"CRACK! Clangclangclang ... "

That's the sound of a rear u-joint coming apart on an 02 R1150GS. What a mess. I managed to limp it home, although I don't know how. The u-joint came apart in my hands when I pulled the final drive off. It looked like someone threw a grenade into the swingarm tunnel. Metal everywhere.

I have some spares in the garage, so I'm gonna be able to fix it pretty cheap. I have one problem at this point. The back half of the u-joint is stuck on the splines of the final drive. With the front half of the u-joint gone, there is no place to insert a screwdriver to pop it off. Any thoughts, or is it a job for a machine shop?

Here's an interesting note. This is a used driveshaft that I had refurbished by Machine Service Industry. The front half failed after about 5K miles. The rear half failed after 18K miles. I know lots of people have been happy with their work, but I don't think I'll go that route again.

JimMoore said:

Here's an interesting note. This is a used driveshaft that I had refurbished by Suburban Machinery. The front half failed after about 5K miles. The rear half failed after 18K miles. I know lots of people have been happy with their work, but I don't think I'll go that route again.

Click to expand...

Question, did you install this rebuilt shaft because the origional failed, or for some other reason??

r11rs94 said:

Question, did you install this rebuilt shaft because the origional failed, or for some other reason??

Click to expand...

At 100K miles I figured my old driveshaft was getting a little tired, so I bought a used one and sent it to them to be refurbished. Then I took out my old driveshaft and installed the refurbished one. In retrospect that may not have been such a hot idea.

I got 157k miles out of the driveshaft on my '94 R1100RS, before the front U-joint seized while touring in PA. (It sound like a box of rocks.) You've probably still got some life left in the original.

Folks,

In the original post I said I had it rebuilt be Suburban Machinery. That was wrong. It was rebuilt by Machine Service Industry. I just changed the original post. Sorry for the confusion.

Jim- have you spoken to the folks at MSI yet? Response?

(we just had them do a rebuild on a paralever R100GS, and am considering having them do my 78 R100's u-joint, so i'm pretty interested in how this works out)