MAiNTENANCE CoRNER

By Tony Gray, Member #3905

In the September Journal we ran a story on final drive maintenance. There is a little tip that missed the story but came to light at the club service day on the 18 September. Filling the final drive with the required 180ml of oil can be difficult to achieve without spilling some oil because you are filling into a hole in a vertical casing where the casing wall is quite thick. Laying your bike on its side will work but that is a bit of an extreme measure. Fortunately there is an easier option. I use a beaut little squeeze bottle (kindly contributed by Greg Gaffney – no, don’t ask as he doesn’t have any more) but you may have a funnel or something similar as an alternative. Cut a short piece of clear plastic hose (6mm ID in my case) to fit snugly over the bottle or funnel tip then feed that down into the Final Drive casing – presto, no spills.

What can happen if you don’t use a squeeze bottle to put the 180ml of oil in the final drive.*

*Probably the worst-case scenario is shown here.