Struggling to separate the two halves of the drive shaft

[Molly]

5 hours ago, Lucky Phil said:

Worth a try but if it's rusted together it's unlikely to work. A grease gun can only exert so much pressure, certainly less than a pair of hydraulic jacks plus my brand new shaft assy isn't totally sealed. When you slide it apart you can feel air escaping. There's a bleed hole somewhere.

Phil 

Same with mine. There's a vent of some description so no pressure is possible. 

Thanks for your help with this guys. 

[stewgnu]

i strapped one half to the wall and the other to my van tow hitch and rolled the van backwards… that worked.

Although mine was already bent due to a rod end snapping on the torque arm and jacking the whole shebang, so it was a last ditch effort haha

[audiomick]

2 hours ago, Molly said:

Same with mine. There's a vent of some description...

I started a thread on that topic a while back. I found the resulting discussion quite interesting.

 

[Molly]

13 hours ago, Lucky Phil said:

Worth a try but if it's rusted together it's unlikely to work. A grease gun can only exert so much pressure, certainly less than a pair of hydraulic jacks plus my brand new shaft assy isn't totally sealed. When you slide it apart you can feel air escaping. There's a bleed hole somewhere.

Phil 

Same with mine. There's a vent of some description so no pressure is possible. 

Thanks for your help with this guys. 

[Molly]

13 hours ago, Lucky Phil said:

Worth a try but if it's rusted together it's unlikely to work. A grease gun can only exert so much pressure, certainly less than a pair of hydraulic jacks plus my brand new shaft assy isn't totally sealed. When you slide it apart you can feel air escaping. There's a bleed hole somewhere.

Phil 

Same with mine. There's a vent of some description so no pressure is possible. 

Thanks for your help with this guys. 

[Molly]

Celebratory beer... Had to look a the manual's drawing to appreciate how releasing fluid would find its way to the splines. Removed the grease nipple and put loads of WD40 in that way. Reassembled my contraption, heated the heck out of it, and it finally let go. 

[activpop]

That's quite the assemblage of stuff in the shop to create pull. Where there's a will there's a way. I like it.  In hindsight,  I wonder if putting the drive shaft assembly on a press would have worked. When the unit is on the bike I don't think it is bottomed out.  It can move either way and the goal was just to break it free. It is just a thought. Unfortunately,  I just thought about it today after following this post. We were all zeroed in on pulling, when pushing might have been been an easier option. 

[Molly]

Here's the thing. The splines were clean but dry. Because there's a small hole (appears like the plug simply hasn't been welded-up properly - not an engineered hole) grease seemed to be stuck at one end and would escape rather than find its way along tge splines. Path of least resistance I suppose. 

[po18guy]

5 hours ago, Molly said:

Celebratory beer... Had to look a the manual's drawing to appreciate how releasing fluid would find its way to the splines. Removed the grease nipple and put loads of WD40 in that way. Reassembled my contraption, heated the heck out of it, and it finally let go. 

Safety third!

[audiomick]

Looks like it was not so much the spline as the shaft itself that was causing grief. Is that the case?

[gstallons]

Are you going to try and salvage this ? Post some better pics of this .

[docc]

20 minutes ago, gstallons said:

Are you going to try and salvage this ? Post some better pics of this .

Yah, I noticed the O-ring is encapsulated in the rust . . .

[gstallons]

A lack of frequent greasing ?

[docc]

6 minutes ago, gstallons said:

A lack of frequent greasing ?

I noticed how rusty the surfaces of the swingarm bearings are, as well.

Life in the salt air of the Manx Sea, @Molly ?

[audiomick]

43 minutes ago, gstallons said:

A lack of frequent greasing ?

A lack of any maintenance at all, I would think. Poor motorbike...

 

Edit: I just went looking to see if Molly had recently posted "I just bought a V11 (something or other)".

I didn't find that, but what I did find is a number of posts from Molly up until 2010, and then nothing until just recently.

So I am inclined to ask @Molly: Is that the same bike as the one that prompted the posts 15 years ago (and has it been standing in a shed in the meantime), or is it one that has just been purchased recently (and has maybe been standing in a shed for the last 15 years anyway) ?

Edited November 3, 2024 by audiomick