Rear Drive Seal

[davetastic]

I took my bike, 2002 R1150RT, to get serviced at the dealer. I got a message on my machine from them yesterday saying that there is a leak and I need to replace the 'rear drive seal.' The part costs $20, but the labor costs $368. Can someone here who knows more than me tell me what this part is or what it does? That's a lot of money, for me anyway. Any idea how long I can ride this without replacing it, or if I don't replace it immediately would I be causing damage to the bike? I know these would be good questions for me to ask the dealer, but due to the holliday weekend, I won't be able to get ahold of anyone until Tuesday and my curiousity is killing me. Thanks.

[smiller]

Hard to say since 'rear drive seal' could mean a couple of things. If it is the pinion (input) seal and the leak is a slow seepage, well, that's pretty common and not a big deal. Often owners don't even bother fixing it since on many bikes the problem likes to recur at regular intervals no matter what you do. If it is the crown (output) seal then it probably needs to be fixed since you don't want gear oil getting on your rear tire or brake rotor, but this seal is pretty easy to replace and I can't imagine why the labor cost would be so high.

[Ken H.]

A mentioned there are two seals. The pinion gear one retails for $9.00 and the crown one for $21.00.

 

Ask him which seal. If it's the pinion gear one, skip it, TADT. If it's the crown seal, you could either do it or just monitor the wheel side of the FD closely for leakage.

[ShovelStrokeEd]

As others have stated, the pinion gear seal tends to weep on most all of them, it is actually the more difficult one to replace. The crown wheel seal is pretty simple to do, the rear housing need not be removed from the bike, only drained. Based on the labor charge, they are going to do the pinion seal.

 

You can do either job in your garage and save yourself a bunch of labor costs.

[davetastic]

Thanks for all the help guys. I'll find out on Tuesday which seal it is and I'll go from there. I might have more questions when I decide to change it myself.