r1200gs final drive maintenance

[gezeiten]

I just reviewed an excellent article on the r1200gs final drive oil change, but it begs the question: why not use an oil evacuator pump, commonly used in the marine environment when you can't drain oil conventionally, anyone tried this, how did it work?

[pdxrmccgs]

Your question just came up a few weeks ago...a couple guys said they
were using the Mityvac:

http://www.mityvac.com/pages/products_fee.asp

It seems the concept is just getting to the motorcycle/GS community.

It sure looks like the idea has a lot of merit. From your post I take it
that it is used a lot in the marine industry?

[portablejohn]

I have one of the hand pump ones. It works OK to suck engine oil out of inboard boat engines where you can't get a pan under the drain. Also works well to suck up the crud that settles in the bottom of motorcycle gas tanks. Works to empty master cylinder reservoirs when changing fluid.

I don't think it would work very well on a final drive, though. I don't think you could get the pick up tube to the bottom of the FD through the drain hole, or the sensor hole. I have an '11, so I can't say for sure. If you have to measure the amount of oil that you put in, you have to be sure that you have totally drained it to begin with.

John

[marty hill]

+1 on not getting all the oil out and dropping the drive allows you to check and lube the splines.

[ca1ic0cat]

I don't know if this is true on BMWs but on Honda shaft drives the splines would disintegrate if they weren't lubed regularly.

That said, has anybody retrofit a drain plug into the final drive on the GS? It would make matters easier no matter what....

[gezeiten]

Thank you for the informative replies, and quite correctly the suggestions re: drive shaft lube/maintenance. I'll do the suggested full take down and see how it goes. Great site, appreciate the feedback, look forward to accessing this site more often for general maintenance, etc. Regards.