Final Drive oil. Every 12,000 miles?

[Dom]

I knowI should be changing the oil in my final drive every 12,000 miles. But how specific is this? Is 12,500 OK? What about 13,000 miles or 15,000?

How far would you, safely, push it? I know the right answer is change it at or before 12,000 miles but what if I had to go further, how serious is it?

Thanks and happy holidays.

[MotoGP]

Its a very small amount of oil and should be changed every oil change IMHO

[MotoGP]

If you choose to wait 12K miles, then put a rare earth (neodymium) magnet on the drain plug. This will help collect the metalic fragments swimming in the oil....
The stuff looks pretty nasty after 6K miles.

[marc]

Do you obsess about engine oil changes, too?

The book calls for an engine oil change every 6K. If you do that then change the FD oil every other engine change. If sometimes it's more or less than the recommended period the world isn't going to end.

The best reason to change the FD oil is to make you take the time to actually check out the condition of the FD. Do the wheel shake test. Wiggle the pinion. Make sure the FD to swing-arm seal isn't letting water in, destroying your rear U-joint. Check out that there aren't metal bits in your old gear oil. Better to find anything bad in your garage then out on the road.

For my next service (60K miles) I'm going to go as far as pulling the drive shaft because it isn't hard and it will let me check out the condition of the forward U-joint.

[peter06gsa]

who has a magnet for the final drive? and i have being changing rear drive oil a few times last season, so many times that i've got it down to a 20minute procedure, including checking the splines to the pinion,i have been using antisize on the splines, any other lube better?

[marc]

The newest FDs come with a magnetic drain plug. Assuming they are the same size as the one in the older FDs you can get one from your dealer.

I use Honda Moly 60 on my FD input splines. Why? Because that's what I've got on the shelf in my garage.

[pdxrmccgs]

The final drive hypoid is a marvel of engineering which few people
appreciate. It is a cross between a spur gear and a worm gear
and until modern machine tool methods was hard to fabricate.

Its advantage is that it is loaded continuously and not in
increments as is a spur gear. It is fabricated as a continuous
compound curve.

Historically heat and lubrication have been the maintenance issues.

In the late 60's Jaguar racing had to equip their XKE hypoid differentials
with a pump and radiator for oil cooling.

http://www.bmwra.org/otl/finaldrive/

[marc]

I last used Honda Moly 60 on these splines



The white grease is the remains of whatever BMW used to seal out water (I think).

[Spyderman]

Did I not read somewhere that the newer bikes (IIRC, the R1200GS) have permanently-sealed final drive lines that don't require periodic lubrication? The thought sounds fishy to me, but I'm throwing it up here for review anyway.

[marc]

The drive was never sealed.

At the R1200GS introduction BMW said the FD was filled for life.

A year or two later they found that new drives weren't as clean as perhaps they should be when first put together and added an oil change at 600 miles. About this time the drain plug was moved to the bottom of the drive and a fill plug was added separate from the ABS/Speedo sensor.

Another year or two later and BMW changed the rules again, this time to a change at 600 miles, 12,000 miles, and every 12,000 miles thereafter. The fluid level was changed at that time, too.

Starting in late '10 the drives come with a vent.