03 R1150RT Rattle when clutch not engaged.

Hi all,

I have an 03 RT with 43,000 miles and about a month ago I noticed a rattling sound from under my pegs on idle. When I pull in the clutch it disappears. I was at my mechanic 2 weeks ago and he said it was on the louder side of normal and that he said to come back if it got any louder. If memory serves I believe he said it could be the master cylinder for the clutch or a bearing. The bike runs fine but after a 100 mile jaunt this morning the rattle got twice as loud and can now be heard as a whine in first and second. Is this ringing any bells with any of you?

Jon

Take it back to the dealer. He said bring it back if it got louder. It did. I think transmission bearing!

PGlaves said:

Take it back to the dealer. He said bring it back if it got louder. It did. I think transmission bearing!

Click to expand...

That's my plan. I will be back on Thursday.

thanks,

Jon

The words bearing and rattle don't connect with me.
Whine, squall, even crunch but not rattle.
What is in there that pulling the clutch takes the slack from?

Indicates possible clutch spline issues.

GKman said:

The words bearing and rattle don't connect with me.
Whine, squall, even crunch but not rattle.
What is in there that pulling the clutch takes the slack from?

Click to expand...

Point well taken. But, slightly bad ball bearings may whine and squeal. Really bad ball bearings allow shafts to move (flop around a bit, if you will) which will make a rattle for sure.

It also could be a spline issue, as noted.

Here's what happened

Hi all,

so I came up with the cash and had my transmission pulled. Splines about to fail, the Mechanic believes I had less than 1,000 miles left on them. The sealed bearings in the transmission failed. It wasn't catostrophic but it would have been if I kept riding on them. Finally my slave cylinder was about to fail. It's rough living but I'm glad to know what's up.

Jon

From what I have learned, spline failure, especially at 43000 miles, is from either an axial or radial mis-alignment.
It seems to me that unless the incorrect alignment is fixed the splines will fail again.

If it was my bike I would check to see which type mis-alignment is there and if it's axial, then perhaps a different tranny would solve the problem.
I have heard of the radial alignment being adjusted by moving the locating dowels, but that requires equipment not found in the average shop.

I am by no means an authority on the spline issue, but I don't think it cures itself.

PGlaves surely has more knowledge on this than I and hopefully he will add his $.02.

Splines, been there done that. we need to come up with a clutch disc hub the utilizes the rest of the splines. if you will notice, the clutch hub does not slide all the way onto the input shaft. mr glaves, can you bail me out on this one. thank you.

There was a thread recently about a supplier making clutch discs with lengthened splines for better engagement with the input shaft. Naturally I can't find it right now but it might have been Brunos. I can't find it on his site but then Brunos does a lot of things not listed on the site.

Contact info bottom left here: http://www.brunos.us/driveshafts.html

The other solution is expensive but highly effective and that is a longer input shaft. It's been done and I've seen one. What BMW should have done in the first place really. Mated splines that don't make full length contact with each other makes no sense to me at all. I'm not an engineer but every time I see one it just looks wrong.

Alternate Clutch Discs

I had been hopeful to have more data to post relative to a winter clutch upgrade project I am involved with, and which may very well provide substantial "cross over" benefit towards oilhead discs and upgrades as are mentioned here (as I am working with airhead components at this point). However, that project took a brief "hiatus" in order to complete some long overdue work on my metal lathe which completed nicely this last weekend.
The product I'm working with is orientated towards higher horsepower and durability, should testing prove out I will post results and detail for consideration.