Clutch Advice Needed Please!!!!!!!!!!

[JamesL]

Right; lord knows if I'll ever get it all back together again, but the GS is in bits and the cooked clutch is out. And now I'm stuck...

First, I can only find one manky old splodge of paint on the old clutch inner section. Nothing but rust on the clutch cover, and for the life of me I can't see a mark on the flywheel. Is it worth taking it off and having a detailed look? Alternatively, how critical is it to get the thing all balanced up? On the new clutch, I can't align the marks on the cover and the inner at 120 degrees; the best I can do is ~180 or 60 apart; so it's not going to be perfect anyway.

Next, can I get away without replacing the output shaft from the gearbox? The old clutch splines are cream crackered, but the output shaft splines although worn, are in a lot better shape.

Pics below - sorry the output shaft isn't great, but the camera seems to be struggling to focus.

Any / all thoughts would be most welcome... Ta VM! James




On the flywheel pic, my pencil mark before I took the old clutch out is at 12:30. At 7 o'clock there is a scribe mark plus what might be a dash of paint, very old. And at 10 o'clock what looks like another scribe mark. Someone's been in there before... The paint spot on the old clutch inner would be at 4 o'clock. Offering up the new clutch, I can have a splodge at 3 o'clock and 10 o'clock

[img][img]http://i1333.photobucket.com/albums/w635/JamesL503/FlywheelNoted_zpse0be641d.jpg[/img][/img]


[img][img]http://i1333.photobucket.com/albums/w635/JamesL503/P1140076_zpsaeb0851f.jpg[/img][/img]

[img][img]http://i1333.photobucket.com/albums/w635/JamesL503/P1140075_zps89a4290a.jpg[/img][/img]

[eyore]

Oh dear, the splines on that shaft look cream crackered all right

[number8]

The clutch, well either only replace the friction plate or replace the hole lot inc flywheel , they come balanced , or they should so no need to align paint marks ,
remember to use all new bolts also, the 5 for the flywheel and the 6 holding the plate on , i think its 6 lol

as for the gearbox output shaft , you can just bang it back together like that but you will be lucky to get 5-10 thou before it falls apart again, you can prolong that with use of locktight but i cannot comment on how long it will last with that , well bodge.
get it replaced , you can have a go at splitting it and replacing the shaft , always fun getting the box apart and back together , but not impossible

good luck

[JamesL]

Hi guys, thanks. The input shaft looks very similar to BlueBoxer's here: http://www.boxertrix.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13167 so it's replacement time I guess.

it's a 2001 machine so liable to this exact problem, and although I don't think it had quite let go, it's obviously about to...

Happy days!

[dave the german]

The Clymer manuals are pretty well detailed - may be worthwhile investing in one or anyone got a BMW workshop manual to download?

[Harry Lime]

Deleted.

[JamesL]

Hi Harry, it's done a mere 42,000 or so. According to Mr Youtube American chap mean time to failure is 9,000 to 20,000 which is pretty startlingly pathetic (search for 1150GS clutch and he'll pop up). So I suppose i should think I'm lucky, except I'd say a PO has been in there before...

I took the gearbox over to Andrew Sexton and he reckons it's done a lot of city commuting, stop / start, to strip the splines like that, although in fact they were still holding and the clutch itself burnt out - iffy spring?

I have to say it's something of a money pit atm, clutch slave last November, fork seals a month ago and now clutch again. I'll post a pic tomoz, it's a seriously sorry sight just now!

[oyster]

The flywheel is located to the crankshaft flange via a pin. The clutch will only re-assemble on the locating pins, no further lining up. New bolts are a good idea. Neither my original flywheel nor it's replacement had any ignition timing marks. If you have a dial gauge to determine TDC, you may want to add these now. The shown gearbox input shaft is too worn for me to re-use. New shaft or replacement gearbox.

[sykospain]

They say the web is the modern source of all knowledge, so I'm very surprised to discover hardly a mention on these pages of the crucial design fault that's built into the transmission of all R1100S and 1150 6-speed Beemers that causes premature clutch and spline failure - a topic that's absolutely ALL OVER the other Beemer bike forums : - UKGser, ADVrider, R1100, etc., etc.

Fact is, the reason why clutch hubs and gearbox input splines on all those models are gradually torn to pieces during use, some as early as just 6K miles ( ! ! ), is that the clutch friction plate's hub is too short to engage fully onto the full 14mm length of the gearbox input splines. Thus, the plate wobbles and scrinches around during riding, an effect heightened by the common habit of bikers snicking into 6th at less than 80mph, or sitting at a stoplight or at a left-turn-across, in first-gear, holding in the clutch lever.

We're talking here about a dry clutch that began life in BMW bikes 50 years ago and has been basically unchanged in design through time as the boxer motor's output power has gradually and inexorably risen. And a hydraulic clutch-operating variant that uses a clutch slave cylinder hidden in front of the rear shock - a cylinder originally designed for use in an upmarket push-bike.

A dry clutch must NEVER be slipped - to do so sees it off in double-quick time. And added to that is the fact that Berlin has consistently refused to acknowledge the transmission's design fault outlined above, which they inadvertently introduced when adding a hydraulic clutch-operating system to these bikes. Instead of simply asking their clutch plate supplier, "Sachs AG" to restock them with clutch plates having a longer splined hub, they maintain a typically lofty Teutonic attitude of 'we know best and are never wrong'.

There's been fortunately a slight chink in their armour this Spring when the catastrophic failure of the electronic suspension system on ALL new R12's - including thousands of Authority patrol and emergency-response fleet bikes - meant that the factory had to issue owners with the dire message "On no account must you ride your new bike". The rear wheel was likely to suddenly lock up, turning the biker into a hang glider without a sail.

So Berlin came the nearest they've ever been to using the word "recall" - which incidentally they still refuse to do. "System Reassessment" is the approximate tranny from the German.

Whilst US owners of these new Electronic suspension Control series bikes each received fifteen hundred bucks as compo for being off the road from March until September when a solution was finally found and BMWUSA dealer workshops did the necessary, the poor Brit owners of the new bikes were parsimoniously offered a £500 voucher to spend in BMW boutiques. On stuff they'd prolly already bought. Don't you just love Frau Quandt ? Whose grandma was Josef Goebbels' bit-on-the-side.

But back to 6-speed clutches - if you're still with me.

After much research in the USA, a Florida owner of a Rockster earlier this year came up with a simple and ingenious solution to the problem of the inherent partial spline engagement of clutches in all 1100S and all 1150 bikes. It's a 6mm thick stepped washer - in effect a spacer - which is interposed between the disassembled OEM clutch friction plate and its hub. Thus pushing the plate further onto the splined area of the input shaft, as happens in all earlier 5-speed Beemers. Problem solved. See my little video:-

http://youtu.be/FHv6wcHMZzA

Anyone who feels that their clutch action is not what it was, is likely to need that spacer pretty soon. Unfortunately, to do the job requires tearing the bike down to look like a hand-grenade has just been thrown under it. Which actually as I've found as a 'weekend warrior' with only modest skills with spanners is not as daunting a job as you might think. Dealers will charge you just short of a grand to do the job.

Remember, when those splines inside your transmission fail, as they surely will, there's hardly any warning at all. Just a sudden, loud graunching noise and no further forward progress...I and hundreds of other 6-speed hydraulic-clutch R-series bike owners around the world speak from experience.

Think about it...and never buy a current BMW bike. Only ever invest in an older one from the days when the BMW Berlin plant in Spandau wasn't owned by the cost-cutting fanatics of the Munich Car Division, and built bikes carefully and conscientiously up to a quality - not down to a price - standard..

AL in s.e. Spain

[Merecat]

They say the web is the modern source of all knowledge, so I'm very surprised to discover hardly a mention on these pages of the crucial design fault that's built into the transmission of all R1100S and 1150 6-speed Beemers that causes premature clutch and spline failure - a topic that's absolutely ALL OVER the other Beemer bike forums : - UKGser, ADVrider, R1100, etc., etc.

Fact is, the reason why clutch hubs and gearbox input splines on all those models are gradually torn to pieces during use, some as early as just 6K miles ( ! ! ), is that the clutch friction plate's hub is too short to engage fully onto the full 14mm length of the gearbox input splines. Thus, the plate wobbles and scrinches around during riding, an effect heightened by the common habit of bikers snicking into 6th at less than 80mph, or sitting at a stoplight or at a left-turn-across, in first-gear, holding in the clutch lever.



We're talking here about a dry clutch that began life in BMW bikes 50 years ago and has been basically unchanged in design through time as the boxer motor's output power has gradually and inexorably risen. And a hydraulic clutch-operating variant that uses a clutch slave cylinder hidden in front of the rear shock - a cylinder originally designed for use in an upmarket push-bike.

A dry clutch must NEVER be slipped - to do so sees it off in double-quick time. And added to that is the fact that Berlin has consistently refused to acknowledge the transmission's design fault outlined above, which they inadvertently introduced when adding a hydraulic clutch-operating system to these bikes. Instead of simply asking their clutch plate supplier, "Sachs AG" to restock them with clutch plates having a longer splined hub, they maintain a typically lofty Teutonic attitude of 'we know best and are never wrong'.

There's been fortunately a slight chink in their armour this Spring when the catastrophic failure of the electronic suspension system on ALL new R12's - including thousands of Authority patrol and emergency-response fleet bikes - meant that the factory had to issue owners with the dire message "On no account must you ride your new bike". The rear wheel was likely to suddenly lock up, turning the biker into a hang glider without a sail.

So Berlin came the nearest they've ever been to using the word "recall" - which incidentally they still refuse to do. "System Reassessment" is the approximate tranny from the German.

Whilst US owners of these new Electronic suspension Control series bikes each received fifteen hundred bucks as compo for being off the road from March until September when a solution was finally found and BMWUSA dealer workshops did the necessary, the poor Brit owners of the new bikes were parsimoniously offered a £500 voucher to spend in BMW boutiques. On stuff they'd prolly already bought. Don't you just love Frau Quandt ? Whose grandma was Josef Goebbels' bit-on-the-side.

But back to 6-speed clutches - if you're still with me.

After much research in the USA, a Florida owner of a Rockster earlier this year came up with a simple and ingenious solution to the problem of the inherent partial spline engagement of clutches in all 1100S and all 1150 bikes. It's a 6mm thick stepped washer - in effect a spacer - which is interposed between the disassembled OEM clutch friction plate and its hub. Thus pushing the plate further onto the splined area of the input shaft, as happens in all earlier 5-speed Beemers. Problem solved. See my little video:-

http://youtu.be/FHv6wcHMZzA

Anyone who feels that their clutch action is not what it was, is likely to need that spacer pretty soon. Unfortunately, to do the job requires tearing the bike down to look like a hand-grenade has just been thrown under it. Which actually as I've found as a 'weekend warrior' with only modest skills with spanners is not as daunting a job as you might think. Dealers will charge you just short of a grand to do the job.

Remember, when those splines inside your transmission fail, as they surely will, there's hardly any warning at all. Just a sudden, loud graunching noise and no further forward progress...I and hundreds of other 6-speed hydraulic-clutch R-series bike owners around the world speak from experience.

Think about it...and never buy a current BMW bike. Only ever invest in an older one from the days when the BMW Berlin plant in Spandau wasn't owned by the cost-cutting fanatics of the Munich Car Division, and built bikes carefully and conscientiously up to a quality - not down to a price - standard..

AL in s.e. Spain

I have to dissagree. A search on this site should throw up several well documented occurences of spline failure and their rectification.
As I recall the fault had been narrowed down to models made in or around 2001. Failures were caused by a bad batch of output shafts which were short by several mm. This was rectified on later models.

[sykospain]

Many thanks Merecat for your rapid response. No, sorry, check with Berlin please, as I have done. I'm lucky enough to live in a sultry coastal resort where BMW Motorrad brings dozens of examples of each and every new season model for show and ride for a select band of German bikers each Spring, and talking in German with the suits in the hotel bar reveals that there's never been an issue with varying gearbox input shaft spline lengths. Bikes from production years 1998, 9, 2000, 01, 02, and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 have all suffered the same problem in every one of BMW's world markets. And still they refuse to acknowledge it or provide a solution.
Type "Chris Harris Clutch Splines" into your search engine or any other BMW bike forum's search slot and gasp at his graphic videos and the number of sudden failures.
Incidentally, my metallurgist in Sheffield last week examined the 'quality' of the friction plate hub's metal and described it after a series of radio spectrometry tests as "Chinese Pig Iron with a thin nickel plating showing several breaches.'
That's cost cutting for you. Get a spacer, would be my suggestion.

[dave the german]

There has been a comment on here about this recently - the solution was exactly as you said fitting a spacer between plate and female end - think it was posted by slparry and was Canadian/American design - lloked good to me

[sykospain]

Yes, Dave, the Rockster owner in question, who's not a trader and has done the job of designing and sourcing a CNC fabricated spacer out of an objective desire to solve a serious design fault on the part of Spandau. He's a regular biker with whom I have no connection other than buying 2 from him for me and my pal's GS, lives in Jacksonville, FLA and is called Esmir Celebic. He goes by the 'handles' of either vwdoctor or celeb0001 depending on which of the various boxer forums he contributes to, especially ADVRider.

He's sourced several precision turned spacers in batches of ten to riders mainly in the USA with positive reports coming back from all those riders who've gone to the trouble of halving their bike and installing a spacer. Some who've observed as much wear as can be seen on the splines pictured in an earlier post on this page, have been glad to discover that the extended hub coverage provided by the spacer means that the hub now engages on the formerly untouched area of the spline, almost 2/3rds of its length, close to the gearbox seal - and the fact that there's a seriously worn patch in the middle of the shaft-spline doesn't seem to matter.

Incidentally, the Canadian rider who proposed sourcing a new gearbox input shaft with a longer splined end, eventually abandoned the project for lack of interest. Prolly 'cos most riders simply can't face the $1,000 cost of a newly-designed shaft and the complicated job of splitting and stripping out the gearbox - bearings, shims, cogs, seals, etc., in order to install it - which is altogether a quite serious task requiring much application, measuring tools and patience. Again, if you buy a $250 new shaft from a BMW Stealer, the splined part is just as short as on the one that's failed...
AL in s.e. Spain

[sykospain]

...and as for the 'quality' of the hub component of a replacement OEM clutch plate, I despair....
AL