Shaft to hub seal

[willieiso118]

I was 800 miles into a 1000 mile trip when i noticed at a gas stop that i had oil on the left side of my rear tire and dripping down the final drive unit. i thought i had a hub seal leak, i cleaned it and kept an eye on it however the next morning there was oil at the bottom of the hub assy and i thought this was a sign of over night seepage in the parking lot. This however was not the case, i took it into the shop in Bozeman Montana (great guys 'n gals) and they checked it, topped it up and cleaned everything up for me, i got back on the road to my hotel for the night and all was well. The next morning however i notice oil on the ground and that is when i finally noticed that the oil was coming out of the tell tale hole in the rear base of the drive shaft box tube where it attaches to the hub and must have been blowing back to the hub seal area the hole time. The story doesn't end here however, as it was July 4th so i had a day to kill before i had arranged to book it at the Yamaha shop in Billings Montana for work. While the bike was on the center stand and idling in 1st gear i notice a scrub scrub scrub sound emanating from the shaft & hub area.

When i dropped it in the shop on the 5th i showed them what i had found and they set to work to further diagnose this for me, after pulling apart the hub and shaft assy they told me that gravel had been thrown into the shaft tube somehow and was the cause of the seal failure. I'm at a loss to explain how gravel got in there, I'm no gravel road cowboy!! Not sure if its a lame duck excuse to avoid a warrantee claim. the bike has a mere 10600 km's (just better that 6300 miles) i picked it up December 23rd and due to weather haven't had much of an opportunity to put many miles on it until recently.

I'm a little disheartened with this FJR so far, sever tire cupping causing a front tire replacement by 7800km's and now this, all to a 6 month old bike?

Anyways what is the general opinion on this gravel in the shaft tube story? and the warranty dodge? :angry2:

 

[FJRay]

The foward end of the shaft housing is open to the world so "Maybe" foriegn objects could get in there. I have had mine apart several times and there has never been anything in the housing and where my new place is I have 1.5 miles ov gravel every day. <_<

 

[v65]

and the warranty dodge?

Sounds like a pretty good description. Time to get on the horn and talk with Yamaha customer service.

 

[cctxfjr]

if construction is such that it allows debris to enter seal area that is a design flaw and should be covered-be polite but firm that it should be covered 100% (they may try a percentage deal first with you paying half).I agree you need to deal with Yamaha direct if the dealer rejects the warranty claim first. The dealer will never risk having to pay something out of his own pocket. Its also not totally unkown for dealers to reject claims and collect payment and they turn around and file a warranty claim with the oem.

 

[FJRay]

Sure can't see how it could be a design flaw when almost everything on the planet the uses a shaft has seals that are exposed to the elements. Just look at all the exposed seal surfaces on the standard car.

 

[FJRAust]

Mine has got near 60 000Km on it. I suspect the final drive has never been removed until I did it about 2 weeks ago. There wasn't any road debree in there, just a little dust and general grime.

Can only agree that it couldn't be considered a design flaw as Yamma use this final drive design on the vast majority of their Shaft drives.

Call Yamma see what you can swing.

 

[ELP_JC]

I agree with it being a design flaw. Many bikes, like MotoGuzzi, and some Yammie (cheap) cruisers have open shafts. Although not pretty, there's no problem them being open.

On the other hand, having the shaft partly exposed, especially at the tall end, makes the rear seal vulnerable gentlemen. If something gets in there (like it happened here), it'd go down the housing and beat the seal into oblivion until it fails. Nowhere else for the crap to go. Not a good design in my view.

That was the first thing I noticed when I was cleaning my new bike. Never seen that befofe, especially on an expensive bike; all my previous shaft bikes have been fully enclosed.

There's some plastic covers on my '07, but there're still holes where crap can get in there.

I'd definitely push for a warranty repair; hope they listen to you. Keep us posted please.

JC

 

[SkooterG]

First of all, it should have been covered under warranty, plain and simple. How much was it BTW? That seal should have been pretty inexpensive, and not too labor intensive to change.

I don't think it's a design flaw, as it's rare to have seal failures in that area. Just a few documented cases on this board.

So what seal was it exactly? The driveshaft seal that I discuss in detail HERE? Or the seal in the coupler - #12 in the parts diagram in this thread.

 

[cctxfjr]

First of all, it should have been covered under warranty, plain and simple. How much was it BTW? That seal should have been pretty inexpensive, and not too labor intensive to change.
I don't think it's a design flaw, as it's rare to have seal failures in that area. Just a few documented cases on this board.

So what seal was it exactly? The driveshaft seal that I discuss in detail HERE? Or the seal in the coupler - #12 in the parts diagram in this thread.

not suggesting a really be concerned about design flaw but rather a rebuttal if the oem rejects the warranty claim. In a prior life I looked at hundreds and sometimes thousands of warranty claims a year and was used to dealing with oem's. I recall on a large truck we wrapped up hay twine on a drive shaft knocking out seal causing front tandem to fail and throwing driveshaft resulting in a wreck with injuries and a lawsuit in the 6 figure range-was that a design flaw? our corporate lawyers thought so.

 

[FJRay]

Please let Yamaha get it under warranty. The last thing needed is a lawyer trying to make a payday out of a

"shit happens" situation.