This is your shaftie without lube...

[cranemonkey]

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/l...project010.jpg[/IMG]

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll248/cranemonkey/Bikeproject009.jpg

GS owners--check your lube, grease your splines or this could be you! OUCH!

[Steve]

GS owners--check your lube, grease your splines or this could be you! OUCH!

The best lube for this is available at your nearest Honda dealer. It is Moly 60.
A small tube (about 1 inch in diameter, 6 inches long) is about $10 and is a lifetime supply. \\/

.

[TheCafeKid]

Huh...i could SWEAR i have seen something JUST like that before fairly recently...now where was that at...???:shock:

[Redman]

Hey, I have pictures kinda like that, from the GK I got a couple years ago. It was close to failing, spline teeth in the hub just real thin strips remaining. Just the rear wheel hub was worn, not the drive side splines.

I also had a 650G for 20+ years, and an 850G for 14 years and never had that problem, but I always greased that hub/spine every time I had the rear wheel off.

[duaneage]

Rumor has it Suzuki went with a softer metal for the splines after 1982. I have an 81 built with 80 parts and the splines are in good shape. I also have a spare spline drive from a early 650G locked up in a safe place.

Moly60 is good stuff, also for cables and swingarm bushings.

[salty_monk]

Suzuki also do a specific moly paste for it too....

Dan

[TheCafeKid]

Rumor has it Suzuki went with a softer metal for the splines after 1982. I have an 81 built with 80 parts and the splines are in good shape. I also have a spare spline drive from a early 650G locked up in a safe place.

Moly60 is good stuff, also for cables and swingarm bushings.

Well after my 1100G's rear wheel gave out, and Steve and I got to looking at the hub gear, it looks EXACTLY like cranemonkey's. In a way, its good that the other part of the inner hub broke, cos i hadnt had the wheel off to inspect either since i bought it, and it would have sucked to have found out that problem on a ride in the middle of BFE. Anyway, Steve lent me his sons 81 850 wheel, and his inner gear looks pretty darn good. And its a whole year older than mine. So I do believe that rumor to be truth actually. Crappy thing is, the replacement hub gears are over 100 bucks, and they are likely that same crappy metal. So i have been searching out 81 and older wheels on fleabay for cheap, so i can have a stockpile of inner hubs for anyone that needs em

[Grandpa]

Duaneage, it's no rumor -- it is true about the driven rear wheel hub splines.

I had a 1982 GS850GZ whose splines failed at 24,000 miles, back in 1987. Since then I've been using the older splines, which retrofit the newer shaftie rear wheels. No problem since. I have the 17-incher installed on my GK as we speak.

I have two rear wheels that I use on my GK. One is the stock 16-inch wheel, the other a 17-incher from a previous 1979 GS850GN I used to own back in the mid-90's.

Each wheel has its own "old" set of splines. That way each spline set is used half the time. (It's also convenient to install a new rear tire on the wheel, since I replace one wheel with another at the same setting.)

There are plenty of old-style pentagram rear wheels on eBay at a given time. Most of the time the old splines are still in the wheel hub. I highly recommend any shaftie owner to buy one.

[bwringer]

There are plenty of old-style pentagram rear wheels on eBay at a given time. Most of the time the old splines are still in the wheel hub. I highly recommend any shaftie owner to buy one.

I second, third, fourth, and fifth that advice.


Make sure you physically scrape the grease and debris out of the way when you examine yours -- if you just look without cleaning, they'll appear to be perfectly OK. There's always a ridge of untouched spline on the outside, so you have to look past that.

My '83 GS850 spline went at 36,000, and we just caught the splines on Al's '82 in the nick of time at 24,000 during a tire change. Fortunately, I had a spare '79 spline coupler ready to go.

The earlier (better) driven spline coupler units -- the part that mounts in the wheel -- have a matte black/dark gray finish. The later (soft) driven spline units are shiny and slightly gold in color. It's quite easy to tell the difference.

You can still get this part from Suzuki for around $90-$100. It's still used to this day in their shaftie cruisers. The quality of the new manufacture units is unknown, but I think it's probably better -- as far as I can tell, the VX800, GSX1100G, and Intruder 800 folks haven't noted any pattern of problems.

[GSJohn]

24K on my 81 8-[ I have a new tire for it but was hoping to get a couple thousand more miles out of the one that is on there now. I had better have a practice session on removing the rear wheel and inspecting the splines...then try to resist the temptation to put on the new rubber. Did anybody notice anything funny such as clunking or noticeable excessive backlash in the rear drive when up on the centerstand before you discovered the problem? Mine feels fine and makes no noises. It does feel like it has more resistance to freewheeling than I would have thought. [-o<

[duaneage]

Your not going to notice the backlash because there is backlash built into the output shaft of the engine (see the manual) but if you put it up on the center stand and can get into the rubber boot, you can hold the drive shaft and then jog the tire to see if there is a lot of play.

[cranemonkey]

splines

GSJohn
I had no notice that something was amiss in the rear wheel before I layed it low around that corner last year. My first indication of an issue was the screaming revs and complete lack of power to the drive wheel. After much verbal abuse and a lot of reading of GS forum threads, I not only took off the rear wheel but removed the driven gear as well. That is where you will find the damage. I could not tell anything was wrong with the driven gear from the visible side. (See pics). That stuff about an ounce of prevention is good advice...

[willie]

Any chance you could take a picture of the damaged part from further back and post it?
Thanks,
Willie in TN

[SqDancerLynn1]

The earlier style gear is Black in color, the newer-softer one ? is a gold color. Last shopping trip I got a 3 oz tube of Polaras premium extreme pressure high molly U-Joint grease

[catbed]

say, while we're on this subject, i got some coastal grease that has moly in it. is this alright because i couldnt get Moly 60 because it was a sunday.