Shaft drive joint grease

[raz]

Just found this in WHB:

To lubricate the cardanic transmissions, only use

saponified greases with class 2 consistency lithium and

265/295 penetration. The dropping point must be about

180°C.

The lubricants must not contain MOS2 additives.

I have used grease I thought was fit for the application, but I think I recall it does contain MoS2. Can someone elaborate on why this is bad? How bad? Can I disregard it completely, or should I switch to another grease (my grease gun is almost full of it)? Should I even try to remove what I can of the MoS2 grease that are now in the joints and replace it? Not that I see a simple way of doing that without ruining the seals.

 

Edit: it doesn't spell this out in my Sporti WHB, but it does in a V11 one.

[Greg Field]

Guzzi specifically warns not to use grease with moly for this use. Why they would, I could not say. Everytime I have greased the u-joints on my own V11, it has been with moly grease. They now have 18.5k miles on them.

[Guest frankdugo]

raz, i agree with greg. i do not know any of the spifics that you ask for;a chemical engineer with knowlage of guzzis propritary casting mixture could give his reasons,but i think any is better than none.guzzi also prohibits the use of alcohol[denatured]for the cleaning of any part of the brakeing system-yet i have used it over 35 yrs including the guzzi with out any ill effects.maby theres something i'm missing.not worried though.

[raz]

Incidently on a recent thread on Guzzitech someone stated that MoS2 attracts moisture which could lead to corrosion. If that's true I can see our open drive shaft being a worse place to use it than the inside of a gearbox. But that may also rule out MoS2 for wheel axles and other places I use it. Not to mention the final drive outer RH bearing...

[savagehenry]

This is a largely discussed topic between owners of older BMW's. This is because the most difficult part of regular servicing was the transmission inputshaft spline greasing. Any and all type of grease was tried, from BMW's suggested brand, to marine types, bearing greases and moly and no moly types. The often agreed concensus was a moly type Honda lube, both for standing up to moisture, and "staying put" the 12,000 or so miles between scheduled services. The long and short of it, according to a member who was an engineer in the lubrications field, was:

1. Molys are best for SLIDING (as in the old "IN and OUT") applications

2. Non moly is better for circular, rotational (around and around) applications.

I ride in wet and cold weather, and can say this has always worked well for me.

Now for my : I'd be willing to bet many motorcycle companies use the same, or similar seals. Seal failure seemed to be a common concern, yet I don't recall it being reported as a actual, proven problem. I'm also going to guess the STYLE of grease is less important than if the joint/part actually GETS greased regularly. Have we all done that nasty front drive shaft zerk lately? Ride if the weather permits, or crank up the heat and do those little things, Later S.H.