Who wants to guess the bill?

[riceburner]

Rockster is going into Vines BMW Guildford on Wednesday to have the following bearings replaced:

All main gearbox bearings (6): gearbox will be stripped.
Final Drive Crown wheel main bearing : final drive will be stripped.

Whoever gets closest to the final bill paid out gets a Beer (when I meet you. ) !
(I'm also going to be taking a hire bike out at £25 (hopefully they'll only charge me for one day's worth)

Oh - I'm having this done at the (st)Dealer ship because
a) I'm not confident doing bearings
b) my garage has no lighting, heating, or power.
c) I have no alternative form of transport - hence needing the hire bike
d) anything goes wrong... they can deal with it!

[jfslater98]

OK, I'll bite: £2125

Certainly hope it's waaay less than that. Good luck!

[sweatmark]

538 Pounds Sterling. Hope I'm wrong.

The gearbox service does provide a good spline check opportunity. How many miles now on the bike, 'burner?

[riceburner]

The quote* (WITH seasonal discounts) and including clutch replacement (while the bike's in bits) turned out to be as near as dammit to £1200. (the guys is looking at trimming it, but.....)

Unfortunately, my budget is realistically only £800.

So I've found an independant guy who's well thought of on UKGSer (Steptoe) and booked it in there for something like half the cost!
He's well experienced with the GS so I imagine he'll take a look at the splines and seals while it's all apart.



* my experience of BMW dealership quotes is to add at least 10% for the final bill after the work is done.....


oh - miles are at 69,600+ IIRC.

[DrAlf]

Hey RB. Steptoe is very good so you should be in safe hands although if it was me, I'd be looking at an ebay gearbox and final drive and doing the work yourself. It's pretty easy - hey, even I can change a gearfox and FD. Worth keeping ebay spares in stock, just in case I was going to say £1300 - do I win a beer?

[riceburner]

Hey RB. Steptoe is very good so you should be in safe hands although if it was me, I'd be looking at an ebay gearbox and final drive and doing the work yourself. It's pretty easy - hey, even I can change a gearfox and FD. Worth keeping ebay spares in stock, just in case I was going to say £1300 - do I win a beer?

I don't do ebay. I simply refuse.

As said - I don't have a lit garage so can't do the work during the week and can't risk anything dingle up through my ineptitude as I NEED the bike on a daily basis at the moment.

Final tweaked and discounted quite from Vines was £1127 (if I remember correctly).

[AndyRR]

He's probably already doing this, but be sure to have him replace the seals. I think there are 6. You could probably skip the neutral sense switch seal, but the input shaft seal should definitely go.
Doing that job without power is impossible. Everything has to be heated before disassembly / reassembly. I'm not sure what our local dealer would charge for that job. I would think about 8 hours for the transmission removal, rebuild and re-install (half the time spend holding a heat gun). Another 2 hours (?) for the FD. What's his hourly rate?

[riceburner]

He's probably already doing this, but be sure to have him replace the seals. I think there are 6. You could probably skip the neutral sense switch seal, but the input shaft seal should definitely go.
Doing that job without power is impossible. Everything has to be heated before disassembly / reassembly. I'm not sure what our local dealer would charge for that job. I would think about 8 hours for the transmission removal, rebuild and re-install (half the time spend holding a heat gun). Another 2 hours (?) for the FD. What's his hourly rate?

I think the hours quoted by Vines were along those lines, yes - possibly more.
oh - and seals are being done as a matter of course.

[Hottech]

Am I correct to think that you have had the bike for only 5 months and have to lay out all these expenses?

[riceburner]

Am I correct to think that you have had the bike for only 5 months and have to lay out all these expenses?

Wrong person.

I've had this bike nearly 4 years now, and it's on 70,000 miles or thereabouts. (I bought it with 1,200 on it).