Where oh where did my Moly go to, where oh ...

Quick history:
* About 500 miles ago, I replaced the flange bearings.
* Cleaned both sets of teeth ... dry
* Applied official Mother Honda Moly 60 Paste, coated both very liberally
* Last Sat, rear tire picks up a scaffolding nail - tire ordered -
* Today, I remove rear wheel ...

(When I installed the original Pirelli rear tire (~4k miles ago), I applied Moly ... )

Why, 500 miles ago, when I removed the wheel (to replace the flange bearings), did it look like I applied Moly the week before (applied it ~4k miles prior when installed new tire), but now, 500 miles after replacing the bearings, the Moly I applied looks like Moly was *never* applied?

You may need to clean and or replace the Or-ring in the pic on the right, looks like a lot of it was flung out.

Mellow said:

You may need to clean and or replace the Or-ring in the pic on the right, looks like a lot of it was flung out.

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Ugh. Gotta be the problem, even though I removed it and checked it's specs against the last time I measured it (500 miles ago)

Great ... a $3.50 o-ring, (91358-MG9-003, ordered 2) is gonna keep me from installing the wheel on tonight - Honda of Houston tells me, "be here on Tue"

That doesn't look too bad, although I second Joe's comments about the 0-rings....

My NT700V had zero evidence of ever having had any moly and was severely damaged, both in the flange and the the final drive splines were done..... worn so badly they were going to fail any time.....

O-Rings should all be replaced, clean it all and re-apply moly liberally!

The Moly burnishes the metal and protects for a ling time, but doesn't last forever!

The metal is case hardened but again, doesn't last forever.....

Top all that of with the fact that we can no loner source Honda branded Moly60 FROM HONDA DEALERS in the UK and you get a picture of the somewhat STUPID approach Honda is taking to dealer and user maintenance of final drives.... it isn't even on the service schedule.....

Firstpeke said:

My NT700V had zero evidence of ever having had any moly

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Are you stating, "no evidence" from the factory? Did you have the wheel off after purchase and it looked fine? How many miles?


This is third time I've had the rear wheel off (bought at 33k miles, now have 40k) and it never looked like it does.
In a way, I'm glad the rear tire took a nail, otherwise I would never have removed that rear until the next tire change.

The o-ring definitely isn't retaining the moly paste. You can see moly on the driven flange shoulder outside of the o-ring (right picture), as well as on the inside of the black plastic shroud around the rear gear housing (left picture).

As you can see with your wheel, there is evidence outside the normal area of application on the driven flange and probably elsewhere.....

When I bought my 700 and began a service on it, I removed the rear wheel to be presented with cocoa powder in the splined areas, this is the product of areas of splined drives which undergo high contact pressure with micro movement but lack lubrication and is called "fretting corrosion".
There was no evidence anywhere on the entire assembly inside or out, including the very depths of the final drive end of the unit, where on would expect to find at least minimal traces of moly, albeit dirty, black and dry.... but there was none.

The splines were in near failure condition.

On the UK Deauville owners forum I ran a poll and out of 65 respondents, 13 had the same issue or worse, 1 had originally not had a problem, but later the problem occurred, possibly already existed but had at some point been moly lubed at a tyre change..... it appeared that out of all respondents, 3 had no lubrication from the factory and another 1 also felt that was the case but could not prove it.

Honda UK has claimed that all splines are lubricated from the factory and that this is a "Fair wear and tear" issue...... despite the very lubricant no longer being made available to dealers.

Why have they discontinued it?

Well the splines are not inspected in any service schedule so the dealers are not using the Moly and hence it is no longer required due to minimal sales....... it can be procured in the US and is indeed available from various suppliers, except David Silver Spares US division, as they are not allowed to import it into Europe...... following Honda's court case against them a few years ago for breach of copyright.

caldercay said:

In a way, I'm glad the rear tire took a nail, otherwise I would never have removed that rear until the next tire change.

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+1. I had an ST1100 O-ring go south on me during a long distance trip. I had put all new rings in before I left and when I got back I found during a tire change that one had failed. The only thing I could figure was that the failed O-ring got nicked when I put the rear wheel back on (I'm now very careful when reinstalling the rear wheel). It caused enough accelerated wear to the splines that I could see it on the splined shaft. The drive splines weren't ruined by any means but the little bit of wear that occurred caused a noticeable bit of drive line lash. Luckily for me the drive play was still within specs.

If I had not had to change the ST1100's tire immediately after that trip, I would never have known there was a problem and I might have wound up with a trashed final drive.

Out of caution, I now replace the O-rings every other tire change. This is a practice that was stressed by the ST1100 gurus on the old ST email list, some of whom replaced them at every tire change. Those O-rings are pretty inexpensive so I figure it's cheap insurance.


For those who don't know exactly where the two O-rings are located on the ST1300 (the ST1100 has three), here are a couple of pics I took of my wheel (clean & without all the moly) the last time I changed my ST1300's O-rings:

Mick said:

For those who don't know exactly where the two O-rings are located on the ST1300 (the ST1100 has three), here are a couple of pics I took of my wheel (clean & without all the moly) the last time I changed my ST1300's O-rings:

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Thanks for that, Mick ... I ordered (2) 91358-MG9-003 from HondaOfHouston and 2 from PartZilla (in the hopes PZ will get here quicker).
Even though I have the parts fiche, I didn't consider ordering the 91302-MA6-003 o-ring (behind the flange, on wheel) - thanks for the heads-up.

Any idea if we have an "O-Rings R-Us" shop in the Houston-metro area?
The 61x2 (I'd say Buna-N material) might be a "common size" ... not sure about the 50.5x3.5 size though.

caldercay said:

Thanks for that, Mick ... I ordered (2) 91358-MG9-003 from HondaOfHouston and 2 from PartZilla (in the hopes PZ will get here quicker).
Even though I have the parts fiche, I didn't consider ordering the 91302-MA6-003 o-ring (behind the flange, on wheel) - thanks for the heads-up..

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I thought I might have had a spare 91302 for you but turns out it's a 91358. Don't know how that happened since I would normally have ordered them both at one time. Need to get hold of one before the next tire change. That may be a while though because my rear PR3 is wearing like iron.

Any time I buy something from Ron Ayers or Service Honda, I'll include an extra set or two of O-rings plus other "consumables" such as oil filters, spare push pins, etc.

caldercay said:

Any idea if we have an "O-Rings R-Us" shop in the Houston-metro area?

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Can't help you there. Don't know of any place in Houston that might have what the 1300 calls for (except for the dealers of course) but assuming the composition of the rubber is the same among all O-rings, you might try Turner Hardware. They have everything under the sun and then some. They are among the very few remaining "mom & pop", non-chain type hardware stores in town. It's worth the trip even if they wind up not having what you want because they have such an amazing variety of hardware to gawk at. It's one of those old fashioned places where you can still buy things individually rather than having to buy a 5 pack of something. Nails can still be had by the pound plucked from rotating bins. They've also got a good selection of metric fasteners. I feel like a kid in a candy store every time I go there.

Mick said:

Can't help you there. Don't know of any place in Houston that might have what the 1300 calls for (except for the dealers of course) but assuming the composition of the rubber is the same among all O-rings, you might try Turner Hardware. They have everything under the sun and then some. They are among the very few remaining "mom & pop", non-chain type hardware stores in town. It's worth the trip even if they wind up not having what you want because they have such an amazing variety of hardware to gawk at. It's one of those old fashioned places where you can still buy things individually rather than having to buy a 5 pack of something. Nails can still be had by the pound plucked from rotating bins. They've also got a good selection of metric fasteners. I feel like a kid in a candy store every time I go there.

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Hahahahhaha. I'll bet I go to Turner 2-3 times a week (I live ~5 mins away).
I make up 'projects' to build, just so I have an excuse to go there - yes, it is like " being a kid in the candy store"

Just a little food for thought - I'm sort of thinking 'out loud' here, and don't intend to question anyone else regarding his/her mechanical ability/expertise. I noticed a couple of references in this thread to applying the moly paste liberally, and wonder if that may have contributed to failure of the O-ring(s). The Honda Service Manual says to apply 5g (0.18 oz) of moly paste to the gear case splines and driven flange - that isn't a real 'liberal' amount. I haven't been able to find it in my search, but I seem to remember reading someplace that all that's required is a thin film of moly on the mating surfaces of the splines and driven flange, which makes perfect sense to me, and that's what I've always done when replacing the rear wheel. I'm wondering if overdoing the amount of moly applied could result in hydraulic pressure being applied to the O-ring when the wheel is installed which may be more than the O-ring was intended to 'hold'? The photos in the first post look like the moly could have been forced past the O-ring when the wheel was installed.
Just my :tc1:, FWIW.

The area isn't pressurised so applying too much would just mean it getting squidged to the ends of the splines and thrown as far as it can get..... the seals should stop it getting out, but they don't given the dynamic nature of the rotating components and the fact that the o-rings don't really seal the assembly completely....

I found this site which sells polyurethane o-rings to replace the nitrile o-rings , which they claim wear less than the OEM parts. The 91358-MG9-003 and 91302-MA6-003 are listed as two of the 3.

http://redeye.ecrater.com/p/18218041/final-drive-o-rings-for-valkyrie-polyurethane

Don B said:

I'm wondering if overdoing the amount of moly applied could result in hydraulic pressure being applied to the O-ring when the wheel is installed which may be more than the O-ring was intended to 'hold'?

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Hi Don ... what you're suggesting makes perfect sense. Yes, I do have the official service manual, and honestly, I probably do go a bit overboard with the paste.
I spent a couple of hours yesterday measuring tolerances and all are within spec, even the o-ring. I've examined the o-ring under a magnifying glass (literally) and there is no evidence of galling.

I guess it's time to purchase a scale and measure out 5g of paste, by weight, and apply that. I suspect it'll be much less than I apply by sight.

Don B said:

Just a little food for thought - I'm sort of thinking 'out loud' here, and don't intend to question anyone else regarding his/her mechanical ability/expertise. I noticed a couple of references in this thread to applying the moly paste liberally, and wonder if that may have contributed to failure of the O-ring(s). The Honda Service Manual says to apply 5 grams (0.18 oz) of moly paste to the gear case splines and driven flange - that isn't a real 'liberal' amount. I haven't been able to find it in my search, but I seem to remember reading someplace that all that's required is a thin film of moly on the mating surfaces of the splines and driven flange, which makes perfect sense to me, and that's what I've always done when replacing the rear wheel. I'm wondering if overdoing the amount of moly applied could result in hydraulic pressure being applied to the O-ring when the wheel is installed which may be more than the O-ring was intended to 'hold'? The photos in the first post look like the moly could have been forced past the O-ring when the wheel was installed.
Just my :tc1:, FWIW.

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Interesting theory Don.

I'm afraid I've always been one of those who just slathers it on. I always looked at the manual and noticed the amount expressed in grams and said to myself, "so how the heck am I supposed to know how much volume a weight of "X" grams of moly is supposed to be?", so I just made sure there was moly filling the spline valleys on opposing sides. I figured the upper limit where it was too much was probably way beyond what I was using.

I've always thought of grams as being strictly a weight (I was apparently asleep in college chemistry that day). On a hunch, I just googled it an discovered that just like ounces, it can also be a volume measurement. Turns out that 5 grams that you mention converts to 1 teaspoon! That to me is a shockingly small amount to cover the male and female spline surfaces, but the Honda engineers are the experts, not me.

Here's the conversion website: http://www.convertunits.com/from/grams/to/teaspoons

Don B said:

Just a little food for thought - I'm sort of thinking 'out loud' here, and don't intend to question anyone else regarding his/her mechanical ability/expertise. I noticed a couple of references in this thread to applying the moly paste liberally, and wonder if that may have contributed to failure of the O-ring(s). The Honda Service Manual says to apply 5g (0.18 oz) of moly paste to the gear case splines and driven flange - that isn't a real 'liberal' amount. I haven't been able to find it in my search, but I seem to remember reading someplace that all that's required is a thin film of moly on the mating surfaces of the splines and driven flange, which makes perfect sense to me, and that's what I've always done when replacing the rear wheel. I'm wondering if overdoing the amount of moly applied could result in hydraulic pressure being applied to the O-ring when the wheel is installed which may be more than the O-ring was intended to 'hold'? The photos in the first post look like the moly could have been forced past the O-ring when the wheel was installed.
Just my :tc1:, FWIW.

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I have never applied moly to the o-ring itself. Only the splines and have had very little ever spin out of the hub. I've also never replaced the o-ring on the 2 STs I've had. It makes a lot of sense that moly on the o-ring would allow it to NOT seal as well, if at all.

If you contact Belray lubricants and ask them which one of their products with work for our application on the splines on these bikes, they will point you to one of their "assembly lubes" with moly solids. I've been using it for years now, and it not only holds up better, is more waterproof than the Honda stuff, cheaper to purchase ( a large bottle with a brush is about $10 bucks ) but it is always still in place about 10K miles later when I remove the rear wheel for replacement.
As stated by other members, use the correct, recommended amount, clean and inspect everything before applying, and replace all the O-rings each time the wheel is off.
.02