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Final Drive Failures

Hmmmm,

You both feel the oil viscosity causes the bearing to fail?

Or are you just telling me what is in my owners manual?:stick
 
gsweave said:
Hmmmm,

You both feel the oil viscosity causes the bearing to fail?

Or are you just telling me what is in my owners manual?:stick
Click to expand...

I don't. I don't think the weight of oil has likely been the cause of failure in the FDs, except for no oil. However, I would use the recommended weight. That would probably affect protection as to the extremes of temperature, conditions, etc.
 
gsweave said:
Hmmmm,

You both feel the oil viscosity causes the bearing to fail?

Or are you just telling me what is in my owners manual?:stick
Click to expand...

I don't have a personal opinion, but I believe that Paul Glaves has opined (correct me if I am wrong Paul) that using 75w-140 gear oil in the FD MAY be a contributor if 75w-140 is not specified by BMW for YOUR bike. I was merely suggesting that you check your owners manual to be sure that 75w-140 is one of the specified gear oils. It justs gets back to the issue of using the grades and viscosities (and I am NOT talking about the brands) of lubricants specified by BMW.
 
cjack said:
I don't. I don't think the weight of oil has likely been the cause of failure in the FDs, except for no oil. However, I would use the recommended weight. That would probably affect protection as to the extremes of temperature, conditions, etc.
Click to expand...

It will definitely affect the warranty if anything else is used ;)
<<any reason NOT to provide warranty coverage will be exercised>>
 
Reply. I know Paul has stated he thought the wrong oil is a contributing factor in 1150xx FD failures, but I can't believe it's a significant factor. I tend to agree with Anton about improperly shimmed and pre-load bearings. Either way, it doesn't address the question about 1200xx FD failures. Perhaps some of it was the "lubricated for life" design of the early FD's. It will be interesting to see if the new lubrication recommendation reduces the failure rate, or BMW is just trying to come up with an explanation other than poor engineering. (roller bearings instead of tapered bearings and shims to maintain proper gear lash)
 
Forgive me for what must be a rudimentary question, but I've spent a good bit of time searching these final drive failure threads, and I'm still wondering:

Which models and model years are being affected? I'm seeing a lot of R1150s....

Thanks in advance for any info.
 
It seemed to start in late 2000 and has been seen on all the Paralever models.
Lots of low mileage failures on K1200LT, R1150RT, R1150GS, some R1100RT's and GS's were also affected.

I know of two failures where the dealers did NOT reimburse the owners because they were slightly out of warranty at 39K miles and 40K miles. That statement in the article that all the failures were warrantied is wrong. :(
 
bmwmick said:
It seemed to start in late 2000 and has been seen on all the Paralever models.
Lots of low mileage failures on K1200LT, R1150RT, R1150GS, some R1100RT's and GS's were also affected.

I know of two failures where the dealers did NOT reimburse the owners because they were slightly out of warranty at 39K miles and 40K miles. That statement in the article that all the failures were warrantied is wrong. :(
Click to expand...

Technically you could say it started as far back as 1978, my R100/7's FD started weeping oil at a mere 175K and after only 30 years, shame shame shame.....on BMW for realizing and fixing the problem!!! Nor would they replace mine for some reason????:banghead

RM

Oddly enough it was running just fine and over a one month period the weeping was so minor that the oil in FD did not go down noticably and when we opened it up, about 1/4 of the outer section of each of the teeth on the ring gear was completely chewed away, yet the bike had been running just fine with no noticable noise or loss of power or gear slippage, the small pinon gear was in near perfect condition, as my mechanic said " hell you still got 75% of the contact area remaining, why worry?" But we did replace it with a differant ratio just for sh*ts and gr*ns.
 
I am now south of the Canadain Border, after a FD failure yesterday. My vacation is on hold. I am at the library, waiting for my buddy to ship me a final drive and tools. This final drive and my last FD failure has put me behind about as much as half of a new Wee Strom.

My fist FD failure was near the Labrador border 35,000 miles on the odometer and this one was north of the Soo also out in the wilderness of Canada, at 71,000 miles.

I need to print out some pages of replacing a final drive, and take them to the campground. Where is the best page to print a FD repairand I need to find what size of tools are needed to do the job.

Santa​
​
 
I have officially (as moderator) asked that OfficerImpersonator remove it. If it isn't removed by 9PM this evening, both will be removed by me.

In the future - if you want to get the attention of the moderators - there is a button you can press to "Report Post" - far left, lower corner. Please use that to quickly bring this sort of thing to our attention.
 
At least people will stop doubting the article's existence. It really does exist. It's not a fabrication of someone's imagination as has been alleged.

I've deleted the post with the link, but if anyone would like me to email them a copy, feel free to PM me.
 
gsweave said:
The two most capable helpers/coaches a guy could ask for. Eric and Oscar.... Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

Your very welcome!

I was happy to be able to help out a fellow "inmate" :)
Nice pics!!

Oscar
 
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