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Clutch ? Noise...


hopz

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Hi, its me again. As some of you might have detected, I now own and ride a '95 R1100R... So I am learning all the special things about this great bike.

 

One thing is confounding me. When the bike is running, In Neutral clutch out... I hear a rather loud noise not a rattle, not a grind, but rhythmic, and sort of clang clang clang.

Pulling the clutch causes it to stop. Cannot hear if it is rev-dependent because the noise of reving masks it.

 

Do "they all do that" or should I run to the dealer and throw large denomination bills at the service guy?

 

And as a side note... my non-operational ABS cured itself when I got a good charge on the battery.

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Stan Walker

Some do it. Some don't. Doesn't hurt anything.

 

Doing a good throttle body balance may reduce it. If you are idling at less than 1050 rpm it may help to raise the idle.

 

Stan

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motoguy128

I can hear this a little on my R1150R. I beleive it's the transmission spinning. Whenever the clutch is engaged, all 12 gears on the transmission are spinning and the input shaft is spinning, but none of the gear dogs are engaged to transfer the power to the output shaft. If you have the rear wheel off the ground it will sometimes even start moving since a small amount of power is trasferred due to friction with the shafts.

 

FOr this reason and others, it's recommended to pull in the clutch when starting the motor so that the starter is only spinning the engine, not the engine and tranmission. You'll notice it starts a little quicker.

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Jim VonBaden
Some do it. Some don't. Doesn't hurt anything.

 

Doing a good throttle body balance may reduce it. If you are idling at less than 1050 rpm it may help to raise the idle.

 

Stan

 

What Stan said! thumbsup.gif

 

Jim cool.gif

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ShovelStrokeEd

It is normal for your vintage of oil head. The noise you hear is caused by the input shaft gear rattling back and forth into the drive face and trailing face of the countershaft gear in response to the changes in speed of the crankshaft with each power pulse. No big deal.

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Hi, its me again. As some of you might have detected, I now own and ride a '95 R1100R... So I am learning all the special things about this great bike.

 

One thing is confounding me. When the bike is running, In Neutral clutch out... I hear a rather loud noise not a rattle, not a grind, but rhythmic, and sort of clang clang clang.

Pulling the clutch causes it to stop. Cannot hear if it is rev-dependent because the noise of reving masks it.

 

Do "they all do that" or should I run to the dealer and throw large denomination bills at the service guy?

 

And as a side note... my non-operational ABS cured itself when I got a good charge on the battery.

 

 

Hopx, as mentioned that is just simply neutral gear rattle.. A lot of motorcycles & even manual transmission cars & trucks have it.. The fewer the cylinders in the engine & the sharper the engine power pulses at idle the more pronounced it is.. High compression, light flywheels & few cylinder make it worse..

 

My old 1100R was very quiet as far as neutral gear rattle but my 1150RT is pretty bad at hot idle.. Some of the early BMW transmissions had “O” rings on the gear sets to quiet down that neutral gear rattle but that impeded smooth trans shifting so the “O” rings were deleted on later BMW transmissions..

 

Twisty

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Some of the early BMW transmissions had “O” rings on the gear sets to quiet down that neutral gear rattle but that impeded smooth trans shifting so the “O” rings were deleted on later BMW transmissions.

 

Actually the early oilhead transmissions like the OP didn't have the o-ring. That's why they rattle in neutral. After owners complained about the rattle, they added the o-rings which were later replaced by wave washers to remove the neutral rattle.

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Davis, I guess it depends on a persons perception of what’s an early or late trans..

 

As far as the data I have shows__

 

The M-94-- 5 speed trans (late 93 through early 96) used the gear “O” rings..

 

On the M-97-- 5 speed trans (mid 96 on) the “O” rings were deleted..

 

Twisty

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ShovelStrokeEd

No O-rings in the very early M-94 trans.

They went into the M-97 trans and then were replaced by the wave washers in the 6 speed models.

 

Read Seth's post on the input shaft bearing failures elsewhere in this section.

 

BTW, the one in my '94RS sounds like a steel garbage can full of rocks rolling downhill at idle. So embarrassing I keep the clutch disengaged at stop lights, even though I'm in neutral.

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One thing is confounding me. When the bike is running, In Neutral clutch out... I hear a rather loud noise not a rattle, not a grind, but rhythmic, and sort of clang clang clang.

Pulling the clutch causes it to stop. Cannot hear if it is rev-dependent because the noise of reving masks it. Do "they all do that" or should I run to the dealer and throw large denomination bills at the service guy?

They don't all do that, just the early models, but for a couple of reasons you should be glad yours does because BMW's cure for the rattle was worse than the disease. For the reasons Ed mentioned, no need to be concerned about the rattle from a reliability standpoint.

 

No O-rings in the very early M-94 trans.

They went into the M-97 trans and then were replaced by the wave washers in the 6 speed models.

Minor correction, o-rings went into the M94 and were replaced by the wave washer in the M97, which is a five speed (in all 1100 models since 1997.)
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No O-rings in the very early M-94 trans.

They went into the M-97 trans and then were replaced by the wave washers in the 6 speed models.

 

Read Seth's post on the input shaft bearing failures elsewhere in this section.

 

BTW, the one in my '94RS sounds like a steel garbage can full of rocks rolling downhill at idle. So embarrassing I keep the clutch disengaged at stop lights, even though I'm in neutral.

 

ShovelStrokeEd, the data I have shows the M-93 didn’t have the “O” rings but shows the mid 93 on M-94 with the “O” rings.. I can’t really comment on the M-97 as what I have shows no “O” rings but I can’t confirm that in the service manual.. What I can say is my BMW service manual shows the M-94 with the “O” rings with all kinds of captions pointing to the gear “O” rings saying 94 up..

 

To add to the above my 95 R1100 had an absolutely quiet trans as far as neutral gear rattle went.. But the shift into first was difficult at best so that kind of points to “O” rings.. It was also very difficult to shift up through the gears while sitting still again suggesting “O” rings.. It did shift pretty good while moving through..

 

I can’t confirm the absolute accuracy of my trans data but supposedly it came from Getrag..

 

I have a lot of respect for your information so not trying to argue here just trying to understand what we are dealing with..

 

Twisty

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ShovelStrokeEd

Seth, be correct.

My 1100RS has an M93 trans in it. So no O-rings. Gotta get that thing back on the road again. It's been sitting in my garage since about 1996 or so. Fuel pump and HES and now a 3rd front master cylinder. Probably have to scrap the ABS system now as well as 10 year old brake fluid might not be so good any more. Only 17K miles on it.

 

Basically, I bought it, broke it in over a weekend, rode a 4 Corners Tour on it. Then I spent about 3 months in So Cal. Rode it home and it crapped out on me. Pissed me off so much I just parked it and bought a Honda.

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bikerscooby
Hi, its me again. As some of you might have detected, I now own and ride a '95 R1100R... So I am learning all the special things about this great bike.

 

One thing is confounding me. When the bike is running, In Neutral clutch out... I hear a rather loud noise not a rattle, not a grind, but rhythmic, and sort of clang clang clang.

Pulling the clutch causes it to stop. Cannot hear if it is rev-dependent because the noise of reving masks it.

 

Do "they all do that" or should I run to the dealer and throw large denomination bills at the service guy?

 

And as a side note... my non-operational ABS cured itself when I got a good charge on the battery.

 

Ducati dry clutches are famous for making these loud clanky noises; my Monster 900 has a dry clutch and makes the loudest clanking when in neutral with the clutch out.

 

Since these BMWs also have dry clutches, it would make sense that they would also make some noise in neutral with the clutch out. Mine does, and it has a similar sound as the Ducati, but not nearly as loud. I would think this is a normal sound. thumbsup.gif

 

 

(but then again I'm a newbie also, so I could be completely wrong)

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It's a little different, the Ducati has a dry multi-plate clutch similar to the standard oil cooled multi-plate clutch on most m/c's except without the oil bath. Without the oil dampening, you hear the plates rattling when the clutch is disengaged. BMW's have a single plate dry clutch, like most automobiles. The rattling in neutral is the gearsets in the transmission, not the clutch.

 

Your point about not worrying about it is completely correct however.

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