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2011 R1200RT Final Drive question

LCampbell

New member
The bike is a 2011 R1200RT with 13700 miles. After a short ride of 50 miles a few days ago I parked the bike on the center stand & checked the final drive for play by grabbing the wheel & push/pulling at 3 & 9 o'clock. There was no play but at 12 & 6 o'clock there was about a MM of play & it felt like I was getting metal to metal contact at either direction of travel. After the bike had sat for a day or so (Cold) there was no play at all at either the 3 & 9 o'clock or 12 & 6 o'clock positions. Had the bike out today for another 50 mile ride and when I returned I again checked the final drive & got the approx. 1 MM of play by push/pulling at the 12 & 6 o'clock position. I'll check things tomorrow when it's cold.
Is this normal?
Anyone else had something like this?
Or am I hallucinating?
 
The cold play measured at the rim at the 12o'clock position is allowed to be up to 1 mm. Cold is defined as less than 30 ??C. 1 mm means a total of 1 mm, not +/- 1 mm. I assume that still holds for current models.
 
It does.

If you want to do a more specific check, you can pull the caliper, remove the wheel and pivot the FD free of the driveshaft, then rotate it feeling for smoothness. This makes any bearing issue more obvious- if its not dead smooth or feels notchy, time to open it up.

You can also rotate it while its connected to the driveshaft (with wheel and caliper off) which will tell you if there is discernible U joint damage (if the FD is smooth but the combo is not).
 
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