It comes apart very easily, but the only benefit of lubricating the splines is if you need to remove the drive shaft at a later date.
The splines do not move, any movement in the drive shaft is compensated for by slight horizontal movement from the gearbox.
You need to ease the joint apart with a large screw driver. Never ever just pull the rear hub backwards as you can dislodge the seal that keeps the hub oil in.
It is not possible to lubricate the UJ.
Unless you do a huge mileage through the winter and it gets very mucky it is one of those things that is best left alone.

However removing the rear wheel is an excellent time to lubricate the 3 bearings on the suspension linkage.
When it swings free you can check that the 4th bearing is OK - which it will be !

 

OK, if I understand you, when the pumpkin nuts come off, it is possible that the shaft will not easily separate from the splines of the U-Joint????? And the best way to get around this is to
put a screw stick in between the pumpkin and the shaft housing?

Yes, the days of zerk fittings on U-joints are gone, like the fork drain plugs on my 1960s Japanese bikes....
I do miss the zerk fittings on my Kawasaki C10 suspension components....

I am curious about how much lube if any is on the drive shaft splines and the splines of the output shaft and in the U-joint.

Prop shaft slip joints dont need much grease but they do need some. It stands to reason. Leading throttle, trailing throttle....repeat . Even going down the road, bare metal will wear against bare metal. Once the toleraces open up, the rate of wear accelerates greatly. A big concern here? Probably not. But the lubing is easy.
http://www.competitiondiesel.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1583

 

You will need a torx 25 and best to to have a set of hex head drives.
It good idea to lube the middle shaft and drive splines, sometimes the universal is very hard to remove if never serviced, it develops a knock.
Place bike on centre stand and run it up through the gears and check.
You will get a ABS fault light, hopefully.
Clean up the universal but don't wash out the needle rollers.

 

Place bike on centre stand and run it up through the gears and check.
You will get a ABS fault light, hopefully.

I got that today when I was checking the clutch operation, on the lift.

 

http://www.fjr-tips.org/maint/ujoint/uj.html

 

Chris, I think you are over thinking the whole process.

Once you unbolt the pumpkin, the driveshaft will slip out with the pumpkin. Just carefully set the whole assembly aside. No need to disassemble it farther.

Once you reach the dust covers for the U-joint, unbolt the outer one with the two screws securing it. The inner dust cover is held in place by a 7 mm push rivet. Removing it takes a little wiggling, but it comes out with no problem.

On a relatively new bike, the U-joint will slide right out.

When I pulled my U-joint, I found just a very light coat of grease on it.

It goes back together just as easily.

 

Hey John, yes, thanks....I plan on doing it tomarrow.

Basically, I am just curious about these kinds of things...cant explain it.....but I have to see things for myself when others say there isnt enough lube and there is knocking....I used to work in a gear factory and I am curious about the relatively new state of condition of these joints. Thanks to Prof. Deming, the Japanese are very good at what they make. I will let you know what I find.

 

On this forum I have pics of my new 2014 with about 800 kilometres showing various splines, the universal and suspension linkages with NO LUBRICATION at all. The factory ran out of grease that day.

 

My 2005 was the same Ken - mid you you could say its been over serviced ever since :wink2:

 

I always agree with lubricating splines, and in the FJR's case it is primarily to prevent corrosion. The driveshaft is spring loaded and keeps itself fully engaged at the U-joint end regardless of swingarm travel. Yamaha recommendation is lithium soap grease, but we all like to use moly paste.
The rear drive splines on Hondas were soft, so they needed moly paste for sure. The FJR's are much harder and wear very little.

 

Very interesting. When you say the rear drive splines on the Hondas, do you mean the splines inside the Pumpkin? Well, today I lubed the Prop shaft splines. I pulled the wheel, then the foot peg housing, then the pumpkin. Only real problem was the T50 housing bolt was really hard to unscrew and install due to thread sealant. There was some grease on the output side of the UJ and splines, but almost none on the input side and splines. I couldnt even see anything on a q-tip when I wipped the input side..... The rotational play of the UJ on the tranny spline was about nothing. The play of the UJ to the prop shaft was just perceptible...not bad at all. I cleaned the parts and lubed them and put them together. It is much easier to put in the pumpkin when the foot peg housing is off.....thanks to all that helped. I get new tire installed on wheel tomarrow....taking the wheel on and off is much easier than my NT.

 

(I would like to add that I have been reading alot about wheel bearings old and new, and how to lube them.)
There is a case for not adding alot of grease to "sealed" ball bearings due to issues with slippage creating issues.
I would enjoy reading an SAE paper on this.....
My education from deep into the last century delt with primarialy with tapered roller bearings and how to lube those.
(I do find it interesting that in rear searching the FJR forums, there are cases of failed wheel bearings.....I would love to
see these bearings a hour before they fail.....)

 

Yikes!
That is a lot of grease. Why is there grease on the edges of the cover?

 

I would dip my finger into the grease and have to work it around the tranny splined shaft...the cover scrapped some off.....

 

When you say the rear drive splines on the Hondas, do you mean the splines inside the Pumpkin?

Usually folks are talking about the driven splines (inside the hub of the rear wheel and the splines they mate to).

http://www.fjr-tips.org/maint/spline/spline.html

 

OK, I think we had a guy over on the NT forum that had his driven splines fail...but he didnt do his own work and the bike was high milage, so we all wondered if the splines got properly lubed by his shop at tire changes.....he is not a lightweight person and he rode the bike hard...not agressively...but long and fast...he has over 100k now....

 

All done. Happiness is new rubber (and a warm puppy)

 

Sorry Gents, I was in hospital again, in CCW ( Critical Care), and now on 4 pages of drugs, yum.

You will need a torx 50 not a 25, sorry !

 

Sorry to hear that Ken!

We are not getting any younger are we Ken. I dont ride that much anymore due to chronic health but i know you have been going through the ringer mate.

Hope you are feeling better

 

Hi Polar,
Getting beyond a joke at the moment, cry ! 17 admissions.

And still I end up in CCW, lol lol, this time with a BP of 61/47, they get worried about the Systolic BP, I'm already on modifications of 80 Systolic.
So anything below 80 is a Code Blue, for me, is a very quick way to avoid the waiting and into a Resus bay at A&E, also low in a few other electrolytes.

So all I have are a few apps on my baby android to work with.
My Net book is hopeless and I have a 17 inch laptop the I cant lift too well (and desktop)
Thanks everyone.

At least I fixed a Moto Medics Gen2 FJR on the Tuesday
2 dealers couldn't, lol lol lol

 

Oh man...you get well quick! Do you need a new oil pump or just follow the American political scene to get that blood pressure up????? Best wishes....