Thursday, March 4, 2010

Dry Spline

I am finally getting around to some bike maintenance. The transmission input spline needs to be greased roughly annually. To get this far, I removed the tank, seat, air box, battery box, swing arm pivots and several emissions hoses. Then the bolts holding the trans to the engine. Pull the clutch lever to separate the engine and the transmission. It took about an hour to get this far.


In the picture above, the transmission is on the right and the engine on the left and you can see the spline roughly in the center of the photo. The shininess isn't necessarily good. It means that it doesn't have any grease on it. Now I need to pick up the appropriate grease and moly 60 and some sort of brush to apply a thin coat of the grease/moly mixture to the spline then put it all back together. I probably should lube the swing arm bushings and they did have plenty of clean grease. I will be teaching an IPv4 multicast workshop at the University of Connecticut next week so I need to get it all back together tomorrow. I'll get to stop and visit my parents in Corvallis, OR, on the way back home next weekend. That'll be a nice break as I haven't seen them since last summer.

On another note, I visited the clinic to ask about my sore knee and mentioned that it started hurting when I started jogging. The doctors response was simply "don't jog". I can live with that as my only motivation was to try and recover some time. Today I walked about 1½ miles and it was starting to get sore. My upcoming travel should help my knee get some rest. I think my miles for the next couple of months will be low...

Friday Afternoon - This afternoon, I stopped at the local Harley/Honda/BMW dealer to try and pick up Honda Moly 60 and it didn't look good for a while. The guy at the parts counter had never heard of it. Fortunately, someone else walked by who knew exactly where it was. A couple of tubes in a cardboard box under a counter. It was something the guys in the back used in the shop. Rarely does anyone actually ask for it at the counter. I suspect that this tube should last a lifetime as it isn't used for a lot.

Friday Evening - Yum, a mixture of Unocal heavy grease and Honda Moly 60 paste. This is what I spread on the transmission input splines. When I started to clean them, I found a thin layer of grease so I was glad that I didn't wait too long to do this maintenance item. I assembled the rest of the bike but didn't adjust the swing arm bearings. It needs to be centered in the frame and I need don't have time to do it today. I just reassembled the swing arm so the pieces weren't laying around catching dust. I'll center the swing arm within the frame and adjust the bearing pre-load when I get back from Connecticut.

2 comments:

  1. Richard:

    you are so lucky to be able to travel around so much and get somewhere warm.

    Your doctor is like my old Italian Mechanic. I used to have an Alfa Romeo Giulia Spyder which were notorious for their non-working Morelli electrics and other mechanical problems. During the winter the rear brake cables used to "freeze" and you couldn't drive because the back wheels were locked solid. (Brake full on) You couldn't unfreeze them until the ice melted. I had to crawl under the car and yank the cable myself to free it up so I could drive. I took the car in for service and got a new rear brake cable installed but he told me that if it ever happened again, just do what he does. I thought he was going to tell me a secret trick. He said "Just don't use your handbrake. I carry a block of wood to put behind the rear wheel"

    bob
    bobskoot: wet coast scootin

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  2. I used to be a runner myself but my knees started hurting regularly after a couple of years. I kinda got the same response from my doctors as well. Running is definitely hard on the knees. Now I run only when it's the perfect conditions outside or for short stints on the treadmill when I want to spice things up. Hope the knee feels better soon!

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