, you could rest your hand on it and leave it there, though still hot, not enough to burn.

And just FWIW, I didn't change to synthetic until maybe 40k miles, so all the break in was done long before I changed it, and long before several changes with the Yamalube 'special' high speed final drive oil.

This is good to hear and confirms my long held suspicions about when to add fully synthetic, and the effects on cooling, (and a by-product of the extra cooling-less wear).
When I bought my Harley Sportster, I was told not to put synthetic oil in as it revved too slowly, eventually someone concurred with my thinking about less wear for the small extra outlay, and after the second mineral oil change I moved to FS.
I tend to do long hot rides with my bikes in the summer (spain up till now, 35- 40 degrees in the sun) and hoping with the S10 to cross the Pamir Highway, so I think anything that will help with extra friction minimising, and cooling has to be a good thing.
The Harley is air cooled, and there have been some hairy moments stuck in traffic in Madrid, and I'm sure it helped to have FS in the sump.
What I don't know is what would've happened EricV if you'd gone straight to FS in final drive after first oil change?
I'm guessing you'd say that the gears wouldn't be given the chance to grind together and wear evenly, or something like that?
Just for helpful info you understand..I'm learning here.

 

[WJBertrand]

79K miles on my '15 and I went directly to synthetic after the first change that I did at around 15K (I think the dealer may have changed it at the 600 miles service). Now I change it once a year or every 10-12,000 miles using mostly Valvoline full synthetic or currently Royal Purple full synthetic (it's what I had on hand). It has always looked new draining it out since I started using synthetic. I often ride in extreme temperatures (100F +) at high speeds crossing the deserts here in the southwest so have been using the 75w-140.

 

[EricV]

What I don't know is what would've happened EricV if you'd gone straight to FS in final drive after first oil change?
I'm guessing you'd say that the gears wouldn't be given the chance to grind together and wear evenly, or something like that?
Just for helpful info you understand..I'm learning here.

35-40C is 95-104F. We see those temps and higher in the US Southwest. I've seen over 50C on the Super Ten. The bike was fine, I was HOT.

I did exactly that on my 2012 and 2015 Super Tenere. Pretty much the same process, the FS oil came out dirty, then less so for the first few changes and then stayed about the same.

After my experience with the FJR1300, I had no hesitation about using a high quality fully synthetic gear oil in the final drive earlier in the life span of the bike. IMHO, 90% of the break in is occurring in the first 600 miles, if not sooner. As a machinist that has cut gears and assembled gear housings in the hydraulic tool industry, interference wear occurs very quickly on the first application of the device. At that point, the larger concern on extremely tight tolerance tools is what the particles in the oil are now doing to the gears and housing. Thankfully, our final drives are no where near as tight tolerance as the .00015" clearance I was working with on hydraulic tools. But when you speak of oil, clean and slippery is Good™.

 

[Pdrhound]

Thus, always loosen the fill bolt first on any differential.

 

[Hendrixwannnabe1]

Ummm. Wtf. Any ideas why my gear oil looks like silver paint?
I changed it about 5000km ago.
Had to put a timesert in the drain hole as i striped the bastard.
Well and truely flushed it out at the time.
But i suppose some shavings could have been stuck in there and ground up into an aluminum paste. Lol.
Bikes been running fine.

Sent from my LG-H930 using Tapatalk

 

[Hendrixwannnabe1]

Also very humid here. And my drain plug has always had a slight seep. Maybe moisture got into it.

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[Cycledude]

Ummm. Wtf. Any ideas why my gear oil looks like silver paint?
I changed it about 5000km ago.
Had to put a timesert in the drain hole as i striped the bastard.
Well and truely flushed it out at the time.
But i suppose some shavings could have been stuck in there and ground up into an aluminum paste. Lol.
Bikes been running fine.

Sent from my LG-H930 using Tapatalk

Well that’s something I’ve never seen before, at least not that seriously discolored