Do not downshift..... do not

Motorcyclist said:

Paul, Jim, Dave, Don, et al,
How about spline lube on the Hexheads? Are people seeing the same need to tear half the bike apart to lube the splines on those models, or has BMW made some improvements that make them more "maintenance friendly?"

Paul - would you still recommend a 50K teardown on a Hexhead to check/lube the splines?

Thanks,

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That is like politics, or sports. Too early to tell and too close to call. I hope they don't need it, but I'm not holding my breath. Time will tell.

At one point in its history BMW started nickel plating parts, and declared that the spline wear problems which had been evident in earlier bikes was cured (or at least most of the dealers made such declaration). Of course it wasn't and owners who believed it - and kept their bikes 50 or 60 or 70K miles learned otherwise the hard way.

At the seminars I have done for the last ten years the need to lubricate clutch splines has been historically the most argumentative topic we have covered. (Until 140wt gear oil in final drives came up for discussion). People just don't want to believe that this lubrication is necessary. I've heard almost every "My old Ford" and "My Toyota" story possible - as to why we don't do this to cars so I don't have to do this to my motorcycle.

I don't fully understand - other than to say the size of the splines and the metallurgy is different.

What I do know from taking a lot of transmissions out of bikes is that they splines need periodic lubrication and periodic lubrication helps them last a very long time. I quit arguing with people at my seminars. I just tell them "lubrication is my recommendation - it's your bike - do what you wish."

Fair nuff...

Then if lub is necessary, one might as well replace clutch plate at 50-60K???

PGlaves said:

At the seminars I have done for the last ten years the need to lubricate clutch splines has been historically the most argumentative topic we have covered. (Until 140wt gear oil in final drives came up for discussion). People just don't want to believe that this lubrication is necessary. I've heard almost every "My old Ford" and "My Toyota" story possible - as to why we don't do this to cars so I don't have to do this to my motorcycle.

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Thanks for the honest assessment Paul (and Don), I guess time will tell. After getting burned this time, I'll probably take a wait and see posture before considering a Hexhead.

If you saw my post #48 on this thread I was at the seminar in WI and it was clearly a contentious topic. I wish BMW would have found an actual fix, rather than just delete the service from the owner's manual. On my K75s, I recall the drive and clutch splines were supposed to be lubed at 40k, and one of the selling points of the oilheads was that this issue was "fixed." In my case, "fixed" meant riding until it failed.

I'd love to see the data on these types of failures, and final drive ones as well. Perhaps some hot shot atty will make it a point to take them to court one of these days, and get the data through discovery. That would be an enlightening service to the rest of us.

torags said:

Sounds reasonable, But..... Even if you apply the lube with a qtip. The operation of the clutch sliding along the shaft will create a "oil burr" with the threat of centrifugal force throwing the burr onto the clutch plate.

I've never done a BMW clutch job and I don't know what the clutch spline is made of. However, If I did the metallurgical design I would use bronze for the clutch spline. Softer than steel and wear powder would dry lube the shaft. I just wouldn't use grease in that cavity, just my .02.

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Brother after you jumped out there and insulted (???) with the comment something of "I know more than you"... you're not doing so well on Mechanical Design 101. Bronze for an input shaft? Unless you bust the bank, the Automotive/Mototcycle industry has only two basic clutch designs 1. Dry and 2. Wet. You might seem to me less challenged if you'd suggested a Wet Clutch for a Beemer so the shaft would be lubricated without any "metallurgical design".

Is BMW's design faulty? Well... There's billions of cars that have the same clutch set-up and never require any input shaft lube. Increasing the contact area between the input shaft splines and clutch plate would help but, is there room? Out of the 9 BMW bikes I've owned I never considered the clutch a problem.

Replace the clutch at 50 to 60k? What the heck for? It's not the clutch that's worn out it's has to do with spline lube.

clutch replacement

About how many mile before the clutch needs to be replaced?

Ctrod said:

About how many mile before the clutch needs to be replaced?

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That depends a lot on where/how you ride. Touring riders who get a low number of shifts per mile can go 150K miles. People with mostly stop and go commute riding might get 75 to 90K, if that. People who are gentle riders get more, hot rodders get less. Field events and slow racers get even less, unless they have a lot of highway only miles between slow races.

I just can't stand anymore of this paranoia Have any of you removed the starter motor and looked in the resulting view port and observed the amount of travel of the clutch plate as it travels on the trans input shaft as the clutch lever is operated? The movement, as noted earlier, is maybe a couple of millimeters at best.
And then we have people that actually imagine a huge improvement in shifting smoothness after lubricating the trans input shaft. Hey, if the clutch is working and disengages the engine from the transmission when called for the trans will shift exactly the same lube or no lube, jeez! Also, spline wear will not be affected with lube or without because there is no lateral movement of any kind between the clutch splines and the trans splines at all. Now just maybe that is why BMW does not list spline lube in routine maintenance schedules, you suppose?

torags said:

Fair nuff...

Then if lub is necessary, one might as well replace clutch plate at 50-60K???

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I'm suggesting if you have the parts dissembled to lube the spline you might as well replace the plate.

My issue occurred , not from lube , but from a misaligned transmission.

Something else was mentioned by the tech: a lot of rust was present and he replaced the bolts.

My bike is garaged. I suspect there is a weep hole for the clutch cavity.

However, I did run into more than 12 hours of rain in a failed BBG attempt (got the BB) and I'm guessing the rain worked its way into the cavity and created rust.

Paul have you seen a rust problem in your experience?

torags said:

Fair nuff...

Then if lub is necessary, one might as well replace clutch plate at 50-60K???

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That'll depend on you, but disassembly of the clutch is another significant process of disassembly/reassembly. BMW clutches are pretty good, so if you're halfway kind to your clutch, replacement of the plate probably isn't necessary.

Notable exception: 1993 1/2 R11RS "beta" bikes had a smallish clutch. They were prone to wear and BMW updated the design shortly thereafter. Tina's RS ate the clutch at about 65K, so we updated it. Aside from that, I don't hear much about clutch life issues.

And Moly60 is amazingly sticky stuff the just won't fly off.

Red100RT said:

I just can't stand anymore of this paranoia Have any of you removed the starter motor and looked in the resulting view port and observed the amount of travel of the clutch plate as it travels on the trans input shaft as the clutch lever is operated? The movement, as noted earlier, is maybe a couple of millimeters at best.
And then we have people that actually imagine a huge improvement in shifting smoothness after lubricating the trans input shaft. Hey, if the clutch is working and disengages the engine from the transmission when called for the trans will shift exactly the same lube or no lube, jeez! Also, spline wear will not be affected with lube or without because there is no lateral movement of any kind between the clutch splines and the trans splines at all. Now just maybe that is why BMW does not list spline lube in routine maintenance schedules, you suppose?

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One of the indicators that you're due for an input spline lube is difficulty shifting or increased effort at the clutch lever. If the clutch plate hangs up, it won't disengage smoothly and will indeed cause some odd shifting behavior.

If you've ever shifted a bike without using the clutch, you know that the transmission is considerably notchier and higher effort than if you use the clutch. A dry input spline is somewhere in between the two extremes, to my left foot's touch.

This is true for airheads, /2s, oilheads, hexheads and kbikes with a dry, single plate clutch.

Now, why BMW doesn't put it in their maintenance schedules is something I don't have a clue about. But an input spline can be a wear item if it's not maintained properly. The average MOA member does something like 5K miles per year. At that rate, first spline lube might not come up for something like 8 years, based on the former 40K Kbike maintenance interval.

Motorcyclist said:

Paul, Jim, Dave, Don, et al,
How about spline lube on the Hexheads? Are people seeing the same need to tear half the bike apart to lube the splines on those models, or has BMW made some improvements that make them more "maintenance friendly?"

Paul - would you still recommend a 50K teardown on a Hexhead to check/lube the splines?

Thanks,

Click to expand...

I am on half a dozen BMW centric boards, and have only once seen any issues with the splines on an R1200, and it was uncertain what it was, and the poster was vague, no pictures.

From the miles accumulated by many, included half a dozen over 40K in my local club, and the lack of anything on the forums, I am thinking the situation is much improved, if not fixed. No data to back it up, but since many of the R1150 bikes had spline failures before 30K miles, we should definitely have seen some on the R1200 by now.

Jim

JimVonBaden1 said:

I am on half a dozen BMW centric boards, and have only once seen any issues with the splines on an R1200, and it was uncertain what it was, and the poster was vague, no pictures.

From the miles accumulated by many, included half a dozen over 40K in my local club, and the lack of anything on the forums, I am thinking the situation is much improved, if not fixed. No data to back it up, but since many of the R1150 bikes had spline failures before 30K miles, we should definitely have seen some on the R1200 by now.

Jim

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I think I agree with Jim - that one of the problems seemed solved at least. I think there are two issues. There were a number of 1100 and 1150 bikes - mostly 1150 - that seemed to have an alignement problem and had early spline wear. I haven't heard of that on the 1200s.

I think the jury may still be out on long term durability - as in do the splines need lubrication at 50K? 60K? 75K? 100K.

My answer - I don't know yet.

Question:
How long, do you estimate, it would take a qualified tech in a fully equipped shop to tear the bike apart, lube the clutch splines and put it back together ?

John

jlaban said:

Question:
How long, do you estimate, it would take a qualified tech in a fully equipped shop to tear the bike apart, lube the clutch splines and put it back together ?

John

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The standard time for a trans seal replacement job is, according to my dealer, 7 hours. This would be similar to a spline lube, maybe an hour less for the spline lube.

Jim

JimVonBaden1 said:

The standard time for a trans seal replacement job is, according to my dealer, 7 hours. This would be similar to a spline lube, maybe an hour less for the spline lube.

Jim

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The tech charged $810 for labor (SF Rates) for my job. It included some time for install of new pieces.

.



Back on topic... Never downshift? Never upshift either. Hell, never turn the ignition key to the "on" position. SHEESH![/QUOTE]

now that would save lots of money and time. Keep the bike pretty new for a long time.

KBasa said:

One of the indicators that you're due for an input spline lube is difficulty shifting or increased effort at the clutch lever. If the clutch plate hangs up, it won't disengage smoothly and will indeed cause some odd shifting behavior.

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Dave,
I disagree with your statement above. The clutch lever is NOT connected to the friction disc at all. Increased clutch lever force would indicate a lubrication problem at the actuating lever, the operating linkage at the rear of the tranny or cable pivot problems. The friction disc only moves about 0.080" with the clutch spring depressed. All you are doing with the clutch lever is compressing the diaphragm spring.

I replaced the clutch disc in my '93 K1100LT at about 125K miles. It still looked like new (except for the oil-soaked friction material) and the input shaft splines also looked new. I did not lube the splines until I replaced the clutch disc.

My '96 R1100RT has never been apart and it is about 67K right now. I've had the starter out and looked at the clutch hub/input shaft as best I could. I find no debris and no obvious wear there either. I plan to lube it when the friction disc wears to the point it needs replacement.

bmwmick said:

Dave,
I disagree with your statement above. The clutch lever is NOT connected to the friction disc at all. Increased clutch lever force would indicate a lubrication problem at the actuating lever, the operating linkage at the rear of the tranny or cable pivot problems. The friction disc only moves about 0.080" with the clutch spring depressed. All you are doing with the clutch lever is compressing the diaphragm spring.

I replaced the clutch disc in my '93 K1100LT at about 125K miles. It still looked like new (except for the oil-soaked friction material) and the input shaft splines also looked new. I did not lube the splines until I replaced the clutch disc.

My '96 R1100RT has never been apart and it is about 67K right now. I've had the starter out and looked at the clutch hub/input shaft as best I could. I find no debris and no obvious wear there either. I plan to lube it when the friction disc wears to the point it needs replacement.

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Finally, light at the end of the tunnel and common sense.

Red100RT said:

Finally, light at the end of the tunnel and common sense.

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Amen James! After much dilemma... There is no such thing as Common Sense (other than Hot and Cold). One of Mark Twain's famous quotes, "It's not that we have too many Idiots, it's that Lightening is not Distributed Correctly".

Yes, I have it now. "NEVER DOWN Shift and Never Up Shift"!

Mike

Well I've learned some things here.

Thanks Paul & Kbasa, I for one appreciate it.

Some seem to resent and resist the presentation of facts that can lead to knowledge. It's pretty sad, but I guess its the way it is. Flame on....