Mysterious snap rings discovered in final drive splines.....

[chewie123]

Hey guys,

Been a long time since I posted on here, glad to have the site to turn to when something totally stumps me, which is what happened today!

I am currently totally rehabbing my 1978 XS1100E which has been unfortunately sitting for 5+ years because of various reasons and I am dealing with a few things I have never serviced in the 16 years of owning this bike...

I pulled the final drive this morning to check how the driveshaft splines looked and to re pack them with Bel-Ray assembly lube and discovered 2 mysterious snap rings in the female spline part of the final drive, freely floating around the spring that lives in there.

Where could these have come from? I checked the parts fiche and it doesnt seem there should be snap rings in there. I then thought did they come off of the u joint? But how would they have made there way into that area....doesnt make sense.

Is there something Im missing here or did the PO just do something wrong? Should I pull the U joint to look at it just in case? I pulled back the boot and it turned and looked OK...

I put a picture of the ring on here, they are 21mm and there are 2 of them...

Thanks for the help.

C

[bikerphil]

That holds the driveshaft in the U joint. Not a big deal without it installed, it gets removed anyway when doing a 750/850 FD conversion.

[DiverRay]

Chewie123, do NOT use assembly lube on the splines!!!! You need to use a moly, High Pressure grease. This is usually black looking, but will keep the splines from self destructing. The grease nipple on the swingarm does almost no good, so must of us grease the splines every tire change.

[chewie123]

DiverRay,

Copy that. What grease do you use on your bike? Ive read on here the nipple does nothing which is why I have waited until now (tire change) to finally do this.

Thanks,
C

[madmax-im]

Honda ST1100 and ST1300 owners have for years used Moly Paste 60..But it has been discontinued however there is a modern equivalent...This discussion is quite lengthy...But all the same issues for the ST1100/1300s apply here as well..

https://www.st-owners.com/forums/thr...tly-so.163897/

[bikerphil]

Ooooo a grease thread, I use marine grease and never had any sign of wear after many 10's of thou miles, YMMV.

[DiverRay]

I am using MasterPro super lithium EP Moly grease. It meets NLGI #2 requirements. The EP and NLGI #2 is whats important.

[chewie123]

Thanks for the responses guys. Seeing how this turned into a grease thread, I take it the original snap ring mystery is not of any concern....

If I already applied the Bel-Ray to the splines and inserted the final drive back on the shaft (which I have....) is it OK to just remove and wipe off and then repack with the correct grease? (My local parts store had the MasterPro in stock) There was already a ton of grease in there where PO had used the zerk I assume. I should also note all of the splines looked good, so I assume what was in there is the good stuff. I have put many miles on this bike, so it was good to see no teeth wear.

[DiverRay]

Yeah, go ahead and put in the correct grease. The little bit of "old" grease should not make any difference. The moly in the correct grease will still do the trick. And yeah, back in '78 I believed Yamaha about the zerk fitting, and greased the heck out of it...

[skids]

Since this is a grease thread now ... I have heard that for trailer axles, it is very important to use grease that is compatible with the existing grease. My grease gun currently has red tacky grease (for trailer axles) in it and I will not be using that in the drive of the Yamaha. What a pain to swap out grease tubes. Maybe I’ll buy another grease gun.

[Radioguylogs]

I have 3 grease guns for that reason.

[LoHo]

Skids, the problem is that different greases have different thickeners; the wrong combo can result in half the grease acting like wax and the other half dripping out as oil. You could use the marine grade on the splines if you did a decent job of cleaning out the old grease. If you just add a couple squirts of new (different formula) grease into an existing grease environment, you might cause problems. I have just adopted everything to the red marine grease...so far, so good.