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Voyager final drive exploded!! Options? 2 years 8 months ago #29422

  • sparkee09
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So I've put a few hundred miles on this voyager since I got it, but last night was pretty scary, I think my final drive exploded.. was happily cruising along at like 80 when all of a sudden it sounded like someone dropped a bunch of rocks in my engine, it was very loud, sounded like something failed catastrophically, and I was terrified any second what ever was bouncing around would catch and lock up my rear wheel at those speeds. Luckily that didn't happen, and more luckily this happened at an off ramp so i was able to coast off the freeway. I haven't been able to take the bike apart at all yet, but its for sure an issue with the final drive. Engines still fires right up and purrs along thankfully, shifts through all the gears, but as soon as you start to let the clutch out the bike wont move forward at all, instead as you let the clutch out the bike will start to squat (like when your accelerating hard) and it will actually totally stall out the motor without moving the bike an inch, if I give it a little throttle when letting the clutch out to keep it from stalling, itll squat, then finally break loose whatever broke and it basically sounds like someone is hitting the drive shaft with a hammer, hard and fast. The bike wont move at all, just bangs the drive shaft.
Has anyone ever experienced this?? I've been a professional bike mechanic for years and this is honestly the first time I've ever heard of a stock bike having any kind of issue with its driveshaft. I can still see the u joint in place. anyone wanna take bets? I figure i either literally snapped my drive shaft in half, or I blew out the splines that go into the gear. I've definatly been pushing this bike somewhat since I've gotten it, Its been up to redline more then enough, but i was literally just cruising in traffic maintaining speed when it broke.

Onto my main question, my whole purpose of this bike is to turn it into a turbo bagger. It'll happily cruise at 80 at around 4200 rpm or so, which isn't bad, I mean my r1 doing 80mph is cruising along at 7000rpm! but it also revs up to 14k. But still, I try shifting into an imaginary 6th gear almost daily, like that extra gear would just be perfect. When the turbo eventually gets added I feel like even more I would want that extra gear for cruising.
I read alot about the hondasaki rear end conversion that was done on here, but I think its just a little past my skills, im not a good welder and how he had to weld the 2 shafts together makes me nervous, especially about holding up to the power this will put out with a turbo. Since then has anyone else found another way or option to change the gearing to the back? and is the gearing between the vn and the kz the same. looks like the voyager rear end is 3.83 is that the same for the kz? If only there was a way to convert to chain drive. If I can get the rear end taken apart this weekend ill try and get some pictures of it.
anyone have a a spare rear end they wanna sell??

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Voyager final drive exploded!! Options? 2 years 8 months ago #29423

  • Kawboy
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First, you're still on the right side of the pavement so Congrats for riding her out to a stop. Usually, things don't turn out so good with a catastrophic failure at 80 mph.
when up on the center stand, will the rear wheel turn by hand? Where's the noise? Could be either the front u-joint or the sliding spine or a bearing seized in the crown and pinion and blew up.. 
Not knowing the mileage and knowing that the rear end is bathed in  gear oil and knowing that the u-joint has a few dabs of grease in the cups, I was  going to put my money on the front u-joint but you say it's intact.
What's the gear oil look like?
Trikebldr did the Hondasaki rear drive but left the site shortly after finishing the build so unfortunately, there's no info on the final product. Pete ( I think) did a conversion with a Yamaha final drive as I remember. Maybe he'll chime in here. Or was it Phil ?? In any event, welding will be in the mix and any good welder with TIG ability can fix you up. Stay away from MIG. The penetrating heat properties of MIG are completely undesirable for this type of use. I wouldn't use MIG for anything more than sheet metal. Trust me here. I held a MIG all position pressure pipe ticket amongst my 11 welding tickets and MIG all position for pressure pipe was the hardest welding ticket to pass. Imagine welding 3/4" wide zigzag passes with a .040" progression per zig or zag.
I digress. Sorry.
Following with interest. Good luck.

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Voyager final drive exploded!! Options? 2 years 8 months ago #29435

  • sparkee09
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ok cool, i didn't know there was another one done with a yamaha rear end, ill see if I can find out anything about that. haven't been able to look at it yet in my tiny garage, I have an old cx500 cafe racer I've also been building and its finally ready I think to be painted when I get home tonight. If I can get the paint sprayed tonight I'll clean things up and then get the voyager in and tore down. really want this honda running again as now with the voyager down im left to commuting on my supermoto, which I love, but I really need to limit how much I play on the street with it so I dont go to jail lol. Theres really nothing more ridiculous then a motocross race bike on street slicks

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Voyager final drive exploded!! Options? 2 years 8 months ago #29436

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so pete did it, he did it with a vmax final drive that he had to flip upside down to use it on the right hand side. however he didn't do the work, it was done by a shop local to him that has since closed. must have been pretty in depth as it extended his bike 4 inches. 

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Voyager final drive exploded!! Options? 2 years 8 months ago #29470

  • hood1
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I have 4 parts bikes ZN 1300s

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Voyager final drive exploded!! Options? 2 years 7 months ago #29596

  • sparkee09
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How much would you want for a driveshaft?? I can’t believe this blew apart how it did. Also will a kz1300 driveshaft fit my voyager? From what I can tell the drivetrain between the 2 is the same so it should be fine
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