Diamond Drive Oil

Oil in the secondary bolt hole may be from a bad seal on that upper diamond drive output shaft.......so might be good to pull the cover and have a look at that. But also..........it would be a good idea to pull it and check out the bearing on the transfer gear that everyone keeps talking about.

I pulled appart my 2010 snopro M8 with a little under 400 miles.........my buddies 2010 Limited M8 with just under 500 miles and another buddies holdover 2009 M8 with just over 500 miles and all of them that bearing was on the outs.

The 09-------bearing seals in tact but bearing cage half gone internally
My 2010------bearing seals in tact.....but bearing cage totally gone and in pieces inside the seals.

Limited 2010----Seals gone.........gage gone.......all balls accounted for in the bearing but it was close to grenading.

In all three situations........even with the limited......I didn't see a lot of metal in the drained oil that would have concerned me.........but from the threads I figured we should pull them appart to make sure and we are glad that we did. There is a thread that you can search and find on here that is like 9 or 10 pages long with lots of valuable information on the topic.

It doesn't take long to pull the cover and the gasket is cheap.........my one pointer would be to take care when putting the cover back on and tightening up the fasteners. Use a 1/4" drive ratchet and just snug them up good with some removable loctite of some sort on the bolts. Many people list the torque spec on those bolts at 12 ft. lbs. and this is true if that fastener is threading into steel........but into aluminum it's more like 9 ft. lbs.

That doesn't seem like much but to put it in perspective that is the difference in inch-lbs. of 144 inch lbs. vs. 110 inch pounds.........which is quite a bit. I tried 12 and pulled the threads out on three of the holes........which in turn had me pulling out my entire diamond drive and heli-coiling all the damaged holes......and I did the rest while I was at it. Not terrible........but not fun either when I could have just snugged them up. Sorry for the novel.........I just wanted to keep you from repeating my mistake. I would pull the cover and check it out........heck you are already half way there with the clutch off and oil drained out.......

Good luck and be safe sledding this year!

Dave

WRECKED said:

I have a 2010 HCR w/ 500 miles, drained the diamond drive, oil looks good, no metal, should I pull the cover or just fill it back up and go. There was also some oil in the clutch when I pulled the bolt out, any info? Thanks.

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After 500 miles it can't hurt. A little oil on the clutch is ok thats how the diamond drive vents. I wash off every ride

You need a puller, but you don't need a press.

If your riding a 2010 with only 500 miles on it why didn't you just bring the sled into a dealer and have them take care of the diamond drive. It should be covered under warranty, right?

Just pulled the cover and bearing on my 2010 M8 with 700 miles. The bearing was totally shot. I was skeptical that this was a wide spread problem, but now I'm a believer. Took it to my dealer and he looked up the stock bearing and it showed that AC only pays $2.65 for the bearing. He also said he had asked AC why the didn't put a better bearing in there, and they said they had very few warranty claims, so as far as they were concerned there wasn't an issue.

NoSoup4U said:

Just pulled the cover and bearing on my 2010 M8 with 700 miles. The bearing was totally shot. I was skeptical that this was a wide spread problem, but now I'm a believer. Took it to my dealer and he looked up the stock bearing and it showed that AC only pays $2.65 for the bearing. He also said he had asked AC why the didn't put a better bearing in there, and they said they had very few warranty claims, so as far as they were concerned there wasn't an issue.

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It's such a joke........a $2.65 part that can destroy your diamond drive in a heart beat and set you back $800 or more. I mean.......jeeeeze....really Arctic Cat????!!!!! Sorry.........had to vent but I find it perposterous as well. I was glad I caught mine in time..........and had the machine tools in order to machine the transfer gear shaft and use the fancy double row bearing....hoping that will have solved my problem.

Dave

pulled dd apart on my 2010 cfr and brgs were good after 950 miles. im a believer in splitting case every year to look for problems before they arise.i wanna ride not wrench when theres snow.