Honda's GL1100 rear wheel driven flange (the wheel-side half of the splined coupling) has a bit of a history. A warranty extension program began in August 1982 when US distributor American Honda by customer letter formally confirmed a defect in the final drive of 1981~1982 GL1100s. All US-registered owners were offered a 5-year, 50,000 mile warranty extension on this part. The rest of the bike remained subject to the then standard 6 months/6,000 mile overall warranty. Included in the letter was an offer -- good for just four months -- to reimburse customers who had already incurred replacement expenses.

Honda's program was precipitated by an article appearing in the March/April issue of the Gold Wing Road Riders Association (GWRRA) magazine, Wing News, in which then Technical Editor Joe Christian blamed the premature wear of the flange on swingarms supposedly crookedly welded by the Honda factory. Joe's sketches clearly illustrated his point, and subsequent Wing News issues continued the theme. Though Honda never agreed that the swingarm was the issue, the company did in fact respond. Honda was working hard at this time developing its relationship with the Gold Wing community. In fact, the following year it would present a new Aspencade to Til Thompson, the founder of the rally whose name Honda borrowed. Thus Honda capitulated to the GWRRA.

Honda's approach was to issue to dealers tech bulletins GL1100-2 and GL1100-4 specifying a special 5-step axle tightening procedure designed to ensure optimum alignment of the at-risk flanges. At the same time, addendums were sent to dealers for insertion into their factory manuals, as well as adhesive pages to add to their customers' owners booklets. Honda also introduced for the first time a special moly grease product to be used in maintenance of the flanges, a high quality lubricant.

It is in your best interest to heed the procedure. It really works; it lengthens the life of the part. Just as importantly, use a high metal content moly grease on those splines. Interestingly, the special alignment procedure was also later applied to some other Honda models, including early V4s and others.