Over the Memorial Day weekend I was travelling to CT to road crew for Angel Ride. While travelling up the Jersey Turnpike I felt a sudden "thunk" from the rear wheel while down shifting. At first I thought I hit a false Neutral and it banged backed into gear; happens now and again when I get complacent in my shifting. This time, however, the brake failure light came on meaning no abs; this also happens on occasion and usually resets the next time I start the bike. Anyway, I’m in turnpike rush hour traffic and travelling with a group and everything seemed fine, for the most part.
We stopped for lunch a little later and I couldn’t see anything overtly wrong with the bike. We continued along and for the next two days I took care of my marshalling duties and headed home Sunday Afternoon. Still no signs as to what caused my brake failure light to be on and not reset. Brakes worked fine and I realized I didn’t have ABS.
Well when I got home, after making it from Mystic, CT to Annapolis in 5 ½ hours, I noticed while unloading the bike, that everything on the back of the bike was covered in oil; this wasn’t the case all weekend. Now I’m concerned and I pull the real wheel and find the cause of my woes.
Apparently, Some object found it's way between the hub and final drive unit, ripping out the speed sensor (cause of brake failure light).
This is where the object entered.
3 of the 5 mounting points for the brake rotor are cracked.
The oil in the small bowl is all that was left in the final drive after my jaunt home. My theory is that over the weekend, I was always on back roads, going very slowly and that it was only on the long sustained ride home did the final drive slowly sling all of it's juices out.
New final drive installed, Easy job really.
During disassembly, I notice this bolt missing and sheared off where it screws into the final drive and the associated tubular spacer also missing. My theory is that something happed on the road and this missing hardware found it’s way into the whirling maelstrom.