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New to me 99' RT gives out.....help

I bought a tranny for my R1100RS a few years back from Idaho and it proved to be a great buy. Mine was the old style from 1994 built with open bearings which were vulnerable to all kinds of swarf from a new box breaking in. The replacement was from a 99 RT and it was a perfect fit. The PO had used a MOLY additive and it shifts like butter even today. It was a bit of a gamble but I had been sold on my bike for years so it was not much of a stretch to me. I am in East Texas and will help you in any way I can.
Lee
lsouth3@gmail.com
 
As long as things sound good with the $200 gearbox, I'd snatch it up. If you don't need it, you can get your money back later and a good used input shaft costs more than than that, not to mention the labor to rebuild a box. For comparison, I sold the complete intermediate shaft out of my 1996 parts box for $115 w/ shipping. I won't part with my pristine M94 input shaft because I know I'll need it eventually. It would be nice if the pictures of the input shaft were better, but I don't see any wear in the blurry photos.

For comparison, here is what mine looked like when I lubed them. Notice the thinning of the splines around the middle of their length (rear end of where the hub rides). That is what you don't want to see. They should be consistent from front to rear.

IMG_1199.JPG
 
Buy that gearbox!
I've got one ( spare) I'm reworking, if it's all good, it goes in on the next lube job, soon.
My 6 speed has at least 115k on it.
 
I picked up the gear box yesterday and feel good about the decision. The indie shop pulled my transmission and indeed the spline shaft suffered a catastrophic failure. The clutch is toast so that will all need to be replaced but with the cost savings on the tranny I should be able to actually afford the repair costs :laugh.

This has been a trying experience but hopefully the end is near. Thanks for all your input and support. I will let y'all know how it really turns out in the end.
 
I picked up the gear box yesterday and feel good about the decision. The indie shop pulled my transmission and indeed the spline shaft suffered a catastrophic failure. The clutch is toast so that will all need to be replaced but with the cost savings on the tranny I should be able to actually afford the repair costs :laugh.

This has been a trying experience but hopefully the end is near. Thanks for all your input and support. I will let y'all know how it really turns out in the end.


I hope you can get this sorted out and get the bike on the road. The RT is an outstanding long haul machine.
 
I picked up the gear box yesterday and feel good about the decision. The indie shop pulled my transmission and indeed the spline shaft suffered a catastrophic failure. The clutch is toast so that will all need to be replaced but with the cost savings on the tranny I should be able to actually afford the repair costs :laugh.

This has been a trying experience but hopefully the end is near. Thanks for all your input and support. I will let y'all know how it really turns out in the end.

Depending on how long you plan to own the bike you may want to consider replacing the clutch housing and its associated parts, if that isn't already your plan. Good luck with the work, you should end up with a great running bike.
RB
 
My intent is to replace all the clutch components. And by clutch housing I assume you are referring to the large, toothed flywheel looking part that is listed on the BMW fiche as item #1 in the schematic? A little pricey but I don't want to have to go through this again. After all this money into the bike my intent is to ride it till the wheels fall off
 

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Your shop should be able to double check the clutch housing.

Leave it to BMW to call something simple more than what it is. It's really just a flex-plate and ring gear. Get your shop to chuck it up in the lathe and check for warp or eccentric and if good, good to go.
 
So far my shop guy has done right bybme so hopefully he can determine if the "clutch housing " Haha, is true enough to reuse. Soon enough I will be a riding member of this forum....the first three hundred miles don't really count. I will keep everyone updated on what the next twist of fate will be with this darn bike. Wish me luck.
 
At this point you must own two transmission assemblies. Get a couple of sharp pictures of the input shafts of each from the side & post them. I assume the internal spline on your old clutch disk is what is completely stripped out. It isn't out of the question to be able to just replace the clutch disk depending on how worn the input shafts are.

Without disassembling the transmission, there is no way to determine the alignment of the engine to the transmission unless you happen to be able to recreate the factory fixture that made the clutch housing in the first place. No one has yet. The critical alignment between the engine and the transmission is determined by those two hollow pins (about 3/4 inch dia) and no one (except BMW) knows how they are dimensionally supposed to be located with respect to each part's center line.

If you truly want to assure yourself of a permanent fix, you would have to disassemble your candidate transmission, reassemble the bare case to the engine, and use a crankshaft-mounted dial indicator to measure run out error from the crankshaft to the transmission input bearing housing bore.

There's a pretty extensive discussion and pictures on this at:

http://bmwsporttouring.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=704087&page=1
 
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At this point you must own two transmission assemblies. Get a couple of sharp pictures of the input shafts of each from the side & post them. I assume the internal spline on your old clutch disk is what is completely stripped out. It isn't out of the question to be able to just replace the clutch disk depending on how worn the input shafts are.

Without disassembling the transmission, there is no way to determine the alignment of the engine to the transmission unless you happen to be able to recreate the factory fixture that made the clutch housing in the first place. No one has yet. The critical alignment between the engine and the transmission is determined by those two hollow pins (about 3/4 inch dia) and no one (except BMW) knows how they are dimensionally supposed to be located with respect to each part's center line.

If you truly want to assure yourself of a permanent fix, you would have to disassemble your candidate transmission, reassemble the bare case to the engine, and use a crankshaft-mounted dial indicator to measure run out error from the crankshaft to the transmission input bearing housing bore.

There's a pretty extensive discussion and pictures on this at:

http://bmwsporttouring.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=704087&page=1

- RE: pictures: In post number 37 the OP already posted pictures of the used transmission splines. They look serviceable to me.
- RE: His input splines: In post number 44 the OP states "The indie shop pulled my transmission and indeed the spline shaft suffered a catastrophic failure." So this means the input splines on HIS transmission are stripped beyond repair. He's also stated he bought the used transmission to install into his bike.
- RE: Alignment: In post number 1 the OP stated this is a 99 model so it is an 1100 and not an 1150 so it is extremely unlikely that it has alignment issues.

Given the facts presented I don't understand why you are suggesting any of this stuff. :scratch
 
- RE: pictures: In post number 37 the OP already posted pictures of the used transmission splines. They look serviceable to me. etc......

I agree that one of the spline shafts looks serviceable to me also, but the picture was fuzzy and the presence of steps near the transmission end of each spline tooth could mean he would still have a notchiness (!) characteristic of shifting difficulty of failing splines. A small amount of relief ground into the new clutch disk hub would eliminate this - if needed.

RE: His input splines: In post number 44 the OP states "The indie shop pulled my transmission and indeed the spline shaft suffered a catastrophic failure." So this means the input splines on HIS transmission are stripped beyond repair. He's also stated he bought the used transmission to install into his bike.

I was speculating that the spline strip out had actually happened to the internal spline in the clutch disk and that there was a minor error describing the failure. I don't know of any that have actually had the shaft fail first.

RE: Alignment: In post number 1 the OP stated this is a 99 model so it is an 1100 and not an 1150 so it is extremely unlikely that it has alignment issues.

The referenced postings on bmwsporttouring site were from an R1100 with alignment issues and of about those years.

RE: Alignment: Given the facts presented I don't understand why you are suggesting any of this stuff. [/QUOTE]

That's why.
 
Thanks for all the feedback, but most of the discussion is above my level of understanding of these bikes so I am at the mercy of my mechanic. I would like to think that there are some clutch parts he could reuse but if not I will probably be better off in the long run.
 
I don't recall seeing any posts similar on the K-Bike strings.

I do a fair bit of back-yardigan on numerous bikes including some older K's. The issue of spline wear or blowing right up seems to be just Oilheads and some Airheads. I haven't seen anything like the posts on the Oilhead forum in the K-Bike forum. Is it just me that's thinking maybe owning an Oilhead might not be such a great idea after all?

I love my RT Oilhead but my K75S has some class to it as well that is hard to ignore.
 
I dropped the trany off with my mechanic and he checked it out and he thinks I got a really good deal. Shafts spin freely, splines are in great shape and he was able to shift it through all the gears. According to him it passed the smell test. Now on to the clutch and I will know more in the next couple of days as to what he thinks about the clutch housing.
 
Well the used new tranny went in along with a new clutch and all the trimmings. So I ride the bike home and all is well, clutch lever feels good, shifts nicely no clunkiness, so all is well with the world until I go to start the bike this morning and it starts right up but at an idle of 3000 rpm......what the heck. The throttle will not settle it back down nor the cold start lever. Shut the bike off and take the car to school. It is being towed back to the mechanic for diagnosis. So what could cause this? What did the mechanic mess up when he put the bike back together? Maybe I just need to sell the bike and be done with it.....this bike is eating into my travel funds for summer vacation. Thanks for letting me rant once again.
 
It wouldn't make sense for it to happen all on its own, but if you were poking around to take a look at the work just done, it is pretty easy to dislodge the throttle cable conduit from an adjustment ferrule, thus holding a butterfly open, off its idle stop. There are definitely places this can happen at each throttle body, maybe up at the twist grip as well.
 
Whatever it is, it shouldn't be a big deal to fix. Could be a number of things. The cable system didn't have to be removed for the job but it does get shoved around a lot, so it's pretty likely that it is related to the repair. Since it worked well for you on the way home, it probably passed the mechanic's test ride OK also.

Here, there would be no charge for that repair and I'd find a way to be extra nice to you just for having gone through it.
 
Thanks for the info, I suspect it is something minor and hopefully more of a nuisance than anything else. It is thanks to your advice Anton that I managed to get away relatively cheap on the total repair. I picked up the used bargain priced tranny which allowed for me to get the work done sooner rather than later. I should know something soon......the bike is in a warm garage and I did not root around looking at anything so it can't be anything I did. And I got my old tranny back and I just might send it out to you for a rebuild in the spring just to gave a spare on hand. Haha.

QUOTE=AntonLargiader;923334]Whatever it is, it shouldn't be a big deal to fix. Could be a number of things. The cable system didn't have to be removed for the job but it does get shoved around a lot, so it's pretty likely that it is related to the repair. Since it worked well for you on the way home, it probably passed the mechanic's test ride OK also.

Here, there would be no charge for that repair and I'd find a way to be extra nice to you just for having gone through it.[/QUOTE]
 
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