Final Drive Seal Frustration

[avc8130]

AVC8130 - haven't seen that pattern before! Please say it's lot of lube on the axle from removing the rear tire, and not a hairline crack in the housing!

Chris

Chris,

I'll keep you posted. Let's just say I am not shy with the grease when I R/R the rear wheel. I put a liberal coating on the axle and the splines.

ac

 

[AdventureRider]

Is the lips seal a single lip or double lip if its only a single see if you can find a double lip that is the same size might last a bit longer

 

[sail2xxs]

Chris,

We missed ya out in Colorado.... How many miles are you sitting on right now ? 90+ ?

Hope all is well buddy..... ::008::

Hi Jaxon!

I really wanted to make it out to Colorado, but had my girls that week. Sitting on just shy of 91k miles now.

The pics from Colorado are awesome!

Planning on getting back down your way in the late fall - hoping to wander around Big Bend a little.

::001::

 

[avc8130]

AVC8130 - haven't seen that pattern before! Please say it's lot of lube on the axle from removing the rear tire, and not a hairline crack in the housing!

Chris

Chris,

I cleaned off the offending coating and it hasn't come back. I am going to chock it up as excess grease from when I installed the rear wheel last.

ac

 

[sail2xxs]

AC,

That's great news!

Chris

 

[EricV]

Copied from "Cooked Headlamp Harness" thread HERE

EricV,

Given the type of riding you do, I'd keep a spare set of seals handy just in case. They tend not to be in stock, though the dealer I just started working with has agreed to keep a full pair on hand. I have the wetness around the breather vent fairly often after off pavement excursions, sometimes even after a pretty rough stretch of pavement (some of the backroads in NH this past weekend would have been smoother unpaved!).

Warranty has taken care of all of these issues, and I have never been stranded or needed to trailer the bike because of any of them.

Chris

So noted Chris. I find it interesting that with all the seal and o-ring changes on the first FD, no one ever replaced the shim. Those shims come in different sizes and with the various issues the BMW boys have had, shim tolerances have played a significant part in their issues. That they swapped the entire FD, and it happened again, and that they are replacing oil seals on both sides of the gear set gives me some pause.

From a machinist point of view, I'd want to check your swing arm to see if the axle hole is in concentricity to the FD. And if the face where the FD bolts up is square and parallel to the axle hole. Something is stressing the FD in some way that it causes the seal(s) to fail or allow oil past them as the parts rotate. Unfortunately, it would take a granite plate and Coordinate Measuring Machine to really check the swing arm out. Not likely to happen at dealer level.

 

[Mark R.]

Copied from "Cooked Headlamp Harness" thread HERE

So noted Chris. I find it interesting that with all the seal and o-ring changes on the first FD, no one ever replaced the shim. Those shims come in different sizes and with the various issues the BMW boys have had, shim tolerances have played a significant part in their issues. That they swapped the entire FD, and it happened again, and that they are replacing oil seals on both sides of the gear set gives me some pause.

From a machinist point of view, I'd want to check your swing arm to see if the axle hole is in concentricity to the FD. And if the face where the FD bolts up is square and parallel to the axle hole. Something is stressing the FD in some way that it causes the seal(s) to fail or allow oil past them as the parts rotate. Unfortunately, it would take a granite plate and Coordinate Measuring Machine to really check the swing arm out. Not likely to happen at dealer level.

Eric: I spoke with another forum member last weekend who had rear wheel alignment issues. He ended up shimming out the final drive with a 1/64" piece of gasket material, which got his rear wheel aligned perfectly. I agree with you that there is likely some sort of unobserved stress causing these issues.

My swingarm was machined about 1mm too narrow, and I had to shim it to keep it from banging back and forth on the bearing spacer. Not every part is machined perfectly.

 

[EricV]

Manufacturing tolerances are generally well documented. One of the on-going problems is that operators and machinists are more and more being tasked as the last line of quality. No more line checks, no first article checks, no more Quality Assurance checks. (Cost Down savings) The parts go strait from the machine shop to the assembly dept. Your swing arm was 1mm off. On a metric travel indicator, which would be typically used with a Go/No Go function gauge to measure the swing arm, that represents one revolution of the gauge. That is an easy thing to miss, because the machinist or operator is looking for much smaller deviations. The gauge would show the indicator in the correct tolerance, but one revolution off.

Sadly, not every operator or machinist is as quality conscious as the next. Some will toss a known bad part in the bin with the rest of the good parts, just to show they made their production quota for the shift and avoid repercussions due to generating scrap. Sometimes things simply get missed too.

On the assembly side, if it goes together, no one is likely to notice a problem. High demands on product getting out the door sometimes mean people will accept out of tolerance or known sub-standard parts/assemblies in order to meet the immediate demands, letting Customer Service take the hit later. The Engineers often refer to this as "This Time Only" As in they know it's out of tolerance, but will let it go thru "this time". In reality, "this time only" becomes the new, sloppy, out of tolerance, standard and sadly more poor quality parts can slip thru the system.

Time and distance make it difficult for Yamaha to inspect everything they might want to when a problem like this occurs. Kudos to them for swapping the entire final drive. That the problem continues to exist would point to a new direction.

 

[twinrider]

My swingarm was machined about 1mm too narrow, and I had to shim it to keep it from banging back and forth on the bearing spacer. Not every part is machined perfectly.

If it was my bike I would be asking Yamaha to replace it. That kind of feedback will help them improve their QC.

 

[Mark R.]

If it was my bike I would be asking Yamaha to replace it. That kind of feedback will help them improve their QC.

I understand, but it is not so easy. I had the bike apart, and realized what the problem was. I took the swingarm in to the dealer, and they told me to put the bike back together and bring it in. Then they would call the Yamaha factory rep, and when he came by (whenever that was) he would have a look at it. If he decided that a new swingarm was required, it would be ordered and then installed. Total time: What, maybe 3 weeks? Maybe longer.

On the other hand, after realizing what the problem was, I bought a 90 cent washer, cut the outside diameter down with some tin snips, smoothed the edges, greased it up, installed it under the right-side dust seal, and put the bike back together. Now my bike is back together, working perfectly. That was a better option for me.

 

[peterl]

can anyone show pictures or explain how to replace the seal in the final drive

 

[Philistine]

I went through some deep mud the other day and must have got some grit in the seal because it started leaking, when I went into Yamaha they told me they had never hear of a oil seal in the diff leaking :-\ so I pulled it out and cleaned it and all is good now, but they wanted $89 for the seal and $54 for the o ring glad I tried cleaning it first.
its a pretty simple job, getting the crown gear back on is about the hardest part of the job

 

[bob dirt]

I went through some deep mud the other day and must have got some grit in the seal because it started leaking, when I went into Yamaha they told me they had never hear of a oil seal in the diff leaking :-\ so I pulled it out and cleaned it and all is good now, but they wanted $89 for the seal and $54 for the o ring glad I tried cleaning it first.
its a pretty simple job, getting the crown gear back on is about the hardest part of the job

I hope that was an installed price. I found the o-ring for $7.87 (which also fits grizzly and big bear) and the seal for $10.29 online and in stock. If you don't do your own work and it's out of warranty, your could always take a printed copy of the prices and most stealerships should match prices...if they don't, ef them.

 

[Ramseybella]

The Bible of parts, McMasters!!

http://www.mcmaster.com/#

 

[Philistine]

No that was parts only, I get so sick of Aussies getting ripped off with pricing, other country's seem to pay half of what we do here

 

[bikerdoc]

No that was parts only, I get so sick of Aussies getting ripped off with pricing, other country's seem to pay half of what we do here

Add kiwis to that list of being taken to the cash cow cleaners by stealerships, and not just on XT1200/super10'd either, anything two wheels...

 

[sail2xxs]

Can you guys order from the US so you have parts available, or does that cause problems with customs?

Chris

 

[Philistine]

under a certain amount of dollars worth we can, over a certain amount we have to pay tax I think, depends what the suppler writes down on the invoice slip I think, but we can do it, but if you don't know who you are dealing with it makes it a bit easy to get ripped off, so I am mainly using eBay, but you cant get everything on eBay and postage can kill the price on larger or heavy things

 

[sail2xxs]

Give us folks in the US a wishlist, and we'll send a "care package".

Chris

 

[Philistine]

::008::