Transmission or Clutch??? Help please.

[belquar]

Paging Mr. Glaves to the white courtesy phone?

I am not entirely sure what is wrong with my bike so here are the symptoms.

99 1100GS.

Trouble shifting from first to second. Came on kinda suddenly. Started by popping out of second back into neutral. Then just became really hard to get into second. Once in second gear it runs through the rest fine. But if I take it back down to neutral or first gear it is hell to get it back into second. When the clutch is engaged and I attempt to shift I get the grinding gear sound. Takes quite a bit of force/luck to get it to take. But like I said, once in solidly I am golden.

What's wrong? How much is this going to cost me?

Thanks for your help.

 

[PGlaves]

Paging Mr. Glaves to the white courtesy phone?

I am not entirely sure what is wrong with my bike so here are the symptoms.

99 1100GS.

Trouble shifting from first to second. Came on kinda suddenly. Started by popping out of second back into neutral. Then just became really hard to get into second. Once in second gear it runs through the rest fine. But if I take it back down to neutral or first gear it is hell to get it back into second. When the clutch is engaged and I attempt to shift I get the grinding gear sound. Takes quite a bit of force/luck to get it to take. But like I said, once in solidly I am golden.

What's wrong? How much is this going to cost me?

Thanks for your help.

From the description it sounds like the shift fork that moves the engagement from 1st to 2nd is worn/bent - and probably the dogs that engage 2nd gear are damaged/worn.

Jumping back down out of one gear usually means the dogs are damaged, and sometimes means the shift fork is worn enough not to slide it fully into that next gear. Once it starts popping out things go downhill pretty fast - usually bending the shift fork and making gear engagement even more difficult.

This is not a cheap repair, as you might guess. There are parts that must be replaced, and seals of course, and then there are parts that are smart to replace once it is apart like bearings. Best guess is a minimum of $1,000 up to about $1,500 once the transmission is out of the bike and on the bench of the rebuilder.

Some dealers do this work reasonably well. Many dealers farm it out where it may or may not be done well. Tom Cutter does a lot of this work, as does Anton Largardier (sp?) and I have confidence they both do it well.

Having the transmission rebuilt by somebody who really does it right usually results in a transmission that is better than Getrag built it for BMW. Due to the cost lots of folks just take their chances with a used transmission from a wreck.

 

[belquar]

Thanks Paul. As always you are very helpful. Looks like Tom Cutter is actually pretty close to me. Gonna give him a call.

Thanks again.

 

[tessler]

Paul, ++1 on that response.

Brian, best of luck on your follow-through with Cutter. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[belquar]

Paul, ++1 on that response.

Brian, best of luck on your follow-through with Cutter. Let us know how it turns out.

Just got off the phone with him. Looks like it is going to cost over 2k to fix.

If Paul says the man can fix it, then he is who I am going with. I don't even know what the dealer will charge. They wouldn't even ballpark me on the phone today and Anton's site says a lot of dealers won't do the work themselves but would probably farm the job out or wanna stick a factory refurb back in. Whereas Tom and Anton can rebuild it better than that.

So...it is what it is. SUCKS. I am gonna take my girls trick or treating and forget about the bike today.

 

[DARKCLOUD]

I would check the clutch to make sure that it isn't the culprit. A stretched clutch cable won't completely disengage the clutch. A bad pressure plate can give the same symptons.

JON

 

[AntonLargiader]

I would also check the clutch. The worn shift fork & dogs that Paul described usually manifest by popping out of, and immediately back into, a particular gear. It feels like something is jumping a tooth.

Drain the tranny oil. If it's clear, there's a chance you don't have a tranny problem at all. Could just be that you shift into second differently than you do the other gears.

Also, get someone else to ride it. Second opinions are great for this stuff.

 

[belquar]

After reading Anton's site and draining the gearbox, looks like the tranny is the culprit. The magnet looked like a porcupine. And the oil was not clear and has bits of gold flecks in it. UGGGHHH.

Oh well. Funny how when you don't have a problem you don't think about these things, but when you do and start looking you see so many people with the same problems.

CRAP.

 

[belquar]

Just set up the tow for the bike to Tom's shop. Talked to him about what is going to be done.

After he gets into the box, he assesses the damage. Then sends the gears to a machinist. They will cut the gears rather than replace and cut them so that the problem will "never" happen again. That sounds good.

He says his machinist is really good and really slow because he is so good, he is really busy. Oh well.

Takes over a month to repair the bike. That is a good thing. Gives me time to save the money it is going to cost to pay for all this.

Hopefully I will be back in the saddle before the new year.