Son of a..... Broke My Primary Drive Gear

[Turbo Mike]

Well the title kinda says it all. Bike started making some rattling noises coming out of the front of the driveshaft area, brought it home, pulled out the primary drive gear setup and its missing 3 teeth with 4 or 5 more cracked and about to come off. The gear on the driveshaft is still totally fine, its the gear that goes on the tranny output shaft thats totalled. My bike is totally stock with 23k miles on it..... how the hell is this happening? What can I do to make sure it doesnt happen again? Yes the fluid was fresh, full, and clean, hypoid gear oil. Yes, I do wheelie the bike, but I power it up, no clutch drops or any crazy stuff... I really dont think this should have happened, maybe I'm wrong?

Next question:
I called the dealer, supposedly they can only get the primary drive gears in a set of both for $230. I paid less than that for the damn bike. Does anyone have any for sale or know where to get one for cheaper. I'm in Queens, NY.... on long island.

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

[focus frenzy]

highly unusual and rare on the big shafties.
odds are it failed from accumulated shock loading. also possible it was defective from the word go, improper heat treating could cause that problem also.

those gears are machined as a set and need to be replaced as a set.
you can watch E-bay for a set as sometimes a hard core stripper comes along. I have seen gear sets for your bike on e-bay before.
I would bite the bullet and order the new set.

[Turbo Mike]

Allright, so I once again break something thats not supposed to break. Theres no play in the bearing, no abnormal wear on any teeth, and everything looks fine except the missing teeth. Theres a crack going across 3 or 4 of the teeth that are still together, so my guess is theres a defect in the casting that let go just over time. My clutch is honestly not good enough to make a shock load that of that great proportion. Its the stock factory clutch, and it doesnt grab all that hard under high load.

My next question is how much power are these bikes supposed to have?
If I go wide open at 3-4 grand in 1st, my bike will flip over. And if I powershift 1-2 or 2-3 it will go sideways and spin the tire till I let off or run out of RPM.... is this normal or do I have a good one??? Its honestly faster than my 900 RR from 0-100, and the RR is sprocketed down too.....

[brveagle]

I'd like to take this time to announce that chain > shafty ...

[Turbo Mike]

Well the bike sits outside so I never have to oil my shaft, the links in my shaft never seem to bind up, I dont have to adjust the length of my shaft after I ride for a while, and my shaft doesnt slap between gearshifts, so hmmm is it really worse than a chain????

Would I still have stock chain and sprockets at 23k miles if it did have a chain?

Allright then.

[joejeweler]

Not meaning to pick on you, TurboMike,.......but damn,.....wheelies on a shaft drive are just asking for this kind of problem!

These bikes are heavy and powerful enough to strip more than what you did. If you want to wheelie get a light duel purpose bike that can take that abuse.

Otherwise your bike will become a bottomless pit of cash eating repair bills.

I don't know if you're young or, well,....let's just figure that's it in a nutshell. I'm fifty now and my wheelie days are long gone! A few months after i got my bike license when i turned 16 i had the bug also. Popped them all the time, at home, at work,.......and even at school showing off to classmates.

One time after school lets out i pop a long one thru a stop sign i couldn't see because a huge tree was blocking it from view. An old guy in a car couldn't stop in time and his right front fender smashed clean into my engine and flipped the bike end over end a few times,.......JUST missing my left leg by a couple inches.

I bounced off and cracked his windshield, and took out his antenna. The old guy came out of his car shaking like a leaf,........i thought he was gonna have a heart attack!

Me,........i was SO lucky! Just a brused knee and a painfull pile of what used to be my bike to limp home together with. Bike was still high-reving on the ground when it finally rolled to a stop,.....but was totaled with cooling fins all over the place, bent frame and twisted forks and a vast assortment of parts strewn out on the street. For a guy working part time that loss represented maybe 3 months work to me,.......and i only had the bike a few weeks when "it" happened.

Me wrong,......me careless,.....me young and stupid,......and me so VERY lucky!

Had i been going just a few MPH faster or him a few MPH slower,... and i KNOW i would have lost my left leg! Maybe even bled to death. But i can tell you that i saw the light then and there and i haven't EVER popped a wheelie on the street again. With a duel purpose in the woods yeah, once in awhile back then. But even that has now been a few decades since i've been in the woods.

Anyway,.......i now tend to be overly protective of my toys,........and surely getting older has a lot to do with it. Now it's easy on the gas,......easy on the brake,..........smooth shifting and enjoy the ride. Listening to the bike "purr" while riding is a joy,......and longevity of both myself and my bike are the prime objective!

..............Boy am i sounding old! :?

[Turbo Mike]

Man I guess that makes me sound immature.

I'm 23, drag race my mustang semi-professionally, its faster than all my bikes.

I like to have a good time when I ride or take out the car, and doing wheelies on back roads in 1st gear with no intersections/houses is something I have the luxury of doing occasionally. The 900, its easy. The 550 simply cant do em. Its quite challenging to keep a stock shaftie GS up at the balance point for any period of time, and I like trying it. The only thing I'm really hammering is the front forks when I mess up and come down hard. I dont clutch it up and I dont shift while its up. I do beat on the bike from time to time. I'll rev it to 11-12k getting on it if I feel like it. I'll powershift it ( full throttle and clutch shift ) if I have anything to prove to the newer jap guys. But I have fun. Part of what I do is to make it not break again and keep riding it the same. Thats why I have em. If I wanted to go slow and have something that does that great I'd ride a road king.

[joejeweler]

Hehehe,.....kinda thought you had youth working against you! :-D

..........better resign yourself to the fact that your bikes are gonna be like Paris Hilton...............


..............high maintainence...................and expensive to ride! \\/

[Planecrazy]

Consider yourself lucky you have an '82, Mike ... '83 and newer shafties have softer splines on the wheel that you would strip in an afternoon! You may want to check yours anyway, as I wonder how long it'll be before they let go anyway. Our shafties are fast and smooth, but they were most definitely NOT designed for your style of "exhuberant" riding my friend!

Good luck with the repair. If I were you I'd look for a more appropriate bike for those sorts of antics. You're a gearhead, so you ought to know that the old shaftie really isn't the right ride for this stuff... I ride my full dress 1100G "exhuberantly" in the twisties, and I often wonder if I'm pushing it too hard, especially with all the extra weight I'm carrying around. Your experience with the primary probably answers that same question for you...

Regards,

[Turbo Mike]

Ah this reminds me of my old Nissan 300ZX.
Handled awesome, did the best donuts out of anything I've driven(and thats a LOT of cars), drifted nice, stopped great, highway speed was pretty good.... heres what I broke in a month: Keep in mind the car had 36k on it.
Tranny
Clutch
Driveshaft
2 left axles
3 right axles
4 right hub/wheel bearing assys
timing belt tensioner
a/c belt
clutch master
clutch slave
shifter
left inner tie rod end
rear control arm bushings

I'm sure theres more I'm forgetting. My point is, I guess just because something by design is good at doing a particular activity, its still not necessarily designed to do it. The bike files, does pretty sick wheelies, great hole shots, handles like a dream.... but its supposed to be a cruiser, it just happend to do all that stuff well, but its not supposed to be doing any of that stuff (well except brand new on a track maybe) but allright, I get it. Stick to the double R for that stuff from now on.....

[Planecrazy]

Ah this reminds me of my old Nissan 300ZX.
Handled awesome, did the best donuts out of anything I've driven(and thats a LOT of cars), drifted nice, stopped great, highway speed was pretty good....

300ZX ... one of the most beautiful cars ever produced, in my opinion! The "new" Z certainly doesn't have the same style as the 300, and it's a dog on the street. I completely toasted one (twice in a row) with my diesel Superduty Excursion (family aboard at the time)! Man was THAT fun -- I really felt sorry for the guy, embarassment and all!!

All I can say is: Superchips makes a VERY nice tuner!! Alone in the truck I've managed to pull a 0-60 time of 5.92 (with the A/C on) ... in an 8000 pound truck!!:twisted::twisted:

Stock the truck pulls 0-60 times in the mid to high 8's.

Enjoy!

[tfb]

sometimes a hard core stripper comes along

Can this be the civilised 'GS Resources' forum?!!!

[Pharkmeh]

300ZX ... one of the most beautiful cars ever produced, in my opinion! The "new" Z certainly doesn't have the same style as the 300, and it's a dog on the street. I completely toasted one (twice in a row) with my diesel Superduty Excursion (family aboard at the time)! Man was THAT fun -- I really felt sorry for the guy, embarassment and all!!

All I can say is: Superchips makes a VERY nice tuner!! Alone in the truck I've managed to pull a 0-60 time of 5.92 (with the A/C on) ... in an 8000 pound truck!!:twisted:

Stock the truck pulls 0-60 times in the mid to high 8's.

Enjoy!

guyz soz to hijack but.....

Steve - your a legend m8 - been buggin me for weeks that I hadnt been able to pick a particular car that I had erm ...a lil erm ....test of throttles

I suspected it was nissan but the square taillights threw meh...

it was the Fairlady 300ZX Twin Turbo...



it was only a young feller drivin....had all the lights, gauges and after market race toys, wickedpaint etc etc....

and we sort of had a rollin start through some lights into a hard long uphill right hander that snapped left and flattened out...

I dont ever really redline the old GS1000 too often cause it is my daily rider and breakage means big bummer...

anywhoo - a look at each other and throttles were stomped...I got the better but never cleard it....

Im a wheel in front in the right hander then he starts catchin a lil - I can hear the turbos open up even over my screamin pipes.....

well having still lotz of throttle left I had to give it the lot.... he pumps some too...

we are pretty close already and dont need mistakes... but he seems to have his lot undercontrol....

we flick left as i power shift and 3rd starts grabbin...

I notice that my clutch is slippin - fark noot now...ffs

ermm ....but Im noot slowing...??? and strangely the gab between my bouncing back wheel is gettin awfully close to his side door...??? I know Im leaning hard but sheeet I have to....

wtf....

the clutch wasnt slippin - the wheel was spinning slightly - enough to lose alil traction.... and start driftin...:shock: surprisingly smoothly....

well the corners gettin tighter and Im still driften out... so I let the throttle go, happy that i kept his measure... but lookin serious hard at the cage i dint paste...

but man - I have never had any of these lil turbo matchbox specials have the same power response Im used too.... let alone find a lil more...

neve give these lil suckers a fair break if ya wanna take tha flag - fast lil bastages....

thx

Hijackover:-D




Phark

[Planecrazy]

Those twin-turbo ZX's are VERY sweet!! It's not that I don't like the new Z ... there's just something missing in its styling, and of course the new one is "dog slow!"

Regards, and back to our regularly scheduled thread!

[Turbo Mike]

This one was mine... so hotttt lol




On a side note, my mustang is way better than that. I custom made a twin turbo setup on the 'ol 5.0. Its making around 630 horsepower. I had the privelage to race a newer CBR929RR on the highway which is a damn fast bike. We went from 80 to approx. 170. I beat him by a car and a half.... shoulda seen the look on the guys face haha