Hey Everybody,
I just FINALLY took the plunge and lubed my clutch splines. Everything went smooth and the clutch splines looked ok. No rounding of the splines or anything...
The interesting part was.. splines were dry as a bone. I used the Guard Dog moly just fyi..
My question is this.. How important is it to make sure the u joints on the drive shaft up at the transmission and back at the final drive are perpendicular to each other.. After I got everything assembled, I realized I didn't pay attention to lining them up.. so.. they may not be perpendicular.. damn!
Do I REALLY need to tear everything back down and line them up.. or can it wait till winter? Am I asking for huge trouble? Is this a don't worry about it, but get it done later... or a FIX NOW thing?
I would direct your question to the May 2009 BMWMOA magazine article penned by Paul Glaves. He discusses u-joints and their phasing when putting back together.
If you do not have access to that magazine or article I would post your question On the MOA oil heads forum.
Joe
When I did my rear drive replacement, I sought info on the phasing of the U-joints. As it turned out, my R1150GSA has a keyed shaft, so it can't be assembled wrong. Anyway, the phasing is supposed to match rotational mass for balance purposes (not load). I'm guessing (and it is only a guess) that if you ride the thing and feel no abnormal vibrations, that it's probably ok. It's a very big 'IF' because most tear-down manuals go to great lengths to describe phasing of the U-joints.
If it was my bike, and if I felt no abnormal vibes through the rear end (or particularly the foot-pegs), i'd leave it alone until the next opportunity for a tear-down. Remember, the physical security of the shafts is in the splines, so that's not the issue. It's a balance issue, and imbalance in rotational mass like a drive shaft will be felt. My own rear drive experience indicates that any abnormal balance or bearing issues will be readily felt in the foot-pegs.
I guess that doesn't help much at all.
I ride an R1150GS Adventure with sidecar. IBA #39193
Unfortunately, u-joint phasing is critical. You will destroy your $2000 driveshaft in as little as 1000 miles if they aren't properly aligned; my brother-in-law had this occur on his 90GS a few years ago. When the joints aren't properly phased the torque is transmitted from one end of the shaft to the other in pulses (rather than smoothly) as the joints are warped non-synchronously, which places unplanned-for stresses on the shaft that result in premature failure.
