1982 Suzuki- Driveline Slack Question

[Houndawg76]

While having the bike on the center stand, I noticed there's about an inch of play in the back wheel when it is in gear. Is this a problem and what could be the cause of this? I have a little over 27,000 miles on the bike. I don't ride the bike hard, but every now and then I hear a faint clunk when taking off in first.

 

[bwringer]

Sounds perfectly normal. There are a lot of gears in the transmission and final drive, and a bit of lash is expected and normal.


That said, it's also a little unclear exactly what you're calling "play".

So you'd also want to check to see if the driven spline in the rear wheel is original. If so, it will fail, and could be significantly worn and ready to strip out at any moment.

The '82-'83 shafties had the soft gold-colored spline. Earlier models had the harder black spline, and later on Suzuki updated the part to a silver version that works just fine, and in fact is still in production for the Boulevard 800cc cruisers.

To look at the teeth on your spline, remove the rear wheel and remove the spline. It always looks fine from the outside, but when you remove it and look at the back, you can see the wear on the teeth. It's hard to spot from the front.

 

[Nessism]

Agree, that sounds about normal. Be aware though, the rear spline in the rear wheel, which intermeshes with a matching spline on the final drive unit, wears out prematurely on the '82 850. Suzuki messed up at some time in the early 1980's (can't remember exactly when) when they changed the source for the spline or maybe the hardening process. Anyway, these splines have a goldish colored plating and tend to wear out early. The earlier black colored splines are much better, and the later parts are bright silver colored and also are good.

 

[bwringer]

Here's a past thread with a good, if rambling, discussion of splines and several good photos.

https://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?257981-Thoughts-on-spline-wear

 

[Gorminrider]

A chain has some slop too of course....but if you take the hub spline out of the equation(removing rear wheel perhaps) you can see if you have excessive lash in the shaft. This is somewhat adjustable with thin shims but you must read the manual closely.

Really, IMO, I don't think these shaft drives are too rugged and I try not to pop it torquewise until the speed is higher....

 

[Houndawg76]

I replaced the the driven spline in the rear wheel this summer. Turns out it had one of the less durable splines (gold looking splines), and I got one out of a newer bike from a salvage yard and fixed that problem. What I was checking was the amount of play in the rear wheel with the bike on the center stand in first gear and rocking the wheel back and forth. I'm making sure I'm not reading too much into this.