My VStar 650 Final drive story

[Jethroish]

I post this for those that may be interested and for those who offered thoughts about a cure.

 

I had posted here a while back about noise in the final of my 650. After 2 months and a ring gear bearing, wheel bearings, new drive shaft, and coupling gear, the noise was still there.

 

So today, after removing the drive shaft, I took out the retaining ring that holds the input shaft and bearings in the final housing. Upon doing so, the cage of the roller bearing fell out. The 7 rivets that hold the cage together, inside the race, thus keeping all the bearing balls seperated and spaced, were broke and the halves of the cage have significant grinding wear. Thankfully there was no damage to the input shaft and the local dealer was able to get the bearing and sleeve pressed off the shaft.

 

I'll have it back next week with new bearings and hopefully be done with this.

 

Just thought I would share my story and findings.

[Yammer Dan]

Glad you found it.Without much more damage.

[Dano]

And without a lock-up and skid. That's too nice-lookin' a bike to get hurt! Glad you found it and got it fixed. Nothing worse than chasing something like that down.

 

Dan

[Beau-Kat]

Just saw this old thread and wanted to share my problems I had a couple years back.

 

I bought my 2002 V Star 650 used with 6600 miles. Around 11000 miles, it seemed to jump out of 2nd gear while turning into a parking lot. When I tried to shift to another gear...nothing.

 

Pulled the front cover (Cone) off the differential. Found the spline to be dry and the pinion shaft stripped. I was hoping that the drift shaft to pinion shaft coupling (an $11 part) was what was stripped, but no luck. Yamaha just doesn't put enough grease in there and I could find nothing about checking it in the service manual.

 

It is such an easy job to inspect it since you have to pull the drive shaft with the rear wheel at tire changes. Pop 4 acorn nuts and slide the cone forward and pack the coupling with grease. i wish I had known that sooner.

 

I had thought that this area was oiled with the differential oil. Heck, there isn't even a gasket installed between the cone and the differential housing.

 

Had to buy a whole new differential and install it myself. It comes with a new drive shaft and coupling. It was over $500.

 

I once saw a website with the 650's differential dry coupling failures and had some good pix, but i couldn't find it tonight for this post.

 

The V Star 1100's differential fortunately is different in that it has a hole in there that allows rear differential oil to lube the drive shaft to pinion shaft coupling.

 

Live and learn. Then post it on the forum!

[Beau-Kat]

If you haven't seen this forum.

 

http://www.motorcycle-journal.com/fo....php/f-70.html

 

Here ya go. It's the url for the rear differential failures and Virago 535 gear swap. Look at the photos closely and you will see the pinion shaft splines stripped away from the 650 differential.

 

http://www.stargis.net/webslinger/Do...for650Vsta.pdf

[ToRide1]

You will find the photos for the here http://WWW.650ccnd.com

 

It in there you just have to look for it, this forum is great for anyone that owns a 650 V-Star

and if you want to know how to make that little bike get up a go they figured out every thing that can be done to the motor and much more.

[Bummer]

Anybody tried Avons on the V-Star 650? My sister has a soloed Silverado and it's tire time. I'm looking for proper sizes. Best I can tell she'd need the MT90B16 for the front. Thoughts?

[ToRide1]

Anybody tried Avons on the V-Star 650? My sister has a soloed Silverado and it's tire time. I'm looking for proper sizes. Best I can tell she'd need the MT90B16 for the front. Thoughts?

 

Many are running the metzlers 880's on them bikes but just take the Front 130/90-16 67s & Rear 170/80-15M/C 77s size and mach them up and some offer white walls if thats what you want.

[Brake Pad]

Inside scope, Yamaha's pulling all the 650's & 1100's until the drive shaft issue is fixed

[ToRide1]

Inside scope, Yamaha's pulling all the 650's & 1100's until the drive shaft issue is fixed

 

I ran this by the folks on the 650 forum see what come back, they have at lest 6 X more members there and someone will find whats going on.

[dray]

Anybody tried Avons on the V-Star 650? My sister has a soloed Silverado and it's tire time. I'm looking for proper sizes. Best I can tell she'd need the MT90B16 for the front. Thoughts?

 

i run Avons on my 1100 classic and there great not sure about the 650 but my 1100 takes the MT90 on the front if you get them you would not regret it as they are very quiet and good grip

 

 

Inside scope, Yamaha's pulling all the 650's & 1100's until the drive shaft issue is fixed

 

cool so am i going to get a new inner shaft ? the 1100s are know to snap at the ujoint nut on the output shaft same as the 650s i have had no problems with mine at all but i dont drive it like a fool i see no need to shift hard or race guess im gettn old LOL

[Beau-Kat]

I run ME880s on my RSV and V Star 650 Classic. Been through a few sets and get great mileage and handling. Love them.

[castaway15]

I have a Yamaha XVS 650 Silverado with 15,500 miles on it. About three weeks ago the final drive leaked oil and when we opened the drain plug metal pieces came out. We went to the local Yamaha dealer and they said they would call back and we’re still waiting for a call.

When I didn’t hear from them we assumed there wasn’t anything they could do so we went to work on the final drive. What we found was that the pinion gear bearing failed. We believe this was a design flaw. Most differentials that use a pinion gear to drive a ring gear uses conical bearings to counter the force that the pinion gear produced outward as it turns the ring gear. The bearing (Part #93306-30539-00) they used was a ball bearing with a soft metal retainer/spacer and a circular loading spring that held the bearing together after assembly. This retainer was held together by what looked like spot welds or rivets it was hard to tell for sure since it was so beat up. This type of bearing is designed to support forces up and down not to the side. So the pinion gear pushing out against the side of the bearing assembly, put a strain on this retainer/separator and was trying to take the bearing apart. Eventually the retainer broke, part of it went through the gears (lucky it was soft metal) and one part reached out and cut the seal (also lucky). This allowed oil to leak out so we noticed a problem before the hard bearings released into the drive case to tear up the ring and pinion gears. When we got a new OEM Yamaha bearing (Part #93306-30533-00), we found it was redesigned so they must be aware of the problem.

While this does not appear to be a safety issue, a design flaw such as this should be recalled especially since the bike had less than 16K miles on it. We also found on the internet that many others had this same problem. So far this didn’t seem to be a safety issue however, thinking about it; if one or more of those ball bearings make its way into the ring and pinion gear portion of the gear housing the rear wheel could lock up. If that happens at high speeds there could be a catastrophic result.

[CaptainJoe]

I filed a saftey complaint against Yamaha about a month ago. Seems everyone I talk to with a V-star 650 is having final drive /differntial problems.

 

https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/index.xhtml

 

There are three of us here in Ripley that have had Final drive problems and all of us filed a comlplaint. all you need is the VIN number.

 

This problem has been ignored by Yamaha for years started in 2002 if my memory serves me. Yes the Virago 535 pinion gear will swap out with the 650 and they were bullet proof???

 

File a complaint... If enough people do they will have to do a recall.

[castaway15]

Thanks you for that link, I filed a complaint. I read elsewhere the others had this same problem. Because Yamaha made an attempt to redesign the bearing I know that they knew they had a problem. A ball baering was never designed to take on a side load. Anyone with a mechanical ability can see that.

 

Thanks