Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Periodic BMW Final Drive Maintenance

I'm getting in a rough groove.....staying up til all hours of the night, then sleeping until 8:00 AM (or a bit later) each day. This pattern will be hard to overcome when day to day "working for a living"  rears its' ugly head again....
Planning ahead for the Death Valley gathering coming up in a week or so. The sidecar tire has near 2000 miles on it, and although showing quite a bit of tread, will not make another 2000 miles. With that in mind, plus the fact I don't want to mount a tire on the road, I went ahead and mounted a new "K-Block" tire.

 Mounting a new rear tire always means cleaning / lubing the hub and final drive splines. I was expecting to see very worn splines, but they aren't that bad yet. They do show wear...probably at about 60% remaining life. The "Lester" Wheel hub has a bit more wear than the final drive.

 I have a special made "BMW Wheel Bearing Lube Device" which is inserted into each hub for grease injection. I typically always give each bearing a few shots of grease when installing tires. I probably have the most "over lubed" wheel bearings on the planet.

 With the rear wheel removed, access to the final drive drain / fill plugs is a lot easier. I went ahead and drained both the final drive  and drive shaft reservoirs. No metal found on the drain magnets, just the typical small amount of grey, metal "mud".

 The final drive fill is a simple task. "Fill to the bottom of the threads" says the manuals. The drive shaft reservoir is a bit different. The Long Wheel Base drive line shows 150 CC of gear lube in the books, but no  way to visually see the proper level.
 
 I simply use some large medical syringes and inject three @ 50 CC's each.


Checked the transmission oil level and it looked good. Checked the engine oil level....No recordable oil was used on the 280 mile round trip run last weekend. Oil still looks "as new" after 600 miles so we'll do the Death Valley trip on the oil in the engine, but will haul an extra quart with me for top off's if needed.
Tightened the rear brake linkage a small amount....jacked the front end off the ground and checked for any "slop" in the steering head bearings. All seems just fine and nothing out of the ordinary noticed.
Next....I want to pull the front engine cover and take a look at the ignition points. Plus should check the valve clearances again.

3 comments:

RichardM said...

What does the bearing lube tool look like?

BMW HACKER said...

Greetings Richard....It is a small machined cylinder with a grease fitting on one end and two o-rings on the body. It is inserted into the hub with the axle removed. The o-rings isolate the inner bearing races, directing the grease into the bearings. The tool is inserted in each side of the hub, a few pumps of grease, and it's done.

redlegsrides said...

I wonder, given the fact URAL copied BMW's design re the FD for their rigs...whether that tool you're referencing would work to grease the bearings on a URAL. Then again, they're sealed bearings now, so never mind.

Gila Mtns.

Gila Mtns.