M77 Replaces Moly 60- Apparently So

MidLife said:
To support what you outlined, my 2003 manual lists Molykote G-n as an acceptable substitute to Moly 60, and G-n is most definitely...a paste!
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Be advised that Dow Corning GN paste is only 20 to 30% molybdenum disulfide. This would suggest that a moly content of 60% (as many claim is what the Honda Moly 60 contained) is not the moly content that is required.
MidLife said:
What Moly content would you be satisfied with? What was the Moly content of Moly 60?
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That is a bit if a conundrum right now. I would want to come as reasonably close to the Honda Moly 60 as possible since we know that it worked. I don't consider exceeding the moly content of the Honda Moly 60 by a significant amount any better than having a lubricant with significantly less moly content- more is not always better. I have seen specifications where the Honda Moly 60 was listed as having 40% molybdenum disulfide. I have also seen where it is listed as 60 to 70%. What is the reality? Does anyone have a Honda Moly 60 MSDS or TDS so we will know for sure?
 
dwalby said:
Here are the data sheets on the stuff Andrew has purchased. Bottom line, 60-70% moly.
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I have not studied these data sheets in detail because quite frankly, because I am not a chemist or chemical engineer, I need to teach myself what I am reading about before I can say that I understand it at least enough to form an opinion about it.That aside, after taking a cursory look and in conjunction with the definition between grease and paste provided by poster caldercay below, I am not seeing where this product does not meet what Honda has called for in the shop manual. Does anyone see why this would not be an acceptable product? Please say why if you do.

I had some discussions with Larry (Igofar) regarding damage he has seen on splines that were lubricated with Honda M-77. He kindly has sent me some pictures and there is definitely some nasty damage. It would appear however that all of those splines had been lubed with the previous iteration of the Honda M-77 that was packaged in the Honda red and white tube that has writing printed on it. This product was produced by Dow Corning. This still has yet to be confirmed but it looks that way. The new Honda M-77 that I received from Honda is packaged in a completely white tube with adhesive labels applied to it. It is produced by PolySi Tecnologies. The Dow Corning M-77 contained 50 to 70% molybdenum disulfide according to a data sheet that I have read. The PolySi M-77 contains 60-70% per the attached data sheet. I am beginning to suspect that Honda realized that they simply did not need two products with a high Moly content so they eliminated the Moly 60. As the new and the old M-77 are basically the same product chemically what would account for the lubrication failures that Larry has reported? Unknown to me.
 
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the Honda service manual for the 1100 actually calls out multi-purpose 3% moly for the splines on one page, and 40% moly paste for the splines on another page, so apparently they can't even make up their minds as to which lubricant to use.

There are also many variables involved, like how much riding you do in the wet, if you ride two-up fully loaded all the time or not, etc. I've been very indifferent regarding the lubrication of my splines, and I've had no problems, but I rarely ride in the rain so that probably helps. It would be interesting to learn a bit more of the history of the final drive Larry had to replace, it might be able to tell us something, but I doubt we're going to learn anything conclusive from it. If Honda says use moly paste with >40% moly, and that's what you have in your hand, I don't know how you're going to convince yourself that using it is wrong, whether you have a PhD in chemistry or an 8th grade education, its either >40% or it isn't, and that's the only spec they provide. Trying to analyze it beyond that is only making up your own artificial requirements, there's nothing more from Honda to go by than the % of moly.

They also name these products by name:

Molykote G-n paste
Rocol ASP by Rocol Ltd. U.K.
Rocol paste by Sumico Lubricant, Japan
 
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Andrew Shadow said:
As for the loads- what is a low, moderate or high load? Once that is defined do we know what the load applied in an ST1100/1300 final drive is? I have no idea.
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The load factor was what concerned me about that quote. Speed should be irrelevant to the pressure being applied on the gear teeth. Thinking about the actual contact area of the gear faces, they are extremely small and it wouldn't surprise me if figures of tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds per square inch are quite possible. That sounds high to me, but I'm no engineer. Anyone with the brain set able to compute that force for us?
 
did a little more research on spec reading and while I'm not going to make any claims about knowing anything new, I did find a few figures to compare on the different products.

the four-ball weld load test seems to be pretty commonly specified, although not always. I found a reference that claims anything over 2600N (Newtons) is considered extreme pressure (EP) lubricant. There's also a four ball wear scar rating, where anything under 2.0mm is considered EP.

The molycote g-n scored pretty well on the weld load test with a 499kg (~4900N) rating, whereas the new Honda M77 is only 2000N according to the spec I attached earlier. And, FWIW, plain old 3% moly scored 500kg as well, so it would appear that maybe the main benefit of the moly paste is its consistency keeps it in place better than the 3% grease, because it doesn't seem to be any better as far as load testing goes.

In the wear scar rating molycote g-n was 0.76mm, while the 3% moly was better at 0.55mm. The new M77 did not provide that spec.

So lies, damned lies, and statistics maybe, but food for thought.

Also, I just saw that Moly 60 is 15-20% moly, ha, ha, who would ever use that junk????
 
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Bush said:
The load factor was what concerned me about that quote. Speed should be irrelevant to the pressure being applied on the gear teeth. Thinking about the actual contact area of the gear faces, they are extremely small and it wouldn't surprise me if figures of tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds per square inch are quite possible. That sounds high to me, but I'm no engineer. Anyone with the brain set able to compute that force for us?
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Yeah, we argued this point a few months ago, the problem is there's too much variation in how things contact to really get an accurate number, but here's a ballpark guess to show that you're way high in your original estimate.

I think there were 30 or 32 spline teeth, and just for a guess let's say that 1/3 to 1/2 of them make good contact with each other, and due to tolerances the others aren't doing much. I think I saw some paper the last time that said that was realistic.

OK, so assume the spline teeth are 1" wide and 1/8" high. If we have 1/2 of them in contact that would be a total surface area of 2 sq. in.

I don't recall the ST1100 torque rating, let's use 100 ft-lb, that's probably a bit high, and assume a 2" diameter spline. So that's about 1200 lbs of force. 1200/2 = 600 psi.

In the real world the full tooth height might not be engaged, we might have less than 1/2 the teeth in contact, etc. so I could see things increasing substantially from 600 psi, but probably not more than 5x, maybe 10x, so you're still in the range of 5000psi.

I think last time someone mentioned that the metal used in the drive splines would fatigue at pressures over a few thousand psi, but don't recall the exact number.
 
I'm not sure I would agree that the attatched link is Honda's Moly 60.
Three Bond products Moly 60 maybe? Which may just be the name of their assembly lube. I'm sure if we search enough, we'll find several different products called "Moly 60", the fact that this one states that it is an assembly lube, and has a very low moly solid content raises questions.
I'll see if I can find my old MSDS sheet on the Honda version.
 
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Well.

I'm using g-n paste.

Bike (2002)has done 238.000 km.
Of which 175.000 km with me in the last 5 years.
G-n paste is according the workshop manual of the 1300, so I think it's well suited and still available.
 
vinny said:
I think you will be sadly mistaken to use M77 on your splines.
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Curious as to why you wrote this. Is it based on some information that could be of use? Have you seen damage on splines that were lubricated using M-77 and you attribute that damage to the M-77?
 
Igofar said:
I'm not sure I would agree ...... that being Honda's Moly 60.
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You wouldn't be the first. Was just passing along info available on Stoners.


Igofar said:
Three Bond products Moly 60 maybe?
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Yes. Apparently ThreeBond was supplying Moly 60 to Honda.


Igofar said:
I'll see if I can find my old MSDS sheet on the Honda version.
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That would be great.


Igofar said:
this one indicates that its an assembly lube.
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Correct. Molykote G-n recommended by Honda in the Service Manual (and used by our friend Portupan) is an assembly paste as well. And so is M77.
 
One other thing I forgot to mention in my previous posts that I came across looking at data sheets is the Timken OK load (in lbs) which I think is the mysterious "60" reference in moly 60. Anything 35 or higher is considered to be EP grease range, so numbers like 40, 45, and 60 are commonly found for that specification in the types of lubricants we're looking at. However, as with some of the other performance figures I mentioned earlier, not all the lubes spec this value in their data sheets, so its hit and miss as far as gathering that information as well.

Also, based on pure spec-sheet numbers this is the best performing EP grease I've found:

https://sharena21.springcm.com/Publ...2d889bd3/1c6eadfc-92bb-e711-9c12-ac162d889bd1

And since the data sheets seem to show that the regular 3% moly grease performs as well or better than the higher content moly pastes in the industry standard tests, I'm starting to think the main purpose of the higher moly solids is to ensure the lubricant stays in place, as opposed to being a more extreme pressure lubricant in general. My own empirical data from using 3% moly grease several times on my own splines with no apparent ill affects is consistent with that theory, and since I very rarely ride in wet conditions I didn't have to worry about it washing out. Which, BTW, isn't the O-ring at the base of the spider splines supposed to prevent anyway?

The little balls of junk in the images from Larry are weird though, wonder if that product was way past its shelf life and just dried up on the job?
 
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Bush said:
The load factor was what concerned me about that quote. Speed should be irrelevant to the pressure being applied on the gear teeth. Thinking about the actual contact area of the gear faces, they are extremely small and it wouldn't surprise me if figures of tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds per square inch are quite possible. That sounds high to me, but I'm no engineer. Anyone with the brain set able to compute that force for us?
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Speed is important because more heat will be generated by sliding surfaces at high speed than at low speed. However, there is not much slip in a splined joint.

dwalby said:
Also, I just saw that Moly 60 is 15-20% moly, ha, ha, who would ever use that junk????
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Where did the 15 to 20% come from? It was 40% in an earlier post.

dwalby said:
Yeah, we argued this point a few months ago, the problem is there's too much variation in how things contact to really get an accurate number, but here's a ballpark guess to show that you're way high in your original estimate.

I think there were 30 or 32 spline teeth, and just for a guess let's say that 1/3 to 1/2 of them make good contact with each other, and due to tolerances the others aren't doing much. I think I saw some paper the last time that said that was realistic.

OK, so assume the spline teeth are 1" wide and 1/8" high. If we have 1/2 of them in contact that would be a total surface area of 2 sq. in.

I don't recall the ST1100 torque rating, let's use 100 ft-lb, that's probably a bit high, and assume a 2" diameter spline. So that's about 1200 lbs of force. 1200/2 = 600 psi.

In the real world the full tooth height might not be engaged, we might have less than 1/2 the teeth in contact, etc. so I could see things increasing substantially from 600 psi, but probably not more than 5x, maybe 10x, so you're still in the range of 5000psi.

I think last time someone mentioned that the metal used in the drive splines would fatigue at pressures over a few thousand psi, but don't recall the exact number.
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Who said that history repeats itself? In a post in an earlier thread I made a request about the loading on the splined driveshaft and guessed that few of the splines would be in contact at any given moment. Someone replied that modern machining is very accurate and most of the splines would be engaged all of the time. I would think the rear wheel splines would be machined to siimilar tolerances or to have similar loadings. Regardless, I think Doug's findings about the two load tests on different percentage moly lubes tells us there just might be more than one paste/grease that will perform on our bikes when tested in a lab. Real driving exposure to heat, water, etc. might make all the difference between metal to metal contact and subsequent wear.
 
Andrew Shadow said:
Curious as to why you wrote this. Is it based on some information that could be of use?
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Yes.... it's already been presented in this thread by others...
Andrew Shadow said:
Have you seen damage on splines that were lubricated using M-77 and you attribute that damage to the M-77?
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Yes.
Sorry if the tone sounded sarcastic.... wrote it in a hurry. I think the key operative word in this product (M-77) is "Assembly"... meaning it is a lubricant applied while assembling mechanical parts to supply some lubrication until the "Operative Lubricant" is applied... whether it be oil, grease, or and extreme pressure lube like Molly 60. I think some shops were scrambling to find some lubricant to apply after they no longer had access to the Honda molly 60. This thread, like many about lubricants can be chewed to the point there is no flavor left... Some folks dig deep into technical data, look at things under microscopes... and then some folks just go on using what works for them.

If it's working for you, please keep using it. I choose not to. YMMV
 
vinny said:
Some folks dig deep into technical data, look at things under microscopes... and then some folks just go on using what works for them.
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the whole point of this thread is the choice of "just go on using what works for them" has been removed from the list of options, so some folks are looking for a plan B.
 
vinny said:
I think the key operative word in this product (M-77) is "Assembly"...
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From what I can tell I don't think that really means much at all. Every technical data sheet I have looked at for any product that has moly content above 40% all refer to them as assembly pastes including the Honda Moly 60 which worked just fine.
vinny said:
If it's working for you, please keep using it. I choose not to. YMMV
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I have never used M-77 on splines as of yet. I am trying to figure out what I will use the next time the wheel is off. What product do you use? Have you had success with it?
 
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My tube of M77 is red, white and black. It says on the label M 77 ASSEMBLY PASTE , formulated for Honda and Acura vehicles.

And says made in Japan and packaged in USA. Part # 08798 - 9010

OK to use or not ?
 
vinny said:
I think the key operative word in this product (M-77) is "Assembly"...
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Assembly paste is what Honda is specifying for the Splines.

Moly 60 was an assembly lube, Molykote G-n listed for the splines in the Service Manual is an assembly paste, so there should be no surprise with M77 being an Assembly Paste as well.


vinny said:
... meaning it is a lubricant applied while assembling mechanical parts to supply some lubrication until the "Operative Lubricant" is applied...
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Modern assembly pastes, as specified by Honda for the ST splines, are designed for far more than just "assembly". The detailed research work Andrew has done trying to educate us leads for instance to this, about the G-n paste recommended by Honda for the splines:

"Molykote G-n Metal Assembly Paste is a multi-purpose, heavy duty lubricating paste containing a blend of molybdenum disulfide and white solid lubricants in a mineral oil. It helps prevent galling during run-in, helps extend the service life of moving parts, and helps protect against fretting wear and corrosion as well as welding of static joints."
 
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