Final drive failure

Just had my final drive unit replaced.

The pinion bearing failed causing the pinion gear to wear on the ring gear. At the end of a 10 day ride I noticed there was much more noise coming from the drivetrain. Thankfully there was a complete unit at yamaha. (Only 1 in the US.)

The Facts:

33,000 miles on the bike. '07 AE

The unit was never low on oil and serviced regularly.

No obvious reason for the bearing to fail.

What I learned from this:

1. Y.E.S. is a good thing.

2. Karma can be tough. I regularly ride with two BMW riders. On ocassion, I may have been know to comment about how much they spend on maintainence and joke about where the next BMW dealer is. It is possible that I made reference to the Beemer final problems.

Thanks to the good folks at Desert Valley Motorsports in Prosser, WA for getting me back on the road. :biggrinsmiley:

Wow, first time I heard of a relatively early failure like that. Good thing you caught it before you were stuck stranded anywhere. I wonder about the oil itself - is the bike dealer serviced? I just ask because of all the folks posting that their dealers often don't stock the synthetic final drive oil.

TumacMike said:

2. Karma can be tough. I regularly ride with two BMW riders. On ocassion, I may have been know to comment about how much they spend on maintainence and joke about where the next BMW dealer is. It is possible that I made reference to the Beemer final problems.

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Thanks for the honest and disclosure. Your karma reservoir will be refilled because of it.

And...I'll be the first to say it.....knowing it would otherwise be opined by some chicken little about the status of the sky......this is the first final drive failure (or near failure) of a gear or bearing on the FJR I remember. I've heard of a few leaking seals, a bad u-joint, and a reverser or something in the engine side of things. So, a trend it does NOT make.

But a curious data point, nonetheless.

Glad Prosser was able to round up that one unit in North America. Seems that's one more of the product they have than throttle grip assemblies.

It isn't a failure unless it burst into glorious flames!

Sorry for your problem though!

Don

I've ridden thousands of miles with Mike and can attest that while he may turn the wick up at times, he takes very good care of his bike and treats it properly.

I saw one of the bearings and it was seriously pitted. It could have failed at any moment.

I dropped my bike off at Desert Powersports at the same time he did for my 24k service. The shop there is good. Very good. 90 miles for a service doesn't seem so far now.

I believe I see the problem... It's a GenII.

Seriously, are you the original owner? I ask because I wonder how well it was maintained.

Iggy was spot on as far as this is concerned.. Granted the op didn't suggest it was another in the long list of supposed "problems" with this platform. I gotta wonder how long before this is something people loose sleep over..

:jester:

****...couldn't sleep last night worrying about a final drive failure failure on my Gen II......oh, yeah -- nevermind! :evil:

42,000 miles on my 2007 FJR and no problems with the final drive (or anything for that matter).

RadioHowie said:

****...couldn't sleep last night worrying about a final drive failure failure on my Gen II......oh, yeah -- nevermind! :evil:

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Hell Howie.... That no sleeping thing could be a positive for you.

Ya can't piss the bed if you're not sleeping..

You can thank me later. :blum:

:jester:

FJRBluesman said:

I believe I see the problem... It's a GenII.
Seriously, are you the original owner? I ask because I wonder how well it was maintained.

Click to expand...

There isn't all that much to "maintaining" a final drive. Keep it full of ****.

He says it was (when it failed) and that he even changed it now and then, which is all it should need.

The rest of what folks do, lubing the drive splines, etc., thinking they are "maintaining" the drive is recreational.

I think the point that people may be missing here is, OK so there was a final drive failure. Why so surprised?

That is one out of how many? Every manufactured part, and especially assembly, has the potential to have a manufacturing defect which results in a failure. It is impossible to build anything with 100% infallibility.

The fact that a single final drive has failed is more proof of that premise than anything else.

Unless there are a number of similar failures, (say like the ground spiders? Or BMW final drives?) it does not indicate that there is anything at all wrong with the design. And, considering the number of successful final drives running around, and with lots of accumulated miles, a single failure data point should be absolutely no cause for concern to anyone, except the guy who owns the failed drive.

Bustanut joker said:

RadioHowie said:

****...couldn't sleep last night worrying about a final drive failure failure on my Gen II......oh, yeah -- nevermind! :evil:

Click to expand...

Hell Howie.... That no sleeping thing could be a positive for you.

Ya can't piss the bed if you're not sleeping..

You can thank me later. :blum:

:jester:

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No worries, Bust; RH and I buy our Depends in bulk supply amounts at COSTCO! Fred's right on like usual (Smartest guy on our Forum, next to odot and Dolly!) Anything manufactured by human hands can fail, even Clark Anus Shavers. As you guys know, I'm on the BMW Forums also; and you rarely hear of a final drive failure these days, making us believe it was a couple of years run of improper set ups at the factory and coincided with the period when BMW removed the bottom drain plug on the final drive housing. Now that the "****" is being changed regularly, FD problems seems to be gone.

Fred W said:

FJRBluesman said:

I believe I see the problem... It's a GenII.Seriously, are you the original owner? I ask because I wonder how well it was maintained.

Click to expand...

There isn't all that much to "maintaining" a final drive. Keep it full of ****. He says it was (when it failed) and that he even changed it now and then, which is all it should need.

The rest of what folks do, lubing the drive splines, etc., thinking they are "maintaining" the drive is recreational.

I think the point that people may be missing here is, OK so there was a final drive failure. Why so surprised?

That is one out of how many? Every manufactured part, and especially assembly, has the potential to have a manufacturing defect which results in a failure. It is impossible to build anything with 100% infallibility.

Snip>>

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Fred - I understand the OP, he has a good point.I asked because if a previous owner without much mechanical sense did something wrong.... well that could explain a lot.

Quick story. My boss explained to his zero talented mechanical nephew (this is in the mid 1970s) how to change the oil in his car. Showed him the drain plug, where to fill it, etc. The guy then proceeded to drain the tranny fluid, fill up the oil with five more quarts on top of what was inside, and he drove off. Blew oil out of every available orifice, and destroyed his tranny.

So, hypothetically a previous owner could have drained it and maybe not filled it properly or at all, and thus destroyed bearings, etc. Just sayin'.

When I did the seals in my 03 I didn't like the play in the pinion bearing so I ordered a new one along with the seals and a new lock nut to hold it in place. The pinion bearing is kind of an odd design made up of a single row ball bearing and two inner races with the balls secured in a brass cage. I am used to pinion bearings being timken type bearings shimed and preloaded. Not the case here.

When I put it back together with the new bearing and seals, I had the same side to side play as with the old bearing so it seems some lateral movement is designed into the system. Its been close to 40k since I changed the bearing and seals with no issues. I think it would be an improvement if the shaft assy was a sealed unit to prevent dirt and water from entering the housing. It's down hill all the way to the seal area and eventually some of it could get to the seals. IMHO.

Fred W said:

FJRBluesman said:

I believe I see the problem... It's a GenII.
Seriously, are you the original owner? I ask because I wonder how well it was maintained.

Click to expand...

There isn't all that much to "maintaining" a final drive. Keep it full of ****.

He says it was (when it failed) and that he even changed it now and then, which is all it should need.

The rest of what folks do, lubing the drive splines, etc., thinking they are "maintaining" the drive is recreational.

I think the point that people may be missing here is, OK so there was a final drive failure. Why so surprised?

That is one out of how many? Every manufactured part, and especially assembly, has the potential to have a manufacturing defect which results in a failure. It is impossible to build anything with 100% infallibility.

The fact that a single final drive has failed is more proof of that premise than anything else.

Unless there are a number of similar failures, (say like the ground spiders? Or BMW final drives?) it does not indicate that there is anything at all wrong with the design. And, considering the number of successful final drives running around, and with lots of accumulated miles, a single failure data point should be absolutely no cause for concern to anyone, except the guy who owns the failed drive.

Click to expand...

+1 If it is mechanical it can fail.

Coming off a K1200 LT BMW I am well aware of a potential FD failure. I had a spare boxed and ready for my sister to send me when I traveled in case mine failed! I had 32,000 on when I totaled it in July. Never a problem. However it was estimated that 4% of all LT drives will fail. And fail they did.

I had the privilege to meet a lot of great forum members on my summer trips from the BMW forum. One was a guy up in VT who decided out of curiosity to find out what was going on. So he used a dial indicator method and used a jig method which is what a Dealer is supposed to use to set preload on the bearing with a shim when they "rebuild" a failed one under warranty. When you screw the case on it applies pressure to preload the bearing on the crown wheel. What he discovered was they were .020 at least over shimmed! Now this would explain a lot of the various bearing failure modes he was seeing. Sometimes race, sometimes pitted ball bearings, sometimes mangled cages. This year I ran my brand new FD to him while on summer vacation and we watched as he checked it. It too was .020 over shimmed! Brand new! He re shimmed it for me and now it is a 100.000 mile drive no issue.

Point is one of the reasons besides weight that I wanted to try a FJR was it appears to be a pretty bullet proof bike. Sounds funny when I mention weight but 840 pounds of LT versus 640 pounds of FJR sounds like a deal to me.

So the "sky is not falling" with a reported failed FJR drive. Point of interest yes. Trauma for the owner most definitely! Glad he got squared away!

Dear LAF, Thank you very much for taking the time to explain in an eloquent mechanical manner my reference to "setup" in Post #12 above. Same situation was discovered on my 2005 BMW R1150RT by Dave Alquist, Owner/Proprietor of Quality Cycle Service in Mesa, Arizona. After a proper reshimming, mine should also be good for 100K miles with no problems; Shame on BMW Factory sloppiness!!

"I had the privilege to meet a lot of great forum members on my summer trips from the BMW forum. One was a guy up in VT who decided out of curiosity to find out what was going on. So he used a dial indicator method and used a jig method which is what a Dealer is supposed to use to set preload on the bearing with a shim when they "rebuild" a failed one under warranty. When you screw the case on it applies pressure to preload the bearing on the crown wheel. What he discovered was they were .020 at least over shimmed! Now this would explain a lot of the various bearing failure modes he was seeing. Sometimes race, sometimes pitted ball bearings, sometimes mangled cages. This year I ran my brand new FD to him while on summer vacation and we watched as he checked it. It too was .020 over shimmed! Brand new! He re shimmed it for me and now it is a 100.000 mile drive no issue."

"Now that the "****" is being changed regularly, FD problems seems to be gone."

If this statement doesn't jinx 'em to become an item again, nothing will :grin:

doctorj

https://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread....75#post13986475

Scroll down to post 4376. Wow!

doctorj

FJRBluesman said:

So, hypothetically a previous owner could have drained it and maybe not filled it properly or at all, and thus destroyed bearings, etc. Just sayin'.

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Yeah. You definitely have a point. The biggest variable on any bike is the loose screw behind the bars.

doctorJ said:

https://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread....75#post13986475
Scroll down to post 4376. Wow!

Click to expand...

That one seems to be smashed, like it was bounced off a rock or sumpthin, rather than just a gear failure.