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A Rhino Maintenance Mystery -- Please help clear this up.
I bought a 2009 Rhino 700 last year. It now has 3000 miles on it and we love it - great rig for all kinds of activity down here in southern Baja!. Today we did some serious periodic maintenance on it and ran into a real maintenance mystery, which is:
The owner's manual says there is one zerk fitting on the drive shaft. There are actually two universal joints and therefore two zerk fititngs on the drive shafts.
The forward zerk is easy enough to access, and is now greased.
The aft-most zerk is hidden behind (above) one of the steel rock-guard plates and none of the holes in that plate align with the zerk to allow greasing it to be possible. The rock guard plate is welded in place.
So, we cut a new hole in the rock guard plate to allow access to grease the zerk...and thus found that the aft universal joint is fitted with a straight zerk rather than one with an elbow, so it is impossible to get a grease fitting over it, thus it is impossible to grease that universal joint!
So, it appears that universal joint has never been greased and when it fails, we will have to cut the guard plate off with a torch in order to replace it. Good Grief!
Can somebody please help me understand what is going on here? Or do I just need to go look in the mirror and see who is screwed!?
Why does the manual say there is one fitting to be greased when there appear to be two?
Why is there a grease fitting on that aft universal joint on the driveshaft that cannot be accessed?
How long should I expect that U joint to run without greasing it? What am I missing here?
Please help me understand -- it will be greatly appreciated! Is it possible to grease it? HOW?
If you don't believe me, send me your email address and I will send you a foto of it!
Thanks!
I bought a 2009 Rhino 700 last year. It now has 3000 miles on it and we love it - great rig for all kinds of activity down here in southern Baja!. Today we did some serious periodic maintenance on it and ran into a real maintenance mystery, which is:
The owner's manual says there is one zerk fitting on the drive shaft. There are actually two universal joints and therefore two zerk fititngs on the drive shafts.
The forward zerk is easy enough to access, and is now greased.
The aft-most zerk is hidden behind (above) one of the steel rock-guard plates and none of the holes in that plate align with the zerk to allow greasing it to be possible. The rock guard plate is welded in place.
So, we cut a new hole in the rock guard plate to allow access to grease the zerk...and thus found that the aft universal joint is fitted with a straight zerk rather than one with an elbow, so it is impossible to get a grease fitting over it, thus it is impossible to grease that universal joint!
So, it appears that universal joint has never been greased and when it fails, we will have to cut the guard plate off with a torch in order to replace it. Good Grief!
Can somebody please help me understand what is going on here? Or do I just need to go look in the mirror and see who is screwed!?
Why does the manual say there is one fitting to be greased when there appear to be two?
Why is there a grease fitting on that aft universal joint on the driveshaft that cannot be accessed?
How long should I expect that U joint to run without greasing it? What am I missing here?
Please help me understand -- it will be greatly appreciated! Is it possible to grease it? HOW?
If you don't believe me, send me your email address and I will send you a foto of it!
Thanks!
