A couple of years ago I traded up my 2001 Yamaha FJR1300 with 143000 miles (228,800 Km) and some cash for a 2005 Triumph Rocket III. The FJR was a great bike and one of the fastest I've ever ridden @ 170 MPH, but the Rocket was cheap, and already owning a 2007 R3 from new, I couldn't help but buy it. Spotty had just bought a minty 1998 Honda Valkyrie which he really liked, but with a bad hip he couldn't ride it, being that he's 7 feet tall the Boxer engine's cylinders got in the way of his legs making for a cramped riding position.
One day we went for a ride on both of my Rocket III's, and Spotty was besotted by the enormous torque and BHP of the Rocket III, so we swapped bikes. Awhile later he had hip replacement surgery and could ride more often, but sadly the Rocket's electrical issues let him down on several occasions, and it got to the point where he told me that he was so sick of it that he was going to leave it outside his garage and let it rot into the ground.
As nice as the Honda is, it never really floated my boat, so I asked him if he'd like to swap them back, so we did. There was a caveat on the deal though, that he'd help me pull the Rocket apart to replace the output shaft/cush drive assembly. Failing assemblies aren't necessarily a design issue, but the one on my "In the family since new" Rocket grenaded when the bike had done only three or four thousand miles. The culprit was that the bearings are sealed on one side, and several hundred bikes were built with the bearing installed backwards, not allowing oil into it. I remembered that one time I was riding Spotty's Rocket I either heard, or felt, a bad bearing, so I found a good used assembly on Ebay from a low mileage, later model R3 cheap, and bought it, just in case Spotty's failed.
Anyhoo, this week, Spotty stripped all of the outer assemblies off the bike, to make the task of dropping the monster 2300cc engine out today.
Rocket III repairs Saturday 29 Jul 2023 a by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Today I drove over to Spotty's place, and he was ready to go, with the bike already on the lift. The first task was to remove the rear wheel assembly, differential and tailshaft assembly. I'd scoured Youtube and various R3 forums and was surprised that most of the guys who had had this problem had taken their bikes to the dealers to fix them. Triumph had never issued an official recall, so some folks (like me) had to pay several thousand dollars to get it fixed, while in a very few cases, Triumph did it for free, or at a reduced price. Regardless, this bike is 18 years old, has done over 90,000 miles, and while it's a big job to get to the assembly, we decided that we could do it. Surprisingly, we didn't break anything.
Rocket III repairs Saturday 29 Jul 2023 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Lowering the engine out of the frame was a lot harder than I first thought, but by the time we'd removed both wheels we were able to jiggle the frame away from the engine enough to remove the assembly. Here's a pic of the two assemblies side by side.
Rocket III repairs Saturday 29 Jul 2023 2 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
As expected, they're a a big, heavy duty assembly. Interestingly enough, the front bearing that came out of it, was back to front, but didn't appear to be in bad condition. There was evidence though, that the engine's been out before, so maybe someone replaced the bearing, but put it in backwards? Weird. In fact I was a bit worried that there was nothing wrong with the old assembly until Spotty pointed out that if I spun the output shaft fast, you could hear the rear bearing (inside the case) making a grinding sound. I don't think it was a bad bearing, so much as just a worn bearing off a big heavy bike that's done over 90,000 miles, with plenty of hard launches, wheelies, burnouts etc, and was fitted with a car rear tyre on it when I bought it, which probably didn't help. By contrast, the replacement (the black one) was smooth and silent.
I drove over to Supercheap auto and bought some JB Weld brand gasket sealant, and a big jug of coolant. I had a $24 credit, so was happy to walk out only 27 bucks poorer. I drove back to apply the gasket goo to the new gasket on both sides, and in my absence Spotty had been cleaning several years of crap off the engine that you can never usually get to, which was great. He snapped a pic of me installing the new assembly, just so I could show my wife, so she wouldn't think I was having a secret rendezvous with a hot babe. With a head like mine, there's not much hope of that..........
Rocket III repairs Saturday 29 Jul 2023 9 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
By the time the new assembly was in, and I'd cleaned and greased the splines on the output shaft we'd been at it for 7 hours, and being old men, decided we'd had enough. I'm not going for a ride tomorrow, even though the weather is unusually magnificent this weekend, I've promised the wife that I'll mow the lawn, then I'm heading back over to Spotty's to do more bike work. Hopefully we'll at least have it back on it's wheels by end of play tomorrow.
Rocket III repairs Saturday 29 Jul 2023 6 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
