Quota oil spray on the rear wheel; is this an overflow?

[p6x]

12 hours ago, activpop said:

@p6x Dont know if it has been mentioned, but that plug might have fallen out two miles from home.  I have a hard time believing you could stay upright on a greased tire for 200 miles, let alone have that rear drive keep spinning for that distance.  Rear drive fluid has a distinctive odor...I think you could have caught a whiff of it sometime soon after the leak occurred. Maybe backtrack in the car for a short distance to get a visual of where the dump occurred? Might be a possibility, or maybe it's too late now. I hope another biker didn't go through your oil slick. Glad you made it home.

There is no way I am going to find that plug. The only clue I can offer, is that in Gladewater, when I noticed the leak, I cleaned the transmission, the rim, the tire.

I waited a moment, and there were any further leakage. Which reinforced my thinking that it was maybe overpressure oil that leaked, and it stopped.

It only stopped because there were no more oil! if you think about it, the rear drive contains 0.230 liter of oil... next to nothing.

[p6x]

This is likely the parts that have worn out: you need to replace them as a set too.

Besides, I do not have a vice nor a bench. Removing the drive pinion is going to be challenging, if I needed to.

[gstallons]

Did you explain to MPH the reason for the "need" for the drain plug ?

[p6x]

3 hours ago, gstallons said:

Did you explain to MPH the reason for the "need" for the drain plug ?

I emailed Mike Haven; no reply.

This morning, I picked up the oil drain plug from them in Hempstead. I was surprised to get an invoice. Since there was one other customer, and I was on a clock, I did not say anything. I took the invoice.

Thereafter, I sent a scan of the MPH invoice that clearly detailed they changed that oil.

We shall see what happens.

 

[activpop]

9 hours ago, p6x said:

There is no way I am going to find that plug. The only clue I can offer, is that in Gladewater, when I noticed the leak, I cleaned the transmission, the rim, the tire.

I waited a moment, and there were any further leakage. Which reinforced my thinking that it was maybe overpressure oil that leaked, and it stopped.

It only stopped because there were no more oil! if you think about it, the rear drive contains 0.230 liter of oil... next to nothing.

Ok, my bad. I revisited your first post. I read too fast through it the first time. I now understand the order of events.  I can't believe you elected to ride over 200 miles home and risk a rear wheel lock up when knowing you had no oil. I thought you find that out when you arrived home. This is where AAA comes to the rescue. Also, I never expected you to find the oil plug, just maybe the slick.

[Lucky Phil]

25 minutes ago, activpop said:

Ok, my bad. I revisited your first post. I read too fast through it the first time. I now understand the order of events.  I can't believe you elected to ride over 200 miles home and risk a rear wheel lock up when knowing you had no oil. I thought you find that out when you arrived home. This is where AAA comes to the rescue. Also, I never expected you to find the oil plug, just maybe the slick.

You won't find a slick. It will just spit the tiny amount of gear oil the bevel box carries onto the rear wheel/tyre and fling it everywhere in a spray. It won't be like losing a sump plug and dumping 4 or 5 litres of oil on the road.

Phil

[p6x]

26 minutes ago, activpop said:

I can't believe you elected to ride over 200 miles home and risk a rear wheel lock up when knowing you had no oil.

I did not know I had no oil.

I thought this was an overflow. Because the road between Atlanta and Gladewater was empty, I rode fast. The first Quota I looked at, in Boise, did not have a filler plug. Instead, it had a breather plug, with a hose to for overflow. This is what made me think that it happened to me. I should have checked for the drain plug, but I looked for a rag to clean up the oil. After I removed the oil, I observed no more leakage. If I had found out the plug was missing, I don't know what I would have done. Most likely work out a temporary plug, duct tape comes to mind, and bought some oil from the local auto-shop.

[p6x]

So, I installed the new drain plug, torqued it at 29.5 Nm.

I removed the level and filler plugs.

The filler port diameter allows seeing the ring gear. I felt with the finger while spinning the wheel. No burr, no indentation. The teeth were still greasy. I spun the wheel and listened for noises. I filled in with Motul specific for transmission (Pont), and spun the wheel again, listening for a difference. I could not detect any.

I re-installed the level and filler plugs, torqued at 24.5 Nm;

Tomorrow, I will ride about 5 miles, and drain the oil. I will check the plug for metal burrs, and I will send the oil to the Blackstone lab for analysis.

If I was looking for damage on the ring gear, how could I identify it?

[MartyNZ]

1 hour ago, p6x said:

If I was looking for damage on the ring gear, how could I identify it?

I think your plan to fill and test is a good one. That is what I would do, except for the analysis. There is always a tiny fuzz of steel on the magnet, so analyzing the oil probably won't be able to distinguish between normal wear and serious damage. Debris on the magnet are your best tell.

Signs of damage are:

-Noise; whining, howling, grinding.

-debris on drain plug chip detector magnet.

-Serious wear can show as clunking between drive/overrun (hard to distinguish from gearbox dog clearance). 

-Gear teeth turning blue (pinion gear always goes first).

 

[p6x]

12 minutes ago, MartyNZ said:

I think your plan to fill and test is a good one. That is what I would do, except for the analysis. There is always a tiny fuzz of steel on the magnet, so analyzing the oil probably won't be able to distinguish between normal wear and serious damage. Debris on the magnet are your best tell.

Signs of damage are:

-Noise; whining, howling, grinding.

-debris on drain plug chip detector magnet.

-Serious wear can show as clunking between drive/overrun (hard to distinguish from gearbox dog clearance). 

-Gear teeth turning blue (pinion gear always goes first).

 

1) no strikingly alarming noise so far

2) to be ascertained

3) the Quota transmission was always extremely clunky and noisy. In fact, the gear box noise covers just about everything else. At the beginning, I was worried that something could be wrong.

4) No blueish color, but I could only check the ring gear. Unless I purchase an endoscope with light.

I think the oil is going to be the tattle tell. Even if I am optimistic, since I did not feel anything wrong with the gear ring teeth, and they were still greasy.

[pete roper]

The pinion teeth work 4.125 times harder than the crownwheel teeth. 
 

ifi we’re you I’d pull the bevelbox and extract the pinion carrier, it’s a sliding fit in the casting and inspect the teeth. If you did 200 miles with a dry bevelbox I really don’t see how it can of survived. It isn’t so much the ‘Lubrication’ as the cooling that the oil does that protects the teeth. 200 miles, even at moderate speed/loading will of caused massive heat damage to both gears and bearings.