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2000 R1100RT; Input splines AGAIN!! Done with this bike

jyambrovich

aka Papa Yams
I have a 2000 R1100RT that I've owned since June of 2006. In November 2009, the input shaft splines on the transmission stripped out. I went ahead and had the $3000 job done by a VERY WELL KNOWN AND REPUTABLE INDEPENDENT shop. Mileage when I got the bike back in December 2009 was ~59,600.

Fast forward to Thursday (4th of July, 2013). Bike has 88K miles and I am trying to sell it. (Variety of reasons but I'm selling it). I am going to ride the bike to a spot about 1.5 miles from our home to display it with a for sale sign. Three blocks from the house, I take off from a stoplight. 1st gear, start to accelerate and ZZZZZZZ!! Loud racket, immediately lose power to rear wheel. I think to myself, "There is NO WAY that this could happen to me / this bike again, IS THERE????" :scratch

Went to the repair shop today (about 4 miles from our home) and had one of the service writers come back to the house with me. Checked it out and confirmed my fear - INPUT SPLINES ARE STRIPPED AGAIN!! 3.5 years later, not even 30,000 miles. DAMN!! :banghead

I am certainly glad for one thing - I'm glad that this didn't happen to someone a short time after I'd sold them the bike. They would have figured me to have known there was a problem and was just a crook trying to unload the problem on someone else. That is NOT the person I am. I would have returned the money.

So, any suggestions from the gathered brain trust? I am not going to spend another $3000-ish to turn around and sell the bike for $4500-5000.
 
If you have the time to mess with it, you could part it out on Ebay, and the MOA.
It will probably be a rather slow process doing it that way.

Another thought might be looking on Ebay for another used transmission.
I'm sure you can buy one for WAY less than the $3000
I've seen them for 2-250 for an R1100

ken
 
If you are interested in getting rid of it as is, perhaps there is a deal to be made? Get it out of the USA? I'm always looking for a project and I have lots of time and patience for something like this. It seems all I do lately is save good bikes.......:bikes
 
Next step??

Ken F. - I think that I may end up parting it out. A fair assortment of new or lightly used stuff including Wilbers shocks, a rebuilt ABS pump (with more than 4 years left on transferable warranty), good rims and tires, new Spiegler brake lines, new starter, tires with around 2K miles, BMW hard cases (top case, 2 side cases with CityLids and one right side one with a TouringLid) ... The main issue is that the bike needs to be SO TAKEN APART to replace the transmission that it's more than I am willing to attempt myself.

Dieselyoda - I would love to just be able to ship it off but I don't think that I can get the kind of $$ for it that I can if I sell it as parts.

Anton - If you are curious, I can send you a scanned copy of the Repair Order by email. For some reason I couldn't copy and paste into this message and I don't really want to post the whole thing for the rest of the world to see. In essence they replaced the entire clutch assembly, the input shaft, new bearings and seals, etc. I believe that they did a good job and I'm not complaining about the work that was done.
 
Jay,
Not trying to talk you into doing it yourself, but in all honesty, It's not all that hard to do. I just did a rebuild on my R11RS transmission and was very surprised by how straightforward it was.
Typical Teutonic logic! These were built to be worked on.

I will admit I was a little intimidated before beginning (with the same feelings you expressed), but once you get into it you will have an Ah-hah moment
(about the time you get all the tupperware off) and see that it's not that big of a deal. After disconnecting a few wires & the brake line you remove 4 of the 6 bolts
that hold the rear subframe in place, and pivot it upwards. There is your transmission in full view.

There are some great threads on here and elsewhere about removing the transmission and replacing the clutch if you want to familiarize yourself.

If I could be of long-distance support, feel free to message me.

Ken
 
Anton - If you are curious, I can send you a scanned copy of the Repair Order by email. For some reason I couldn't copy and paste into this message and I don't really want to post the whole thing for the rest of the world to see. In essence they replaced the entire clutch assembly, the input shaft, new bearings and seals, etc. I believe that they did a good job and I'm not complaining about the work that was done.

If they replaced the clutch housing along with the rest of the clutch, then there's really not much more that can be done. I always replace the housing but I don't know that there's any kind of guarantee as far as making sure the problem never comes back. Still, it's very rare on an 1100 and for it to happen again after everything is replaced is really strange.

I think there is some rider habit stuff involved. Paul Mihalka had spline failures on all kinds of bikes and he was a big advocate of engine braking. Sure, he rode over a million miles but when you look at the number of bikes on which he did those miles, and then look at the spline failures, its very odd. Airhead, K-bike, R1100 (I think), R1150 (times two?) R1200 (times two?). If a failure every 100k miles were typical for BMWs, the numbers we see would be very different.
 
I have strongly felt that if you have a BMW that suffers a premature spline failure, it will happen again and again. There is an alignment issue that simply replacing parts won't address. I found this out on a 99 r1100s that ate its first set of splines at 15K and did so with clockwork precision every 15k there after..

I traded it back to the dealer at 30k, after the second failure. They gave me a great deal on a new GS. The new owner of the S had a failure at about 45k.

As luck would have it I had two rear drive failures on the GS, one 2,000 miles from home. I left the BMW fold for 5 years at that point.
 
I have strongly felt that if you have a BMW that suffers a premature spline failure, it will happen again and again. There is an alignment issue that simply replacing parts won't address. I found this out on a 99 r1100s that ate its first set of splines at 15K and did so with clockwork precision every 15k there after..

I traded it back to the dealer at 30k, after the second failure. They gave me a great deal on a new GS. The new owner of the S had a failure at about 45k.

As luck would have it I had two rear drive failures on the GS, one 2,000 miles from home. I left the BMW fold for 5 years at that point.

I've been following the spline failure sagas for several years, both here and on Pelican site.
I am fully convinced that there are 3 primary causations for clutch/spline failure.
1)- user error. usually just shows up as toasted clutches, splines survive. solution is learn to ride a dry clutch BMW, as it's not a wet clutch bike.
2) lack of sufficient or appropriate lubrication. those are the failures that show up around 60-80K as the first failure. If regularly lubed, (every 40K), this issue should be resolved.
3) incorrect engine/trans alignment. this is the one leads to multiple failures, often starting as early as 20K, and repeating itself over and over, until misalignment is corrected. Rad, that is exactly what you experienced. the only way to correctly repair that issue is to measure cases, install new dowel pins, and correct the alignment. It's not off by much, so needs to be mic'd out accurately.
 
3) incorrect engine/trans alignment. this is the one leads to multiple failures, often starting as early as 20K, and repeating itself over and over, until misalignment is corrected. Rad, that is exactly what you experienced. the only way to correctly repair that issue is to measure cases, install new dowel pins, and correct the alignment. It's not off by much, so needs to be mic'd out accurately.

Yup, could very well be. Back in 99/2000, everybody thought the few of us that first experienced this issue were causing it ourselves. My 99 S was the 9th one produced!
 
Input splines...

It happened on my 2001 R1100RT at 54,829 as well and on an identical bike owned by another member of the San Diego BMW club, although I don't know the mileage.

I've ridden mine a bit under 40K since then. I hope I'm not headed for problems, I'm planning a 2600 mile trip in two weeks...
 
I've been following the spline failure sagas for several years, both here and on Pelican site.
I am fully convinced that there are 3 primary causations for clutch/spline failure.
1)- user error. usually just shows up as toasted clutches, splines survive. solution is learn to ride a dry clutch BMW, as it's not a wet clutch bike.
2) lack of sufficient or appropriate lubrication. those are the failures that show up around 60-80K as the first failure. If regularly lubed, (every 40K), this issue should be resolved.
3) incorrect engine/trans alignment. this is the one leads to multiple failures, often starting as early as 20K, and repeating itself over and over, until misalignment is corrected. Rad, that is exactly what you experienced. the only way to correctly repair that issue is to measure cases, install new dowel pins, and correct the alignment. It's not off by much, so needs to be mic'd out accurately.

How does one follow user error on a web site. Do riders post "I don't know how to use the clutch and my clutch disk burned up for some reason"?

You omitted the fact that the transmission input shaft is too short to fully engage in the clutch hub.

A user posted recently that the splines stripped out of the clutch hub. I wouldn't rule out defects in workmanship and material.
 
How does one follow user error on a web site. Do riders post "I don't know how to use the clutch and my clutch disk burned up for some reason"?

You omitted the fact that the transmission input shaft is too short to fully engage in the clutch hub.

A user posted recently that the splines stripped out of the clutch hub. I wouldn't rule out defects in workmanship and material.

user error is tough to track, you're right. will not discount it for cause of clutch failure, especially absenting other damage. as an example- a friend of mine went thru 3 clutches on his K12RS in 40K miles. this was his first BMW, all previous were big 4. never stripped hub or shaft splines, just clutch faces. user error, imho.

yes, input shaft/clutch engagement area is short, but many accumulate mucho miles- and if properly lubed, have no failures. It would be better with longer interface, but that is not in and of itself the causation.

when input shaft splines strip, they pretty much take the clutch hub splines with them. and vice versa. a single incidence of stripped hub splines is not a pandemic worthy of concern. again, when many riders accumulate BIG miles on these, and the only thing they do differently is lube the splines about every ~40K miles, that tells me that lubrication is a concern.
 
Clutch spline alignment problems with BMW bikes goes back a long way. My 1975 R90/6 stripped its splines at ~20K miles about 20 years ago before I knew anything about the problem. I replaced everything & lubed with anti-seize paste. A year ago I checked the splines again (now maybe 45K miles) & they were OK. BUT - I also noted that when ever the engine-transmission bolts were loosened there was cyclic micro motion between the engine and the block whenever the clutch was let out. So the problem was and still is there. The lubing helped though.

The OP might want to question the rebuild quality & find out what the mechanic did to verify the alignment engine to the transmission. Threads at Pelican detail this procedure, although the threads do not check the engine's rear main bearing clearance which is also critical. If there is an alignment problem, the clutch disk is being dragged around the face of the flywheel, imposing very high loads on the engine's rear main bearing. When this rear bearing wears eggshaped, the spline once again will have to radially carry the piston forces from the engine to the transmission input bearing. In that case, even though the engine transmission alignment is correctly shifted with different pins, the rear engine main bearing should be replaced too.

Splines offer a very compact way to carry torque while allowing some axial relative motion. But if there is a radial misalignment, the spline tooth loads become very cyclic and will cause each tooth to wear as fretting corrosion. Lubing will cover the problem for a while, but the otherwise dry application in our bikes is very intolerant of misalignment.

I'd guess the engine axis and the transmission axis should radially be within maybe .003 inch TIR for good spline life. Otherwise the spline teeth don't smoothly share the torque generated load, and will soon rub out and fail.
 
So what would describe user error ?
I have a 2002RT and the previous owner had this issue after only a coiple of thousand miles. I am now worried that if its an alingment issue it could resurface during my tenure. I would like to make sure I'm riding the bike correctly.
 
So, whatta we gotta do, go to school and learn how to ride a BMW motorcycle? This is way more complicated than it really needs to be. Someone said that rider error (engine braking) is a reason for stripped splines. Seems to me that is the best way back to first gear when coming to a stop.
 
So what would describe user error ?
I have a 2002RT and the previous owner had this issue after only a coiple of thousand miles. I am now worried that if its an alingment issue it could resurface during my tenure. I would like to make sure I'm riding the bike correctly.
Unless you beat the snot out of your bike, user error is just a convenient explanation to cover a manufacturing/assembly error. If you do beat your bike hard, the clutch will burn up well before the splines would let go.

I suggest you remove the starter and look inside the clutch housing & check it for debris and spline backlash. you should also be able to see if there is any lube in the spline surfaces. Get a good picture of the debris & post it here. My 2000 R1100RT has good alignment & the clutch area was pristine at 24K miles. Others that have failed are full of gray crud.

The misalignment problem may also be caused by assembling the clutch pack and not using a good alignment tool before assembling the transmission to the engine. That's my speculation because the clutch housing is quite thin aluminum, and has the starter port in it making it quite easy to distort as everything is dragged across the flywheel by poor initial alignment. Others don't seem to be buying it, though. At any rate, when the engine-transmission bolts are being drawn up, pull the clutch in!
 
On some of our Cat hoes we could cook the pump drive splines every few thousand hours. Alignment and material defect turned out to be the real causes but the big guys in the office wanted to blame the operators. When I was a Cat tech-rep, I saw the same thing on a wide variety of machines including drive axles and every once in a blue moon, the drive coupling on their compact machines. It was always alignment and material defect.

Practically, my R1100RT has serrations, clutch ID and tranny OD, defined by the lack of radius on the outer diameter. Just a distinction that doesn't matter unless someone thinks they know better. Good lube is important and not to add a whole pile of controversy because so many are so smart, I use wheel bearing grease. Works for me, all the way back to my old bikes.

BMW, like Caterpillar and all the others don't make machines to inherently fail but, I've seen stuff come off the factory floor "close enough" and I have even seen dealership technicians/mechanics at PDI say, "really, we are going to give this to a customer?"
 
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