| Author | Message | ||
     Teeps |
Joe_solo Posted on Friday, May 30, 2008 Took the wheel to the dealer, they were pissed - in their eyes the warranty is void if I do anything to the bike. That is just plain B.S. But in their defense how do they know the wheel, you carried in, came off of your Uly that is in warranty? Also, the stock bearings are double sealed, what they are not is double lipped. (Message edited by teeps on May 30, 2008) | ||
| Xbimmer |
Hmmm... so tested Uly belt loadings reveal a need for a stronger belt, which is applied to production lines, and only Uly's start fragging bearings using the same bearings as the other XB's, that also use the improved belts... | ||
| Mattwhite |
A thought on the problem being water related - My Uly spent most of this winter outside and there has been a lot of rain. There has also been a bunch of freeze-thaw cycles it sat through. | ||
| Panhead_dan |
Does anyone have a spare rear wheel? A 1/8 inch hole drilled in the right spot so as to loose any accumulated water by centrifugal force may fix the water problem. The problem it may create would be if that hole jeapordizes structural integrity. Anyone? | ||
| Teeps |
A similar thought crossed my mind, Panhead dan. A small hole would probably not hurt, look at the front wheel. But if you do drill the wheel and subsequently have a problem. You might be out of luck getting any help from Buell. Replacing bearings does not cost that much; but whole wheel could get expensive... Having said that, I'll continue to monitor the Uly's bearings and wait for the official repair if one is ever developed. | ||
| Jwnsc |
Does anyone have a spare rear wheel? I know someone who has several thousand of them. His name is Eric and he lives in East Troy, Wisconsin. Why don't we ask him? | ||
| Hughlysses |
I still want to know what the plausible path is that water could travel via to get into the rear wheel. The bearings are a press fit into the wheel hub which makes them virtually water tight. The bearings are sealed; although some water does seem to get into them, I don't see any way water could get past the outer seal, through the grease, and past the inner seal into the wheel hub. The bearings are "squeezed" tightly between the axle on one side, the spacer in the center, and the swing arm on the other side. Not much space for water at any of those interfaces. I can imagine a few drops of water getting in past some of these points, but not the substantial amounts we've been finding, short of physically submerging the wheel or directing a pressure washer at some of these joints for a LONG time. The only things that leaves are something in the area of the sprocket or the brake disk. Has anyone had these off to know if there are any potential water paths in those areas? Maybe there are some obvious openings that could be sealed with RTV or something similar. | ||
| M_singer |
"That is just plain B.S. But in their defense how do they know the wheel, you carried in, came off of your Uly that is in warranty?" If he bought the whole bike in they still would have o way of knowing if the wheel was from the bike in question. Total unmitigated BS IMO! | ||
| Joe_solo |
"That is just plain B.S. But in their defense how do they know the wheel, you carried in, came off of your Uly that is in warranty?" The dealer has problems with me changing my own oil! They feel that I am voiding my warranty by doing any work on my bike. The reason I took the wheels off was to replace the tires, they wanted 3 hours labor for removing the front & rear wheels and mounting the new tires. A set of tires at the dealership is about $200 bucks more than the shop down the street plus a $300 labor charge makes a $800 tire replacement. When I complained to the sales manager he stated that they got caught buying a load of tires at a high price and needed to sell them at that price to recover their cost. As for the labor charge, that is what they charge for a tire change, apparently most of their HD customers are willing to pay that. I am not. | ||
| Rick_a |
Your warranty is fine as long as receipts are kept for all service items purchased. It is only void if it can be proven that improper servicing/parts can be proved to have caused the otherwise warrantable failure. | ||
| Jackbequick |
There must be a slight suction from the heating and cooling cycles and maybe some associated condensation. I think I'd try putting a few silica gel moisture absorbent packages in between the bearings. Also, using dielectic compound as a lubricant/sealer when seating the bearings and again on the axle when it is slid through the bearings might help too. The dielectic compound will not heat and run, and it will act as a barrier for moisture too. Listening to this has me convinced that they made a mistake on the engineering. Timpken tapered rollers, with tubular spacers, loose shims to control the side play, and grease in the hub has worked too well for too long to be changed over to something that is this troublesome. I set the wheel side play to .002-.004 on my Dyna with the axle nut torqued to 60 ft/lbs and I can ignore it for a year or two if I don't need to pull the rear wheel for anything. One of the two bearing in my rear wheel is the 1997 original and still working perfect. Jack | ||
| Jlnance |
I still want to know what the plausible path is that water could travel via to get into the rear wheel. I was thinking the same thing (as I rode through a thunder storm yesterday.) It just doesn't seam plausible that a substantial amount of water could end up inside the hub. A few drops sure, but people are talking about water pouring out. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Jim- Exactly. When I pulled the bearings out of my wheel the week before MBV, I estimate I got 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water out of the hub. I'd ridden in the rain a good bit, but I've never pressure-washed the bike, never done a stream crossing, and certainly never submerged the rear wheel. Does anyone know if there are openings in the casting behind the sprocket or the brake disk? If there aren't, I revert to my theory that someone's leaving these wheels outside in the rain before the bearings get pressed in. | ||
| Treadmarks |
I have had water in my hub both times I changed tires. I ride in the rain all the time in south florida and the uly is my work and back transportation. I don't see how water being in the hub could be an issue....unless the bearing failed there by distorting the seal and then allowing water to breach the seal. I still believe that the oem setup for the X allows the belt to become too tight at/near the end of the suspension travel. This extra load exceeds the bearings load rating causing premature failure. 20k miles on my Uly, 12k of it with trojans springy thingy. Water in the hub=no big deal. Belt too tight=big deal. | ||
| Johnboy777 |
Hey Tread, RE: "Water in the hub = no big deal." Water by itself, perhaps not, but I think that water mixing w/ the grease would be a problem. That, and rust. . | ||
| Jlnance |
I still believe that the oem setup for the X allows the belt to become too tight at/near the end of the suspension travel. This extra load exceeds the bearings load rating causing premature failure. 20k miles on my Uly, 12k of it with trojans springy thingy. It may. But I think the belt isn't touching the idler pulley at the end of the suspension travel, so the spring thingy is going to reduce tension every where except there. | ||
| Hughlysses |
It's also worth mentioning that the rated load (for a 1,000,000 revolution life) on these bearings is almost 2,000 pounds each. So unless there's ~1,000 pounds of tension in the belt, we're not overloading the bearings. | ||
| Prowler |
I think that Tread is indicating that the belt is tightest when the rear suspension is fully extended and the belt is putting the most load on the pulley. Belt tension only does not indicate the total load on the bearings. Figure total bike weight and total rider(s) weight, plus belt tension from engine acceleration plus initial load on the belt. As far as I know, all of that is on the rear bearings during hard acceleration. Is that enough to cause bearing issues? Who knows? (not me) but I've got a spring loaded tensioner and am not going to worry about it........ | ||
| Hughlysses |
True, the load is more than just the belt tension. It would be the resultant force of the vertical load on the bearings (some >50% portion of the weight of the bike, rider, passenger, and luggage), the belt tension, and the force due to forward acceleration. A point worth considering is that if the belt tension is max when the suspension is fully extended, then the load on the bearings due to bike/rider/luggage weight is the minimum at the same time. I agree that it's a possibility that the bearings are being overloaded, it's just that you've got nearly 4,000 pounds of load capacity (2000 lbs x 2) to play with. Tubers were known to destroy transmission output shaft bearings if the belt tension was too high, but I don't recall this causing wheel bearing failures. OTOH I don't think I've seen any reports of output shaft bearing failures with Ulys. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
The belt should be under maximum tension when the rear suspension is fully compressed. In general, full compression gives the maximum distance between the countershaft and the rear axle. With the swingarm pivot behind the countershaft, as the suspension extends, the axle should get closer to the countershaft. The tensioner is placed so that the belt curves around the 'third wheel' to take up the slack. My GSXR 750 has two bearings on the drive side of the rear wheel. Mark in Arizona | ||
| Jlnance |
The belt should be under maximum tension when the rear suspension is fully compressed. In general. But ...
Of course if you compress the suspension so much that the belt no longer contacts the idler pulley, it doesn't work any more. But I don't know if that's possible with our bikes? (Message edited by jlnance on June 02, 2008) | ||
| Mattwhite |
A couple more ideas on the belt tension: There's probably a certain tolerance allowed on the belt travel length over the range of suspension travel. It would be very small, but not zero. The longer suspension travel on the Uly would result in a larger change in how far the belt travels compared to the other models. I could be wrong, the idle pulley may (theoretically) allow for an exact belt length over the full range of suspension travel, but I'm not about to run the math to confirm it. Maybe Anonymous will chime in and tell us if that's the case. There could also be a small error in the geometry even if the pulley allows for perfect tension over the full suspension travel. Maybe it's perfect for the tension on the XB s and r models but requires a slightly larger pulley for the geometry on the XB12X. The existing part is thought to be close enough, but now we find out maybe it's not. | ||
| Bross |
"Water by itself, perhaps not, but I think that water mixing w/ the grease would be a problem. That, and rust." Kinda related to this and some people wondering if drilling a hole in the rim might alleviate the water collecting problem. Just got back from a ride, following a friend on his V-Strom. Not sure why I was even looking, but I noticed his back wheel has a big 1" whole right in the middle of the "hub". Next stop I looked at his front wheel and they have small holes in the bottom of the hollow cast "spokes". Looks like these wheels are designed to allow water in, but also give it a place to get back out. | ||
| Xbimmer |
There could also be a small error in the geometry even if the pulley allows for perfect tension over the full suspension travel. Maybe it's perfect for the tension on the XB s and r models but requires a slightly larger pulley for the geometry on the XB12X. Wouldn't a larger diam roller aggravate an overtensioning problem during suspension unloading? Hell I don't know myself, I'm just following this thread hoping to find some common denominator. Since XT's will most likely be ridden like X's often two-up and/or with luggage (extra loads not necessarily imposed upon other XB's) it will be interesting to see whether they start having bearing problems. And if anybody with a springy-pulley on newer bearings has a failure then that kinda narrows down the field too, regarding belt/bearing loadings. I will say this, for over 15k I've been pulling the bearing seals and checking/greasing them. When I started doing that I found 4 bearings with 2 different greases and 4 different grease loads within. Not what I consider to be good QC. | ||
| Treadmarks |
I like the hole in the hub idea. 2 or 3 positioned so they would balance out. I will look into this next tire change (very soon). Would also like to know if any uly riders with the springy thingy has popped a belt or had bearing fail. | ||
| Gsron |
Don't have a Ully yet but have been following this thread. Could the water in the hub be from condensation???? The hub may be "water" tight but I'd bet it's not air tight. Between the rear brake, an overly tight belt (at times) and 180+ degree oil in the swingarm is the rear wheel getting hotter than a "normal" wheel. Is this heat/cool cycle drawing air into the hub and then causing condensation???? Just thinking out loud... RON | ||
| Hughlysses |
Ron- that seems completely reasonable, but some of us have found a LOT of water in our hubs. I found ~1/4 to 1/2 cup of water in mine when I changed the bearings out a couple of months ago. It just seems like too much for it to have accumulated by condensation. | ||
| Bross |
Is this heat/cool cycle drawing air into the hub and then causing condensation???? Just thinking out loud... RON That's exactly what my strom riding buddy suggested was happening, hot air under pressure, creating condensation or drawing moisture into the hub. Sounds plausible? http://www.springerlink.com/content/6535118u906158 66/ but still begs the question, Why just Uly's and not other XB's, which points back to the extra suspension travel and higher loading??? | ||
| Treadmarks |
Go figure. The front has holes in it, and the rear doesn't.  | ||
| Mark_weiss |
Of course if you compress the suspension so much that the belt no longer contacts the idler pulley, it doesn't work any more. But I don't know if that's possible with our bikes? I could be wrong, the idle pulley may (theoretically) allow for an exact belt length over the full range of suspension travel, but I'm not about to run the math to confirm it. Maybe Anonymous will chime in and tell us if that's the case. This should be the case exactly. When the suspension is at full compression, the rear axle and the countershaft are at their maximum separation and the belt should be at maximum tension. In this instance, the idler pully should be just barely touching the belt (or if the belt is designed to be a bit long, the pulley would be positioned to add the requisite amount of tension). Some advanced high-school mathematics would determine the diameter and location for the pulley, so that as the suspension rebounds, the belt tension is kept constant. Mark in Arizona} |
