Driveshaft Gaiter Replacement
Well I wish I had read this thread before I started this very same job, although it is not the sole reason for havng to do so. My bike had developed an oil leak that seamed to be coming from I thought, either the crankshaft end seal behind the clutch or from the gearbox input shaft seal. The tell tale sign was what looked like gearbox oil running down the tale end of the sump pan and dripping onto the mat the bike stands on.
Read the Clymer manual and the Haines to see what could be gleaned and was cracking on without any troubles. Left the engine tilted to the rear and the gearbox up ended on the bench to trace the leak. Nothing (nada) after a week.....!!
Ordered a new gaiter and some other bits from Motobins and set to rebuilding it all. Finally got to doing up the drive shaft flange and didn't really give any thought to alingment of the paralever. Fitted the drive shaft bolts and proceded to tighten and rotate the shaft to do up the 4 bolts. Only to notice that I was actually destroying the new gaiter due to the angle. Sh1t says I and after a bit of defamatory language I thought to myself oh well... put it down to experience. Re-ordered another gaiter from Motobins thinking to myself Rob will be thinking I'm a real dickhead I thought it too
Anway another new gaiter is received and today I set about separating the box from the engine again, new gaiter in place front end first and then I spent the rest of this afternoon struggle like f**k to get the rear end on.
Thinking there must be an easy way to do this or so I thought
Anyway like someone here suggested I had tried the hot air gun a few times to soften the rubber and allow it to stretch more easily and that seemed to help a bit. Not enough to get the damn thing on all the way round so I'm giving it a bit more hot air and by this time sweating buckets oh and it's snowing outside here in Belgium. Next thing I'm holding the tool I was using to elongate and stretch the gaiter in the air as it flew up being releived of the force of me pulling. The gaiter has separated along the mouldng line from the mould tooling it was formed in. Damn, damn, and a thousand damns more....
I couldn't believe it.
By this time I'm pretty pissed of with myself.....
not that I've got anything better to be doing with myself on a miserable Saturday afternoon, so I pull the old gaiter out of the box and have a good look at it. Would you believe it is marked to show what side should go the the gearox 'Getriebe Seite' So out comes the magnifyng glass to look for such markings on the new gaiter. Nothing... so this suggests to me that the were sided at some point in the past and are no longer as they are probably pattern parts and only show the part number on the part now.
Well by the time you finish reading this you will probably have guessed I'm toying with the idea of refitting the old one as it is already preformed having ben in sutu for a long time and it only had a very small hole just under where the jubilee strap would be tensioned. Sod that I don't like being defeated so I will order another gaiter and have it sent over to Belgium to try again next weekend. On the bright side of things I am getting to know how it all works pretty well, I even made up a socket and ring tool so that I could more accurately guage to Lbs ft using the torque wrench. Aka Snowbums wee jobby..... Thanks Bob.
Now if anyone would like to add to the posts already on here on the subject I would more than welcome any advice from the venerable spanner men on this vault of information.
Thanks for your time to those who have already posted their knowledge I will try and follow the instructions.
Aye
Archie
