Front Driveshaft oil seal

[deepriggin]

Well, this happened to me last winter, and totally took me by surprise. I had ben riding all day with no problems, til my nephew sank it up to the handlebars in a ditch full of snow. I ended up winching it out with my trucks winch (12000 lb'er). I got it running and loaded it in the truck and went home, it sat in the box overnight, when I went to unload it the next morning the truck box was full of oil. Since the snow had set and froze up the tires/ axles, I feared the worst and thought I froze the driveshaft oil seal and tore it. So into the garage it went, set up some tarps and got a heater on it ( Stupid me living in a house without a heated garage in Saskatchewan), thawed it enough to gain access to the front end, and began the teardown. Bumper, front skins, undid the front diff and knocked apart the back u-joint to pull the driveshaft from the engine, and knocked the remainder of the u-joint knuckle from the motor to access the seal.

It turned out that the Yamaha factory had screwed up, the retaining nut that holds the bearing into place wasnt torqued to spec, it had backed out allowing the output bearing to slide forward aprox. 1/4", and in the process it crushed the oil seal against the front u-joint knuckle. It only took three more seals and rebuilds to discover this, each time the seal would start, just to get crushed once the u-joint was re-installed. Anyhow, if anybody has a leaking front oil seal, the repair process is a simple operation, just do it when its not -25 deg. Celcius!

 

[Glenn]

That's good info there. It looks a little easier than the rear seal...which involves pulling of the rear swingarm...and removing the middle drive assembly so you can pop apart the u-joint.

 

[95Wolverine]

Ick to the unseen problem - seals fail, but nuts shouldn't back off - especially factory installed ones.

And Double Ick to the repair temperatures - nothing like cold fingers on cold metal..... yep, you can feel it to as you sit here reading this.

 

[Glenn]

Now that you mention it, my rear u-joint coming from the middle drive had a bit of slop in it. I'm wondering if that had something to do with my seal going south. It's almost as if they didn't torque it down or they forgot the locktite on the assembly line.