Clutch slipping in high gear

[lguardiola]

kirby,
I did not buy it new, I brought from a friend of mine in December 2012 (11,300 miles at the time)...in regards to the spline lube, if this was the issue wouldn't it have gone bad a long time ago?

I already got the clutch plate and I plan on just cleaning the rest of components real good and reusing them...but like you mentioned, I don't see around any of the seals where there would be an oil leak...I would think that if one of them was bad it would be obvious which one it was...

[lguardiola]

kirby,

forgot to mention, I didn't get the bike new but I do know that the clutch has never been replaced or any time of work has been done on it aside from the regular oil changes...

[kirby]

OK that good.
Its been a hot subject (greasing the splines) and some really innovative??!! methods have been created to do that on a regular basis,(not needed for regular maintenance), for a long time and the contamination really looks like grease to me.
Did you ever bleed the clutch or find it low on fluid? I say that because the clutch rod and master look to be leaking a bit. If sure could be it.

Forgot to answer you question about the spline lube. I've seen this before and it usually takes some time and miles for the grease to work its way down to the plate depending on how you ride and the climate where you ride.

:-)

[lguardiola]

I did the 12K miles maintenance on it but I did not do the clutch fluid...I only bled the brake fluid....like you mentioned, because the clutch rod looks to have oil on it I would think it's the slave cylinder, but then when you look at the slave cylinder pictures it look very clean...the clutch fluid looks pretty clean and when I opened the master cylinder the oil in there is clean as well....

is there another seal somewhere that I am missing?....

[kirby]

I don't think so. It would take allot of DOT 4 to contaminate the clutch like that me thinks. And since you have not been losing fluid its unlikely the cause. If the splines over lubed it could migrate up onto the rod I believe.
I pulled my '04 down at 169K for the first time and it was pretty clean. It was the first time I put any grease on the input shaft and like I said very light!
I'm over 200K now and everything is original but then I bought mine new and know the history and all maint. done by me and only ridden by me.
Don't think you have any seals leaking on the engine or transmission???? Both are fiddly to replace (understatement).
Great pics BTW

[lguardiola]

200K?...wow, that's awesome....do you think it could be the lube on the splines from assembly at the factory???...

[kirby]

Can't say!
Mine at 169K was dry with just a bit of green on the shaft left over from the factory assembly. Almost no ware on the shaft.

I have heard of people wanting to lube the shaft without pulling the trans. They use what ever method they can come up with to do so. The fav seems to be pull the starter and try it from there!!

Having said that I guess its possible that yours left the factory with too much grease(possible?)

Another possibility is that sometime before you purchased the machine there was a clutch master cylinder failure that dumped allot of fluid into the housing area, then fixed. This fluid may have coated the plate and it just took time before it start to slip at high power???:

[lguardiola]

at over 200K miles your bike is a testament to how great these bikes are...unfortunately mine only last 19K miles

on the bright side, the splines seem to be in perfect condition and I don't have to worry about that...

[MMH]

Tag - great photos! And, I am in the same boat & will start my teardown in a couple of months.

[kirby]

After more thought, your clutch could have been contaminated for a very long time and either you didn't really notice the slip (might have been very slight at first) or like I said before something was leaking before and then was repaired or just stopped. However the contamination was there and it took a while for it to cause the slipping to begin. Also if the bike ever set idle in storage? for some time the seals can sometimes get "hard" for lack of a better word, then once back in operation they soften up but maybe leaked for a bit. Looks like (from the pic) the transmission input shaft seal could be a possible source but does not look like its leaking now.( as well as the clutch master.)
Just a thought.

[lguardiola]

Well my friend who I bought it from got it back in 2006 and I got it from him in 2012...I think that in all the time that he had it he only put about 10,500 miles on it...so for the year, it has very few miles but as far as I know this bike has never been taken apart...but that is based on what I know about the history of it...

[kirby]

1

[CycleRob]

Any oil in the transmission input shaft rear end area is bad. Since the slave housing seals the oil in, it ends up travelling thru the hollow input shaft where it dumps it (mostly) on the front side of the clutch plate. You should have noted that it smells like tranny fluid. Some full synthetic tranny fluids, while 'rumoured' to cause seal leakage, do not have that powerful foul/unpleasant gear oil smell, so . . .

You'll also want to check the black plastic transmission air vent forward on the rear top of the tranny for mud wasp blockage in the off season. Needless to say at this level of disassembly, that tranny seal and maybe the "other 3" seals too, should be replaced.

[lguardiola]

CycleRob,
is this (pics below) the transmission air vent?

[lguardiola]

CycleRob,
Are these the seals you are talking about? In total it would be Number 2, 3, 4, 5???

[CycleRob]

Answer to all questions is YES.

Ooops!, I forgot about the seal for the shift drum shaft, item 4.
These thumbnails will take you to one of my best "necessity is the mother of invention" mods to my long gone R1150R. It practically spoon feeds you on how to make what I consider a necessary mod when everything is all apart. This mod PREVENTS a DOT4 or tranny seal leak from destroying the clutch plate, while at the same time telling you as it first occurs -and- by its odor/composition whether it is clutch slave or tranny fluid. Not shown, I added on a 2 foot long clear tubing drain hose that was routed in a steady downhill direction to a location below the oil level sight window.




These are just for FYI:


Edit: To change to faster, better photo provider and add more pics.

[lguardiola]

wow, I would be very hesitant to drill a hole like that on the bike....but it probably is a great idea....I'm still trying to understand how the slave cylinder works..so the housing of the slave cylinder shouldn't have any oil in it??....when I saw that oil in there I wasn't sure if that was good or not but it did go through my mind that the oil could travel through the push rod on over to the clutch assembly...

in regards to changing the seals, how hard is it to do this job???...I was comfortable with taking it apart but I'm not sure about taking the transmission apart, I'm afraid I will mess it up....

I see that you are in Gainesville, Ga and I am in Savannah....it be great if we were a little closer to get more tips from you in person....

[CycleRob]

"wow, I would be very hesitant to drill a hole like that on the bike....but it probably is a great idea".
It's an excellent idea and no big deal as it is a large area of solid Aluminium. If you don't have a drill that long you can drill in at 6 O'clock from the inside top-down, angled inward toward the front, but it may be harder to hammer in the brass tube. The bottom draining trench is needed because the slave OD fits snugly in the case bore ID.

" . . .so the housing of the slave cylinder shouldn't have any oil in it??"
Correct. Dry and clean.

"I see that you are in Gainesville, Ga and I am in Savannah, SC....it'd be great if we were a little closer to get more tips from you in person."
I agree, that's some day trip, but we do have an upstairs guest bedroom/shower/bathroom. TravelMath.com says it's a 5 hour 7 min, 305 mile drive away. There is always the telephone: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=30152

"in regards to changing the seals, how hard is it to do this job???...I was comfortable with taking it apart but I'm not sure about taking the transmission apart, I'm afraid I will mess it up....:
The seals can be changed without taking the tranny apart. Unless you are a bike mechanic with experience, it's not easy to do and there is a good chance you'll cause very expensive damage. Removal involves turning 2 opposing sheet metal screws part way thru near the outermost seal wall, but not too far in that it would contact and distort the steel ball bearing cage. Then using 2 nail puller pry bars under the screw heads, remove the seal. You could take the tranny to the BMW dealer to change just the 2 input shaft seals, the one that's leaking and the one that's very difficult to access. I believe BMW will change them without disassembly, but can't say for sure they would on a customer's bike (I myself would not do it), as opposed to a trade-in bike, where the risk and responsibility is different. Give them a call.

[lguardiola]

Hey guys
here I am again with more questions as I am getting ready to put it all back together...I went ahead and replaced the REAR input shaft seal and the output shaft seal that connects to the driveshaft as it was all full of oil as well...I have a couple of questions which I fear I'm not going to like the answers to...

First,
as it turns out when I removed the clutch assembly I only marked the cover plate, the clutch plate, and the flywheel, but I didn't mark the pressure plate or the diaphragm spring, how bad is this????....I've heard if the components aren't aligned as before this could cause vibrations.....also, why would I need to mark the clutch plate if I am going to replace it with a new plate?...I bought the Siebenrock clutch plate from Beemerboneyard and as far as I have seen I don't see any marks on it to align it...does it matter???...I have attached pics of the old and new clutch plates...

Second,
I read in the manual that you should not reuse the bolts on the flywheel or the clutch plate; you should install new ones...why can't you install the same bolts; I see no damage in them at all?

Third,
how important is it to mark the different part of the driveshaft when you take it apart...the reason I ask this is because I removed the driveshaft and I didn't mark either end of it...it is removed from the transmission and from the final drive...I am afraid that this may cause vibration problems, but to be honest I don't see why...I would think that as long as the splines line up everything should be ok....but I may be wrong and now everything is going to be out of whack....

any tips, advice or info I can get is very appreciated...

[AZBMWRIDER]

BMW has always recommended replacing the crankshaft and clutch bolts if they are removed .
I know owners that do and don't replace them, have not heard of any disasters because of reusing them .
I'm only familiar with airhead bikes, but do the clutch bolts have lock washers on them ???
If they do, I would suggest getting new replacements, if you reuse the hardware, I would also suggest using some sort of Loctite type product on the clutch bolts regardless if they are new or reused .