R1100RT Clutch adjustment

I recently purchased a low mileage 2000 R1100rt to supplement my 2005 R1150rt.. you know to split up the miles (I love the 5 speed vs the 6) Anyway the clutch was a little out of adjustment and I adjusted it to around 6mm play at the end of the lever and it seems perfect. I am now reading the threads here and they all state to have 12mm between the knurled adjuster and the lock ring. I have about 14mm. My question is. Why you are not to adjust the clutch at the lever? After all there are loads of threads and why must you adjust it at the rear of the transmission instead? Am I doing damage by adjusting the play at the knurled end of the lever?

Do the initial adjustment at the back of the transmission so that you have the 12mm of threads at the lever perch. Then use the knureld knob at the perch to keep the freeplay within specs until there is no more adjustment left there. Repeat.

The 14mm should be fine as long as there are enough threads left in the perch to ensure the knurled adjuster does not come loose or strip out. Absolutely no harm to adust from the knurled adjuster after the initial adjustment at the transmission. The main concern is keeping the freeplay correct. As the clutch wears, the freeplay will decrease, and can be added back in by turning the knurled adjuster in and relocking it.

My R1100RS clutch had over 120,000 kms on it and was still fine using the above method.

My manual says adjust the knurled adjuster at the top to provide 12mm threads exposed - then loosen the 13mm locknut and adjust the 10mm adjuster to provide 7mm of freeplay at the hand lever. I've been doing it this way a long time and it works fine.

Clutch adjust

"...Why you are not to adjust the clutch at the lever..."
The idea is to get the clutch release arm parallel to the back of the transmission, or into whatever position BMW has determined is best. If you set the clutch lever using the 12 mm/ 5-7 mm specs, that lever will be where it is supposed to be to keep it from breaking (breaking is not a good thing). Once you initially set this, you can use the knurled nut to adjust at the lever (which is just adjusting for the cable stretch, not for clutch wear, since the clutch will only wear about 1.5 mm or so before it is worn out). Adjusting for cable stretch won't change the release arms positioning once the slack is taken out since you are just taking up cable slack to return the lever to its proper position.

So from what I am seeing from the response is... initial adjustment from the rear of transmission....say, after a new clutch cable install... after that adjust from the hand lever to compensate for cable stretch.
Any thoughts on how often to replace the clutch cable? Mine is 10 yrs old but only has10,000 miles. I don't want to wait till it breaks.

Thanks

not fully disengaging?

I'm trying to see if this is what i need to do to solve my little problem...

1st - 2nd - 3rd I have to pull the clutch lever and then wait a couple of seconds for the engine to spin down before I shift, otherwise I get to feel the nice little gear-grind until the next gear engages. For 4th - 5th gears it's not a problem and I can shift quickly. Is it as simple as adjusting the clutch cable?

Thanks.

The cable setup & adjustment is the first thing to check.
Hard to troubleshoot remotely; but what year is your bike? A lot of the earlier oilheads had tranny problems. My '97 1100 tranny was crunchy from Day One, to the point that it actually rejected the 2-3 and 3-2 shifts, and was replaced under warranty.

Cyclepilot said:

I'm trying to see if this is what i need to do to solve my little problem...

1st - 2nd - 3rd I have to pull the clutch lever and then wait a couple of seconds for the engine to spin down before I shift, otherwise I get to feel the nice little gear-grind until the next gear engages. For 4th - 5th gears it's not a problem and I can shift quickly. Is it as simple as adjusting the clutch cable?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Sometimes these bikes require a little different technique. Try preloading the shifter a little bit, then a quick roll-off / roll-on with about a quarter clutch pull.

Pauls1150 said:

The cable setup & adjustment is the first thing to check.
Hard to troubleshoot remotely; but what year is your bike? A lot of the earlier oilheads had tranny problems. My '97 1100 tranny was crunchy from Day One, to the point that it actually rejected the 2-3 and 3-2 shifts, and was replaced under warranty.

Click to expand...

my bike is a 97- hope it's not the tranny... I'll play with the technique and the adjustment to see if I can work around it before I look at replacement Thanks for the suggestions!

Seems like if I wait until I'm over 5k on the tach I can get a nice, quick, smooth shift.