Texpaul
Lost again
I had recently begun to detect a growing vibration when riding my ’05 1200GS, especially at speed. The vibrations lead me to suspect that one of my u joints may be failing so when tune up time rolled around I pulled the driveshaft for inspection and sure enough my worst fears were realized. The bearing in the front yoke was very stiff and you could see where the shaft had been contacting the swing arm and the front yoke had begun to wallow on the output shaft. The drive housing damage was minimal and not worth the cost to replace the swing arm. There was no discernable output spline shaft damage but the same could not be said of the front yoke splines. They were too damaged to be reused so this meant that any hope of a rebuild with a replaceable U joint was out of the question and a search of multiple used bike sites reveled that there were no used 20 spline shafts to be had.
The last time I had bought a shaft from BMW they were running about $800 but to my amazement they were now up to $1100 plus. I guess that since the 20 spline shafts off the ’05 and ’06 models are in less demand BMW decided it could raise the prices. I had almost resigned myself to spending the big bucks when a friend told me the Ted Porter’s BeemerShop was now carrying a line of aftermarket drive shafts for the 20 spine 1200 models. A quick call confirmed their availability and a few days later I had a brand new Ei drive shaft, complete with rebuild able u-joints and replaceable dampeners, sitting in my garage.
A precursory examination shows that Ei used the same design as their R100 and K75/100 shafts, which Ted currently sells. As you can see from the picture there is a considerable difference in appearance between the two shafts. The Ei model is solid shaft whereas the BMW is a hollow shaft (I assume it is hollow based on the weight). Dimensionally they have the same length but the damper portion is 4mm larger in diameter and the damper section length is about 100mm shorter than the BMW unit. The remainder of the shaft is about 10mm smaller than the same portion of the BMW part. The extra 4mm on the dampener portion didn’t produce any clearance problems with the swing arm when it was installed. I don’t have a scale that can measure very small weight differences but I couldn’t feel a difference between the two. Playing the devil’s advocate one has to wonder if a hollow shaft tube is stronger than a solid shaft tube? Any engineers out there who want to tackle that question?
Installation of the unit was straightforward and no different than a stock component. There are numerous, and better, sources and tutorials on BMW drive shaft installation than I could do so I won’t go into all the details but did post a few install pics to give you the idea. For the purpose of this article, and due to other issues I was addressing, I have disassembled the swing arm but the install can be done with the swing arm mounted as well. Since everything was apart I took the opportunity to replace the swing arm boots front and rear. If you balk at the price BMW wants for these components note the Ei sells the same thing for less and those can be obtained thru Ted as well.
As you can see in the (fuzzy) picture the grease nipple on the u joint is already installed and angled in such a way that I believe you could lube the front joint by just pulling back the boot. Though I will note that the manufacturer claims the U joints are sealed and don’t have to be lubed. In addition there is a large clip holding the dampener section onto the shaft and if you remove that you get access to the dampener pads that are also replaceable. I didn’t see a kit for this particular shaft but assume it would be priced similar to rebuild kits for the existing models.
Currently the only offering Ei has for the 1200’s is the 20 spline shaft but I understand that they are working on a 22 spline model for the later model bikes.
I see this Ei offering as a viable alternative to BMW’s outrageously priced, often unreliable, stock offering. I am always happy to see the market place offering superior quality, and usually cheaper, replacement parts and I use them anytime they are available. If I were to purchase an older model hex head I think the first thing I would consider is replacing the stock shaft with the Ei offering, just for the peace of mind.
Immediately after installation and a short test ride, the bike was loaded and heading to the Big Bend area of Texas. On this trip, which totaled about 1400 miles, the shaft was put thru its paces on various roads including some four wheel drive Big Bend roads. So far everything is holding up well. My plan is to pull the shaft at the next oil change, inspect it and report back. But at this point I think Ted is offering a quality product at a substantial savings to those of us trying to keep an older hex head running for another couple hundred thousand miles.
The last time I had bought a shaft from BMW they were running about $800 but to my amazement they were now up to $1100 plus. I guess that since the 20 spline shafts off the ’05 and ’06 models are in less demand BMW decided it could raise the prices. I had almost resigned myself to spending the big bucks when a friend told me the Ted Porter’s BeemerShop was now carrying a line of aftermarket drive shafts for the 20 spine 1200 models. A quick call confirmed their availability and a few days later I had a brand new Ei drive shaft, complete with rebuild able u-joints and replaceable dampeners, sitting in my garage.
A precursory examination shows that Ei used the same design as their R100 and K75/100 shafts, which Ted currently sells. As you can see from the picture there is a considerable difference in appearance between the two shafts. The Ei model is solid shaft whereas the BMW is a hollow shaft (I assume it is hollow based on the weight). Dimensionally they have the same length but the damper portion is 4mm larger in diameter and the damper section length is about 100mm shorter than the BMW unit. The remainder of the shaft is about 10mm smaller than the same portion of the BMW part. The extra 4mm on the dampener portion didn’t produce any clearance problems with the swing arm when it was installed. I don’t have a scale that can measure very small weight differences but I couldn’t feel a difference between the two. Playing the devil’s advocate one has to wonder if a hollow shaft tube is stronger than a solid shaft tube? Any engineers out there who want to tackle that question?
Installation of the unit was straightforward and no different than a stock component. There are numerous, and better, sources and tutorials on BMW drive shaft installation than I could do so I won’t go into all the details but did post a few install pics to give you the idea. For the purpose of this article, and due to other issues I was addressing, I have disassembled the swing arm but the install can be done with the swing arm mounted as well. Since everything was apart I took the opportunity to replace the swing arm boots front and rear. If you balk at the price BMW wants for these components note the Ei sells the same thing for less and those can be obtained thru Ted as well.
As you can see in the (fuzzy) picture the grease nipple on the u joint is already installed and angled in such a way that I believe you could lube the front joint by just pulling back the boot. Though I will note that the manufacturer claims the U joints are sealed and don’t have to be lubed. In addition there is a large clip holding the dampener section onto the shaft and if you remove that you get access to the dampener pads that are also replaceable. I didn’t see a kit for this particular shaft but assume it would be priced similar to rebuild kits for the existing models.
Currently the only offering Ei has for the 1200’s is the 20 spline shaft but I understand that they are working on a 22 spline model for the later model bikes.
I see this Ei offering as a viable alternative to BMW’s outrageously priced, often unreliable, stock offering. I am always happy to see the market place offering superior quality, and usually cheaper, replacement parts and I use them anytime they are available. If I were to purchase an older model hex head I think the first thing I would consider is replacing the stock shaft with the Ei offering, just for the peace of mind.
Immediately after installation and a short test ride, the bike was loaded and heading to the Big Bend area of Texas. On this trip, which totaled about 1400 miles, the shaft was put thru its paces on various roads including some four wheel drive Big Bend roads. So far everything is holding up well. My plan is to pull the shaft at the next oil change, inspect it and report back. But at this point I think Ted is offering a quality product at a substantial savings to those of us trying to keep an older hex head running for another couple hundred thousand miles.
