Specially formulated to meet or exceed the BMW requirements for lubricating drive splines.
Spline wear is caused by the sliding back and forth of the splines while under load. Without proper lubrication wear occurs much more quickly because of the metal on metal contact. When applying be sure to coat evenly with an applicator brush. Excessive amounts is not to your benefit as it can "fling" off and contaminate your clutch.
From front to back 2 valve K bikes have three sets of splines:- Clutch/transmission
- Transmission/drive shaft
- Drive shaft/final drive
4 valve K bikes have four sets of splines:
- Clutch/transmission
- Transmission/ front half of drive shaft
- Front half of drive shaft/rear half of drive shaft
- Rear half of drive shaft/final drive
HOW OFTEN SHOULD I LUBE MY SPLINES? There isn't a hard and fast answer to this one other than "enough to minimize the wear." You probably can't do it too often though.
2 valve K bike monolever final drive splines: Many owners recommend lubing these splines every time you replace the rear tire. Another approach would be to do them every 10,000 miles. That's what I do. When you remove the final drive without draining it it gets rather messy unless you keep it upright. I use Mobil 1 synthetic gear oil on 20,000 mile intervals so that way I'm sure the splines stay well-lubed but only have to do it once without draining the gear oil from the final drive.
Clutch/transmission splines: BMW hardened the transmission input splines in 1990 and the recommended service interval was changed to every 40,000 miles. Before that it was annually I think but that's overkill if you're not logging a lot of miles. Every 20-25,000 miles on a pre-90 bike and every 40,000 miles on later bikes is reasonable. However, if you ever start experiencing sticky downshifting then I'd get it done soon because that sticky downshifting is caused by metal to metal contact.
4 valve K bike paralever final drive and drive shaft splines: Recommend every 20,000 miles when changing the final drive gear oil.
HOW MUCH SPLINE LUBE SHOULD I USE? Be sure to apply an even smooth coat on all surfaces with an applicator brush. An old toothbrush works well. The proper amount would be as if you are "painting the splines." Certainly you want to prevent large blobs that will fling off of the splines in short order. It is possible to use too much and have it spin off onto the clutch friction surface. There are many YouTube videos documenting the process with many opinions.
