"whine" in final drive or tranny

[charlescrow]

My 06 r1200rt just turned 1,800 miles on it. I have noticed a noise at slow speeds from the final drive or tranny.Will this go away with time or is it normal? I have had two K-bikes, and seven R's, never heard any noise from them. Any feed back would be great. thanks, chas

[TEWKS]

Welcome Charles, What tires did your bike come with? Some whine more than others.

 

Pat

[charlescrow]

Pat,thanks for the response. I never thought of that,could be the tires. At the 600 mile check up I had the dealer change the final drive, so it must be the tires. Chas chasdi@att.net

[MikeH]

I was just about to post details of a similar vibration on my ST. It's an '06 model with just 6 K. miles. When travelling slowly through town in say 4th gear with 2000+ Rpm I can feel a droning type of vibration through the frame of the bike and the foot pegs. It oscillates louder every half second or so. I am taking the ST into the dealer next weekend for them to change warped brake discs and will ask them to look at it then.

 

I did wonder whether it could be a bearing on the final drive. I have Metzeler Z6 tyres fitted, but I wouldn't have thought that they would be causing a problem. Any feedback would be appreciated.

[beemerfan]

I was just about to post details of a similar vibration on my ST. It's an '06 model with just 6 K. miles. When travelling slowly through town in say 4th gear with 2000+ Rpm I can feel a droning type of vibration through the frame of the bike and the foot pegs. It oscillates louder every half second or so. I am taking the ST into the dealer next weekend for them to change warped brake discs and will ask them to look at it then.

 

I did wonder whether it could be a bearing on the final drive. I have Metzeler Z6 tyres fitted, but I wouldn't have thought that they would be causing a problem. Any feedback would be appreciated.

I had a similar experience with my RT a couple of months ago. It also had a slow, rough idle. My dealer said a vacuum line had come off. The problem went away immediately after this line was fixed.

 

Metzler Z6 rears have their faults, but I've not known them to whine. Never really noticed much whine from the front, either.

 

You mentioned experiencing this at 2000+ RPM. Anything below 3000 is mighty slow for 4th gear unless coasting. 3500 and above is more typical for 4th. You may just be hitting a nasty harmonic the BMW engineers didn't bother trying to balance out.

[Don_Eilenberger]

I did wonder whether it could be a bearing on the final drive.

As others pointed out - you are running it below an optimal RPM at 2K in town.. even thought the engine will do it.

 

The hexhead rear drives are not the design that gained such notoriety for failure on the oilheads and to some extent some K bikes. It's an entirely different and new design and doesn't use the large bearing that failed on the older design. It uses two simple tapered roller bearings that are not under tension or compression and if I had to guess - will likely last about forever in this application.

 

I haven't heard of any rash of hexhead drive failures - so I think your fear is unfounded. I also find earplugs give me a much nicer ride since motorcycles are by nature somewhat noisy - and the earplugs allow me to concentrate more on riding and not on how what I'm riding sounds.

 

YMMV and all that.. and I could be fulla'fudge..

[MikeH]

Thanks for the info. I'm guessing that around 2500 Rpm in 4th gear is approximately 30+ Mph. We have a lot of speed cameras and laser traps in the area (N. Wales).

 

I do use ear plugs, so can't actually hear the vibration but feel it through the foot pegs and frame. Once I accelerate away above 3000 Rpm then it disappears. Maybe I need to use higher revs, but my old Oilhead R1100RS would happily trickle along at those speeds in town with no adverse effects.

 

I seem to remember there were a number of final drive bearing failures on the R1200GS when it was launched in 2004? Maybe I'm getting mixed up with another model?

 

Anyway, I'll post the dealers comments when they've looked at it.

[Jim VonBaden]

Thanks for the info. I'm guessing that around 2500 Rpm in 4th gear is approximately 30+ Mph. We have a lot of speed cameras and laser traps in the area (N. Wales).

 

I do use ear plugs, so can't actually hear the vibration but feel it through the foot pegs and frame. Once I accelerate away above 3000 Rpm then it disappears. Maybe I need to use higher revs, but my old Oilhead R1100RS would happily trickle along at those speeds in town with no adverse effects.

 

I seem to remember there were a number of final drive bearing failures on the R1200GS when it was launched in 2004? Maybe I'm getting mixed up with another model?

 

Anyway, I'll post the dealers comments when they've looked at it.

 

Cruising at 2000 rpm is asking for future problems. The optimal RPM is anything above 3500.

 

As for the FD failures. There will always be failures of any companent on a bike, but there were definitely a bunch with the first 500 "05" BMW GS's that came out in 04.

 

Jim

[MikeH]

Cruising at 2000 rpm is asking for future problems. The optimal RPM is anything above 3500.

 

As for the FD failures. There will always be failures of any companent on a bike, but there were definitely a bunch with the first 500 "05" BMW GS's that came out in 04.

 

Jim

From your comments, Jim, I take it that the R1200 Hexheads are no where near as flexible in their power delivery compared to the old Oilheads? I'll have to change down 3 gears now for urban areas (30 Mph) , instead of just 2!

[Arizona_oldguy]

Hi everybody

 

After the first few months, I learned that my bike is much happier on the high side of 3500 rpm. I even cruise the back roads, up to about 60 mph in 5th, because in 6th I am below 4000. I generally get 52-54 mpg doing this. So I still only need to gear down two gears to get to 30 mph.

 

I was out on a very winding mountain road (SR 15 north of Silver City NM)last weekend. It is restricted to trailers under 20 feet for good reason, many of 15mph switchbacks and 20 mph curves; . I found that there were plenty of miles that I drove without ever leaving second gear. (disclaimer) "she who must be obeyed" is on the back and she controls top speed with fingers in my ribs. Even though we have an autocom. She says fingers work better. I was surprised that even though I drove over 100 miles during which I almost never got into 4th gear (and I am literally talking only 5 or 10 times for short straight aways). I still averaged over 49 mpg on the computer and at the fill ups. So with full hard cases and top case and 340 lbs of combined passenger and rider I am obviously still in a pretty efficient power range.

As a handy rule of thumb though I don't shift into second gear until 20mph, third gear at 30mph, and 4th gear at 40mph, fifth gear at 50 mph, and sixth gear at 60 mph. And that is on level ground with no hard acceleration. This works for me to keep the revs in a comfortable and economical range while not lugging the bike. I will run all day at below 60 mph in 5th gear, and never feel the need to shift up, the bike is really happy, smooth and low vibration if she is over 4000 rpm.

 

Glenn

[Albion]

Agree, and keeping to the speed limit in a higher gear is not that easy. My rule of thumb too is 2nd gear for a 20mph, 3rd for 30, 4th for 40.