Super grease?

[Guest bird]

Supposedly there is some sort of super grease (BMW requires it on

their clutch centers) that should be acquired for clutch tranny rebuild, useful on the rear

wheel splines etch....what brand/s are good?

[Hairy Cannonball]

Supposedly there is some sort of super grease (BMW requires it on

their clutch centers) that should be acquired for clutch tranny rebuild, useful on the rear

wheel splines etch....what brand/s are good?

BMW has changed the recommendation for clutch spline lube several times over the years. I think now they are saying some Optimoly paste, however most people I talk to including BMW shops are using Honda Moly 60 paste. Its not a "super grease" though, just a suspension of 60% MoS2 in mineral oil. Great for splines and other sliding surfaces. Some folks mix a little good ep grease in with it for added corrosion protection. You could also get some Dow Molykote Z powder and mix it in whatever grease you wanted to use. Honda Moly 60 is easier to get though.

[moscowphil]

BMW dealers do sell the grease, which is outrageously expensive. You only need the smallest smear on the splines though - a little goes a long way. I managed to blag a bit off my local friendly BMW dealer when I put a new clutch in my Scura. Too soon to tell whether it will significantly reduce the wear on the clutch plate splines, which is what causes the horrible rattling of the single-plate models. In comparison with normal grease, the BMW grease is very sticky, which I imagine means it is less likely to creep onto the friction surfaces - which would be disastrous.

[BrianG]

Do cage applications use grease on the transmission input shaft splines?

[Hairy Cannonball]

Do cage applications use grease on the transmission input shaft splines?

 

Generally you might put a little dry moly on automotive splines on assembly and forget about it. Most cars have a heavier flywheel to dampen the power pulses from the engine so it isn't nearly so hard on the splines. BMW never had a significant number of spline failures back when they still had the heavy flywheels. A little tacky moly fortified grease seems to go a long way to slow down spline wear on the newer ones though. I think some of the bikes are coming with a misaligned transmissions or soft splines and no amount of magic fortified wonderlube is going to prevent wear on these. The Optimoly paste that BMW dealers sell is equivalent to Honda Moly 60 paste. Buy whatever you find first, they are both kinda spendy. Just remember though, if you have improperly hardened splines or a misalignment, the splines will fail whatever you do.

 

Remember too, MoS2 is expensive. If you find a cheap moly grease, it is cheap because it has very little moly in it. Lots of so called moly greases have only around 3% by weight.

[BrianG]

It seems that the Porsche guys also use this spendy, heavy, Moly-grease.

[Guest ratchethack]

An alternative to Straburags Optimoly A, or Honda Moly 60 paste/grease, is Chevron Ultra Duty EP lubricant, NLG1 or NLG2.

 

AKA Chevron Ultra Duty Grease EP (adhesive, multipurpose extreme pressure).

[Greg Field]

Leave your clutch splines dry. Clutch dust is horribly abrasive. If you lube the slines, the grease catches all that dust and turns it to grinding paste. Lube on the input hub slines lasts about 3 months or 3,000 miles, anyway, so it isn't worth doing. Lube on the flywheel splines lasts a long time and soaks up a lot of abrasive clutch dust.