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Final drive options

jnrugg

jnrugg

Member
On the way home from the MOA rally in Tn. it appears the final drive went out again.
It was redone by Max's 4-5 years ago with the new bearings.
In thinking back there were many clues that there was an issue but I never picked up on them.

My question is, is there an alternative to rebuilding it and having it redone every few years?
Does someone or is there some tech that would make it more reliable?
I keep up on the drive oil changes and had just put in new oil before the trip.
But there were some very subtle clues even end of last year.

Right now it's at Bob's BMW in Md.

2002 1150RT with 107k+ miles.

TIA!!!!!
 
How many miles were on the rebuilt drive when it failed? I have about 100k miles on my big bearing rebuilt final drive, with no indication of pending failure, knocking on wood.

What were the signs that you wish you paid more attention to?

Sure, it’s a wear item, but without extreme usage the bearing should last a long time.
 
Don't recall the miles when it was done, a guess would be around 80k+ miles.
Sometimes when going around a corner I would feel the back kick out a little, like the tire rolling over a stone.
Some noises that sounded like it was coming from the front, I thought it was a front tire problem and was going to take it in when I got back.
 
Probably not shimmed correctly. You might try largiader.com. He is fairly close, and does excellent work. Or, pickup a used FD on ebay, and rebuilt the other one once you get home.
 
23217 said:
Probably not shimmed correctly. You might try largiader.com. He is fairly close, and does excellent work. Or, pickup a used FD on ebay, and rebuilt the other one once you get home.
Click to expand...

I'd second this advice. Pick up a used final drive off of E-Bay (~$2-300) and then have your unit rebuilt as a spare.

As for signs of impending doom, my warnings were an unusual, thought subtle, howl when at speed, and gear lube streaks on the right inside of the rear wheel.

Good luck.
 
I got the howl but not the oil. When it went the first time about 5 years ago, I got the oil but not the howl and was able to ride it about 1 1/2 hrs. back to the hotel.
Still waiting to hear from Bob's, but will contact largiader to see if they have a unit available.
Maybe Bob's can just swap it out rather than rebuild.
 
It surprises me how many repeat failures there are on 1150 final drives that were "fixed" by a dealer. They don't seem to know how to properly shim them.

Anton certainly does. Over here on the Wet Coast we're lucky to have GSAddict as a great alternative. He has repaired a lot of 1150 final drives and I have yet to hear of any failures after he has shimmed them. Including his own 1150GS which has tons of miles on it now.
 
I agree. The method used by dealers seems to be flawed. I prefer the solder method with the correct preload. Anton does know how to do it correctly, which is why I recommended him. And, he is close by.
 
I had a very nice conversation with Anton. Bob's can't get to it until mid July at the earliest.
After reading these posts I don't know that I would want them to either.
We are looking on getting it to Anton's, over 2 hours away from Bob's.
 
Anton rebuilt it while I was there.
He has great patience to have a customer watch him work.

He did find that it was shimmed tighter than it should have from the dealer.
 
jnrugg said:
Anton rebuilt it while I was there.
He has great patience to have a customer watch him work.

He did find that it was shimmed tighter than it should have from the dealer.
Click to expand...

Almost every one I do was too tight. That is why simply replacing the bearing is not a long term fix.
 
GSAddict said:
Almost every one I do was too tight. That is why simply replacing the bearing is not a long term fix.
Click to expand...
I couldn't agree more. I have rebuilt over 125 of this style final drives & 99% of them were over shimmed. There are three other problems with this final drive that need to be fixed during a rebuild. I rebuilt a final drive that had over 300,000 miles on it & it was in great shape it had the correct preload on it.
 
saddleman said:
I couldn't agree more. I have rebuilt over 125 of this style final drives & 99% of them were over shimmed. There are three other problems with this final drive that need to be fixed during a rebuild. I rebuilt a final drive that had over 300,000 miles on it & it was in great shape it had the correct preload on it.
Click to expand...

Too bad most dealers don't do the shim check.
 
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