Spline pics and crank play.

[David R]

I think I might have hijacked the other thread which I did not want to do. SO here are the pics I was asked for.

 

One of the posters said maybe the crankshaft was loose and the rear main should be replaced. I checked it with a bar and could move the crank up and down but not side to side. The up and down felt like a LOT to me so I put the indicator on it. I came up with .004". IF I read the manual right the spec is .1mm which converts to .00393" If I am correct and read the book right I am sticking with my plan and installing a new disc.

 

 

 

 

 

[David R]

So next I cleaned up the splines and took some pics so you folks can see what I had.

 

I truly picked the ones that show the wear the best.

 

 

 

 

Flame away.

 

All I can say is I see a newer RT in my future.

[David R]

A little review,

 

Splines at 106,000

 

 

Disc I pulled out at 136,000 This is the disc that came with the bike. I have never removed it.

 

 

 

With the clutch disengaged, I could turn the disc on the shaft 5/8" with out the shaft turning measured at the outside edge of the disc and pressure plate.

 

I think I was less than 500 miles away from total failure.

David

 

I think I may have bent the disc a little when I R and R the transmission at 106,000. This would explain the mis alignment wear pattern on the spline that was not there 30,000 miles ago.

[dirtrider]

Evening David

 

You already know me feeling on a new trans input shaft.

 

You seem to know & accept the risks of not replacing the input shaft along with the new clutch disk.

 

From what I see of your worn input shaft you are going to have high point loading between that worn shaft & the new disk with straight splines.

 

How quickly you will fail the new disk due to that uneven spline match up remains to be seen.

 

Just keep tabs on the disk to shaft wear & address it when it gets too bad.

 

[David R]

Thanks dirtrider. Yeah, I should put in a new shaft, and some main bearings and have the crank turned and the whole clutch instead of just the disc and a set of Ohlins....

 

I see a newer bike in my future. I absolutely love this thing, but it seems to have reached the end of its economic life. I feel I could start spending money on this thing for ever which I do not care to do. Had I known about the clutch, shaft and crank I would have More money to put down on a newer one.

 

I was looking for a noise before I tore it apart. I turned the rear wheel and could distinctly feel the splines loose, but at the time did not know it. Once I pulled the starter and looked in there and turned the wheel in first gear, it was one of those AH HAH! moments. Now I think I can check it on the center stand and I know the measurable limit if I pull the starter.

 

How much should I spend on a bike that is only worth $2500?

 

A man has to know his limitations.

 

The camhead is 50 to 8o pounds lighter than this bike. I would love that.

[OoPEZoO]

Tick tick tick tick tick

 

I tried to save my RT by some preventative maintenance. It still let me sit on the side of the road on the last two trips I took it on. The first time it just ruined my weekend of riding, and I managed to fix it in the parking lot. The 2nd time it came home on a trailer and never moved under its own power again.

 

How much should I spend on a bike that is only worth $2500?

A man has to know his limitations.

The camhead is 50 to 8o pounds lighter than this bike. I would love that.

 

That was the breaking point for me. I couldn't justify spending more money for it to potentially leave me stranded on the side of a mountain again. I couldn't trust it enough to ever leave my zip code, let alone take off on a trip. I knew thats when it was done for. If I could have spent $1500 or so to fix it and guarantee that it wouldn't happen again, I would most likely still be riding it. I didn't think that was possible, so it was the end of the line.

 

Its a tough decision to make, and unfortunately one you have to figure out on your own. I hope it either treats you well or gets you a good trade in value on something else.

 

BTW.......the Hexhead GS is over 100 Lbs lighter than the Oilhead RT, and has more umph........it's also a complete blast in the twisties and I like it better on long trips. Just sayin

[Paul Mihalka]

"TW.......the Hexhead GS is over 100 Lbs lighter than the Oilhead RT, and has more umph........it's also a complete blast in the twisties and I like it better on long trips. Just sayin"

 

I guess that explains it why I have a R1200GS with 170K miles. I hope it makes my 10K September trip, please keep your collective fingers crossed. After that I have other plans...

[David R]

Thanks folks I see another BMW in my future. I looked at the 800 and it was just too small for the type of riding I do.

 

36,000 miles in almost 3 years.

 

I could settle for an R1200R. Just not a GS. Blacktop is all I will ride on.

 

Love the boxer.

[nrp]

Did you check the flywheel radial motion in the lateral direction too? Assuming the bearing shell is worn egg shaped, you may want to sniff around a little to find out which way it is the greatest, and measure that direction.

 

You don't have to measure all directions. With your finger tip you can pretty quickly feel about which way it is the worst.

 

Obviously your new clutch disk will wear its spline pitch dia profile to match with the input shaft profile. Maybe you can get by with just a more frequent hypodermic re-lube job?

[David R]

I checked fore and aft with the indicator. Almost zero. Left and right which is what I expected was very little. Up and down, clunk clunk... I had gravity on my side and maybe if I put it in the middle of the .004 up and down I could get some side to side.

 

I am one of the few of us that can say I wore out a BMW boxer.

 

For the spline lube, I would like to drill the hub with small holes so I can inject grease in it.

 

I cleaned up the shaft. I am going to lube it and assemble tonight.

 

Back to what I have done since I bought the bike, Just ride it.

 

Looking forward to a newer one. Not a loss in the end.

 

 

 

David

 

[OoPEZoO]

Looking forward to a newer one. Not a loss in the end.

 

Agreed on that point as well. When it was time to retire mine, there were no hard feelings. I rode the crap out of that bike and loved every minute of it. I don't feel like it owed me anything. Just a bunch of fond memories.......and now a bunch of parts in the garage

[nrp]

Agree your crank clearance is OK. Consider a bent hypodermic needle (use heat) to inject small amount of grease into each spline tooth.

 

However you do it, you will have to lube each tooth as there is no way that small amounts of lube (which would otherwise wreck your clutch) will work their way around the spline.

[roger 04 rt]

In the photo below which I copied from the OP, is the uneven spline wear due to lack of lubrication, misalignment of the transmission to engine interface or some type of torque induced concentration of the engine's force ... or something else?

 

[upflying]

Due to the Ca budget problems, CHP is running their '02-'04 RT-P's way, way over 100,000 miles now. The rider/officer are told that if they need repairs exceeding $2,000, they are taken out of service and retired.

The motor officer drives a car until the economy improves.

[upflying]

 

How much should I spend on a bike that is only worth $2500?

 

 

 

Due to the Ca budget problems, CHP is running their '02-'04 RT-P's way, way over 100,000 miles now. The rider/officer are told that if they need repairs exceeding $2,000, they are taken out of service and retired.

The motor officer drives a car until the economy improves.

[mneblett]

Looks like the splines have had adequate lube (no rusted splines or uniform wear over the entire spline). My vote is either misalignment, or a very slightly bent clutch carrier. I seem to recall Paul Glaves saying he caused premature spline wear like that (in ~30K miles) after bending the carrier when re-assebling the bike after a previous tranny removal (the splines were in good shape with over 100k on them, but the next tranny removal at 30K more showed this sort of wear).

[dirtrider]

Afternoon Roger

 

That angular wear shown is pretty typical of a mis-alignment of the trans to the engine on the BMW 1150.

 

No way to know for sure if that is the ONLY thing that causes similar spline wear but on the low mile 1150 bikes I have worked on for similar spline wear they all have had trans to engine mis-alignment issues. So far none have had a 2nd failure after a new input shaft & new clutch disk installed with the centering of the trans to the engine also aligned using offset trans locator dowels.

 

The above is on low to mid mileage 1150 OEM spline failures.

 

I really don't know what Dave has going on as he seemed to get to high mileage with decent looking splines then within 30,000 additional miles went from minor spline wear showing to major spline wear showing.

 

SO- maybe something got bent during the 106,000 mile work, or possibly some is due to that max wear on the rear main bearing (that is a trans to crankshaft mis-alignment right there) , or maybe a new disk was installed at 106,000 that didn't perfectly match the slightly worn trans splines, of his riding habits have changed, or ???????

 

There isn't a doubt in my mind that most low mileage spline failures are caused mainly by alignment issues.

One thing do know & that is on low MILEAGE 1150 spline failures that if the alignment isn't checked & corrected the splines will strip at about the same miles as the first failure give or take a little.

 

Other possible factors--

Maybe some additional spline wear caused by lots of rear main bearing wear. (back to that alignment issue again)

 

Or even possible that poor running engines that hammer the splines with harsh firing pulses at lower RPM's accelerate the wear a bit.

 

[David R]

Read my posts again. I think I may have put a small bend in the disc, but am not sure. I have no other explanation. This is why I am just replacing the disc. I made some alignment pins fir the installation.

 

 

I do not have a poor running engine.

David

[mneblett]

I did read that -- a bent clutch disk hub would not cause such a wear pattern.

 

The clutch disk hub rotates with the tranny input shaft -- they are rotationally fixed relative to one another. If there was any wear due to a mis-alighned hub, it would be on the "tight" side of the hub, and there would be no wear on the opposite side of the input shaft. Your pic clearly shows uniform wear around the entire rear end of the shaft -- exactly the sort of wear that would be caused by the clutch carrier's rotation axis being misaligned with the input shaft's rotation axis.

 

I would suggest not just replacing the disc, but also measuring the clutch carrier for axial and radial runout.

[David R]

mneblett, you make a good point about the wear on one side of the shaft.

 

I never pulled the disc last time I had it apart. I didn't even inspect the splines IN the disc.

 

The shaft shows a little wear near the rear the first time I had it out, but not much. It would not have been case hardened because it would be easier to harden the whole shaft. If I had the shaft out,I would have it tested like I did the clutch hub.

 

Tick tick tick tick tick

thanks a bunch

 

David

[OoPEZoO]

mneblett, you make a good point about the wear on one side of the shaft.

 

I never pulled the disc last time I had it apart. I didn't even inspect the splines IN the disc.

 

The shaft shows a little wear near the rear the first time I had it out, but not much. It would not have been case hardened because it would be easier to harden the whole shaft. If I had the shaft out,I would have it tested like I did the clutch hub.

 

Tick tick tick tick tick

thanks a bunch

 

David

 

Always glad to help.

 

I did have a crazy thought last night. I never checked the crank shaft play on my RT. I still have the motor sitting in my garage with the whole clutch assembly bolted to it. After seeing the numbers you pulled from yours on the vertical axis, I'm curious what numbers I would find on mine. It had 126k miles on it, so I'm assuming it will be somewhat similar. I'll get it checked out this weekend and see what I come up with.

[David R]

I don't think .004" is enough to cause a problem.

 

I was hoping Invader would correct me if I am wrong, but it reads radial play max of .1 mm.

the next line says .13mm .0051"

and axial play .2 mm or .00787"

 

Truly a few thousandths isn't much.

 

As the bike got warmer the noise I was getting louder.

 

Was I hearing main bearing noise or the clutch splines?

 

I WILL know after I get it together, clutch splines should be quieter.

 

SO all in all, maybe I effed it up by taking it apart at 106,000 miles..... Maybe not, only the shadow knows.

 

I would like to get another year out of this bike but am already thinking carry the title with me and go from dealer to dealer to see what I can find.