Driveshafted - How to replace a driveshaft on a hexhead RT

[Twisties]

This is a draft for comment and community improvement.  I will revise as necessary.  I first saw a hexhead driveshaft failure at the 2012 Salida UnRally when Howard (former board moderator @PhillyFlash) lost his.  IIRC it took his final drive and swingarm with it.  Since, as the bikes age, it seems to be becoming a common issue.  Mine blew at the rear joint at 95,725 miles.  This is not a spline lube failure.  The front spline had never seen the light of day, and both the spline and front u-joint looked great.  The rear u-joint had disintegrated.  There was no appreciable warning.  Suddenly it was as if I had a tire blowout.  I pulled off the road and after checking tires, play in the wheels, etc, I  saw the rear boot was destroyed...   

 

So, if you have done this, or have mechanical expertise, please review, comment, and suggest away.  Let's tighten this up and I'll make it permanent.

 

 

Driveshafted.pdf

[EvilTwin]

Looks pretty good to me, at least it's a good for a start to finish document so you can know what steps to take and when,   If you had actual photos of some of the steps that would be a big help.  The diagrams used look to be generic and are used more than once.  I would also think about taking some of the text shown below as an example, that describes a series of steps to perform.  You could put it in a bulleted or numbered list so that it might be easier for people to go back and forth between reading and doing each step.  If I were doing this job, I would print the whole thing out, staple the pages together and then check off each step or make notes as I went along.  

 

Overall its a great start and thanks for making it available.  Hopefully I wont ever need it ...