The gearbox of a friend's vectrix was starting to be quite noisy.
I helped him to replace the gearbox's oil.
Before opening the gearbox, We expected to find 80 ml of oil. After opening only 20 ml of oil spilled down. We guessed that another 20ml stayed around the gears. 40 ml vanished!
A closer look revealed that the planetary gears are wider than the external gear . Quite strange.
These gears can touch the side wall of the gearbox's cover. Look at these strange marks in the picture. This may explain the loud noise.
Following the described procedure to modify the gearbox cover for refilling, first we drilled a very small hole for calibration purposes. Then we drilled a big hole from the inner face, preventing possible destruction of the original screwed hole in the cover.
Partial refilling is going to be plenty easier now. A small mark on the cover will show where the hole is.
We used a hi-quality gearbox oil. Now the bike is quieter.
If you want apply this procedure to a vetrix: You should clean all aluminium debris/dust from the cover, and make sure there's none left before closing the gearbox. Careful!, aluminium is very weak. Apply correct NM to all screws!
guardando la foto della copertura del gearbox ho notato che il cuscinetto piccolo non è nella sua sede va spindo infondo
Thank you for posting this!
One of the advantages is that you can also do partial oil changes / oil inspections.
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
Hola vectrixcr, Gràcies per l'avís. He revisat les fotografies i el coixinet petit intern al que fas referència hi surt perfectament, els dos rodaments de la tapa hi son.
What brand and type of oil did you use? I have been searching high and low to find out what oil to use.
MOTOREX Pental LS SAE 75W/140 GL-5 Gear oil fully synthetic. It is recommended for BMW motorbike's gearbox.
Hi HarryS, Castrol Optigear Synthetic X is the recomended oil-type. I use SAE 75W-90 full-synthetic scooter gear
oil for scooters with seperate gear. It is sold in 100ml units (80ml=2,71 Oz. its brandet by the dealer(www.louis.de) so I can´t tell you who produced it. There are other brands with 80W-90 or even 80W-140 (that R used) but the second one is for gears where the oil gets not only to the gear but also to a bevel gear and therefore need a other lubricity so I decidet not to use it. To the oil I put some ceramic oil additive similar to lubriloy. But it is too soon to tell if it is a must have or a waste of money.
Greetings Mike
Edit: Only thing I can tell: when the oil is "warm" / after some Km you don´t hear the gear above 50KmH anymore :-)
I am at 4000 miles, but I am the only one I know with a Vectrix so I have no idea if the bike is noisy. There are no dealers anymore so I have no hope of service unless I can get Dana or his minions interested in looking at my bike. How many miles were on the bike with the missing 40mL of gear oil? Is this something I will need to look into sometime soon?
-Randy
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I also own a 2018 Tesla Model 3 and a 2012 Mitsubishi iMiev
I took the plunge today and attacked the gear box. I chose to disassemble it completely. Nice instructions in the handbook. On my 2007 I had not only the whine but also the uneven da.da.da.da.da....sound. I believe I found the problem for the latter. When you take the 3 planetary gears out, the mounting platform for these is attached to the motor with 5 screws. When you loosen these, there is several millimeters of play in either direction. In other words, the center drive that interfaces with the 3 planetary gears can easily be out of center. I just centered it as good as I could and it almost completely eliminated the da.da.da... I also modified the housing so I can fill oil. Just for good luck I rotated the planetary gears by one position each. I added 80 ml of synthetic gear oil and reassembled. You need to make sure you have a torque wrench and know all the torque values. Again, lots of info in the handbook thanks to Mik and others. If you cant find the values, send me a private message. The whole job took about 2.5h but I have had experience in taking the rear assembly apart so it may take you a bit longer. Overall, certainly a big improvement.