Drive Shaft seized on the final drive splines

[Grumpy Goat]

Mike - great post albeit of a bad situation, which I hope will be resolved tomorrow. You beat me to the punch as I was going to do the same inspection on my bike following Darrell's experience. Based on my recollection of the Haynes instructions you did exactly what I would have done, so I was reading your post very carefully to see what I could learn.

Could you please take some photos to augment your thread? I do hope that these splines come loose since you need to get the driveshaft out in order to inspect the universal joints, and then re-grease the splines before reassembly.

I am also surprised to read that your rubber gaitors were not properly sealed all around and that there was water ingress into the shaft housing, likely leading to the rust in way of the splines. So the weak link to all of this is the single bead of waterproof grease! I am not going to comment on what I think of that design option, especially in way of a flexible joint that is constantly trying to separate the rubber from the metal.

That Castrol Optimol TA Paste does say that it "Protects highly stressed sliding surfaces from wear and fretting corrosion." So it is pretty important stuff that needs to stay on place.