Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

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MThomas
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Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by MThomas »

My bike has 22k miles on it and I believe the R1150r is a dry clutch.
What are the indicator(s) that the clutch is going bad and at what point should I start paying attention for said indicators?
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by peels »

it is a dry clutch, and barring abuse, or gear oil or other contaminant, it will last for a LOOOOONG time.

slipping is your indicator.

when you take off, do not allow too much rpm or slipping. just let it float away as you release, and then throttle.

its pretty robust. looks like a VW engine in there. (ive been told its the same disc)
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by towerworker »

+1 on what peels said. Should last a long time. Yours is barely broken in (provided it's not been abused). I've some friends with 150K+ miles on stock clutch.
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by sweatmark »

MThomas wrote:My bike has 22k miles on it and I believe the R1150r is a dry clutch.
What are the indicator(s) that the clutch is going bad and at what point should I start paying attention for said indicators?
This is a question for kirby with >200K miles on his Rockster, and - IIRC - the original clutch.
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by peels »

^^^^

I read of one (1100) lasting 250k. :)


with only 22k on the clock, I wouldnt even have failed clutch in my mental rolodex yet.

now. what I Would consider,... crack it apart over winter, and see if the clutch splines are fine, lube them, and change gearbox seals when in there.. if they're ok, the worry will leave you.
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by kirby »

8
Last edited by kirby on Fri Jun 16, 2017 11:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by kirby »

sweatmark wrote:
MThomas wrote:My bike has 22k miles on it and I believe the R1150r is a dry clutch.
What are the indicator(s) that the clutch is going bad and at what point should I start paying attention for said indicators?
This is a question for kirby with >200K miles on his Rockster, and - IIRC - the original clutch.





I have 232K miles on my bought new, Rock. Only pulled it down once so far at 169K. No spline ware and I bought a new clutch plate (just in case I needed it).
Never have had a seal leak or any other for that matter.

New plate measured .310, old one measured .290 +-(from memory). Needless to say its still in there. If you take this assembly apart then new bolts all around are needed.
My riding has been 95% solo with my kit at about 60 pounds. No stop and go and not much traffic. (we split lanes in CA but I do it everywhere).

I will admit I am smooth on the clutch 'cause all my vehicles are standard shift and have a habit of non abuse.

Done about 6 track days in the past and one all out club race.

Over 1 million miles on single tracks.

:-)
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by sykospain »

Believe me, I've served my time on this splines issue, having split, with its tail high up in the air, my previous Rockster 3 years ago. You can do a spline-premature-wear check without ripping the bike in half.

Several of you might already know this, but here's how....

Remove the plastic cover of the starter motor - 2 bolts and a locating Peter Powell, sorry - dowel. The underside bolt is an absolute Schwein to get at - mind you don't tear a piece out of your scalp on the footpeg. To lift the cover away, reach behind with a passing pygmy's little fingers to unclip the power socket connector.
You do have a pygmy among your acquaintances, yes ?

There is ABOLUTELY no need to remove the two high-power bolt-on connectors from the starter motor. Just get Her Indoors to come out to the garage to hold the heavy motor to one side whilst you reach behind it and snip the ziptie that's holding the 2 wires that are fed behind it. Make sure you know where to re-tie them, without them getting trapped in the bell housing interface when you bolt the starter motor back on. IIRC, one of those wires is the N detector and the other is the side-stand cutout switch feed.

With the longest, thinnest screwdriver you possess, plus a high power flashlight in your other hand, ( Don't tell me, the batteries are flat....) peer at the miniscule amount of flywheel / clutch friction plate / gearbox input spline that you can discern in there. Takes a few seconds to find out what you're looking at. See pictures available on various web sites.

With her other hand, or teeth, ask Her Indoors to squeeze the clutch lever with the bike in first gear, without letting the starter drop down into your line-of-sight, or alternatively ziptie the clutch lever to the handgrip previously, with the vehicle in first gear, if you're one of those "I plan ahead" types..

Now you can prod, jab, scrape, jildy or whatever you can manage at the outside edge of the clutch assembly, to try to turn it a few degrees radially WHILST keeping a beady eye on the tiny segment of the gearbox input spline that you can observe.

There should be no more than a few degrees of radial movement of the clutch pack, before you see the spline make the slightest hint of respective radial movement. Kushtie.

Do not under any circumstances be tempted to squirt any lube in there if you're happy. It'll only end up on the clutch friction plate. Judder-judder....That interface needs no lubrication. Honest.

If there's more than that 5 or 10 degrees of slop, prepare for an imminent 8-hour job to strip the bike in half and install one of the new longer-splined-hub clutch friction-plates that have only fairly recently come onto the spares market for about a hundred bucks. Esmir's idea, borrowed from Canadian Bruno, of rivetting a 6mm-thick spacer between the friction plate and its hub, is no longer available.

Buena suerte...

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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by EasyBee »

Esmir states that Motobins in the UK has them, but I cannot find them on Motobins
https://www.motobins.co.uk/bmw-parts.ph ... ef=R1150GS
Or did I overlook something? :oops:

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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by wncbmw »

I had the transmission pulled on my recently departed '02 1150R to check things out. The clutch was still within spec.

The splines and input shaft however was almost toast! :x
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by peels »

wncbmw wrote:I had the transmission pulled on my recently departed '02 1150R to check things out. The clutch was still within spec.

The splines and input shaft however was almost toast! :x

how many miles?

tore mine apart at around 19k... ZERO spline wear.

still would be interested in this one to see overall #'s of bad ones. its quite obviously a design/production flaw, on only some machines.
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by wncbmw »

Around 67,000 miles. Found out the 2nd final drive bearing was shot at the same time. Not a good day!
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by sykospain »

wncbmw wrote:Around 67,000 miles. Found out the 2nd final drive bearing was shot at the same time. Not a good day!
Yours wncbmw is obviously one of the relatively small batch of motor/transmission units which were wrongly mated-up at the Berlin factory. A machining and assembly error that got past Berlin's 'quality control' - I should co-co...
The misalaignment of the clutch bell-housing as it mates to the gearbox means that the friction-plate hub and the gearbox input splined shaft are not in a perfectly straight line. Which causes the splined shaft to dance about inside the plate's hub with every revolution of the crankshaft, whether the vehicle is in gear or not, thus effectively machining the soft pig-iron of the hub and stripping it over time, in the same process wearing the edges off the much harder splined shaft's profiles.
BMW AG refused to accept or at least acknowledge this machining/assembly error, refused to issue a recall for the affected bikes and turned away requests for compensation from their owners.
And of course a few years later quietly redesigned the boxer motor to include a cheapo outsourced Chinese multi-plate "anti-hopping" ( ¿ what the feck does THAT mean ? ) wet clutch pack. Schweinhünde....
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by kirby »

Thank you sykospain!!
Misalignments caused by manufacturing tolerance between Getrag and BMW where limits added together on some units caused the system to fail mechanically.
This is what I have posted many times and people still blame all sorts of stories from cruising at too low an RPM in 6th to adding spacers to the clutch plate or the best one..BMW enginers don't know what they are doing.
I think its awful that BMW swept the problem under the table! In truth the % of failure to units produced was low. But the internet stories makes it look like an epidemic.

When visiting Berlin factory I brought this up and people just shook their heads. They all knew.
A corporate decision(business) which is unlike BMW where most times the engineering department rules. Its their reputation on the line, much damage done.
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by peels »

yeah. all that... lol

if they did, we could possibly find out which units had the potential flaw.

you KNOW they know what happened....
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by vexlak »

I have a full set of parts on the clutch job which I never did. Any interest?
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by David R »

I tore my 2000 R1100Rt down at 100,000 miles. Clutch still good, splines good.

At 136,000 splines were ready to strip, only a few thousandths left.

Friction material was fine.

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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by sykospain »

Vexlak - I'm interested that you have some parts for the clutch job. You prolly already know that an enterprising Thailand manufacturer is now supplying the usual BMW Motorrad Spares dealers with a complete solution to the short-hub problem of the Sachs dry clutch friction plate - a complete new plate of their own - not a Sachs - already fitted with a longer fully-broached hub that will completely cover the gearbox Input Shaft splines.

Most people are charging the equivalent of a hundred bucks for this one-stop solution, so Esmir of ADVRider forum fame has apparently stopped supplying his Bruno-style 6mm-thick spacer kit.

What are the parts you have ? I'll no doubt be splitting my second '04 Rockster in half this winter anyway, should NEVER have sold the first one, even tho' this second Tiger-Stripe example runs fine at the moment with only a genuine 25K UK miles on the clock.
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by Hyja1 »

Sykospain, Can you tell me who these spares dealers are that are offering this redesigned clutch solution?
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Re: Expected range of mileage on dry clutch and signals it's time to replace?

Post by Hyja1 »

I just answered my own question by checking beemer boneyard. Now my question is, because I have a 2002 R1150R, (a suspect year?). should I invest in this disc plate and the cost to install it, even though I have not suffered the spline failure? Wouldn't this make sense as good insurance? Or maybe I have a bike that will never have a problem?
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