J
jduke
Guest
36,838 miles, 2009RT.
No one should have to worry about a driveshaft this new or this few miles.
No one should have to worry about a driveshaft this new or this few miles.
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My point was: Harley has...they don't use them. Must be something about motorcycle shaft final drives that makes them more failure prone, than all our car applications.
It would be interesting to see the loads/stress analysis techniques used to design these systems.
I do not think shaft drive on a motorcycle is more failure prone. If shaft drive was inherently problematic for a motorcycle, why haven't other bikes (like airheads) had such problems? Maybe it is just coincidence, but it looks like these problems surfaced after BMW introduced the paralever system.
Have you compared the HP rating of an airhead vs any hexhead? And the suspension travel of an airhead vs hexhead? Both HP and range of angle of the U joint will effect the lifetime. I'll say again - it seems to be a relatively rare failure, and not one that I'm worried about. And running a fully loaded bike 2 up is likely to increase all forces on the U joint, which might account for the seemly more failures on bikes used that way.
FWIW - There are two universal joints on a Paralever rear drive vs one on the airhead. At least on the hexhead paralever BMW managed to keep the axis of the U joints in line with the paralever pivot points which seems to have eliminated the spline problems the oilheads experienced. People seem to have selective memory sometimes - I can certainly recall driveline failures on airheads (like the failed wheel to hub splines, and the hub rivets to crown-gear on the rear-drive..) and occassional U joint failures despite them being in an oil bath.
Then how do you explain why we do not hear more about drive line failures on higher powered Japanese bikes, like ST1300, Concours, etc? Not trying to start an argument here, just trying to determine why BMW has more problems than other similar sized motorcycles.
I can only speak for the Kawasaki Vulcan, but they do fail occasionally. The thing is they only have one U-Joint, in the front. More often they get pinion seal leaks. As far as putting a belt drive on the R series, the crankshaft is longitudinal. Not so with the other bikes. A 90˚ turn to make that feasible would eat up power and belts are not good on gravel roads. The better fix are sealed CV joints.
Isn't that what jack-shafts are for? Perhaps just for the non gravel road crowd? BMW once swore that shafts were the only way to go. But now belts and chains are okay, because some of their models come with them . Just like synthetic oil was a no-no, until BMW had an oil firm come up with a nice looking BMW syn oil label and then it was okay.
I think BMW's primary mission is to manufacture and sell motorcycles...I thing BMWNA's primary mission is to make money by moving motorcycles...there is a difference. The latter has more smoke and mirrors via its marketing and pricing....and not so much its customer support, as evidenced by the lack of communication on its products care and reliability.
My point was: Harley has...they don't use them. Must be something about motorcycle shaft final drives that makes them more failure prone, than all our car applications.
KevinRT
Do you know how many miles are on your friends bike?
That job had to be very expensive 8.5 hrs labor alone at the BMW shop I go to would be $646
KevinRT
Do you know how many miles are on your friends bike?
That job had to be very expensive 8.5 hrs labor alone at the BMW shop I go to would be $646
another....