I did not do the wrenching.
But, I provided the special wrenching tool required for the job.
Well, okay, a guy on the BMWST forum loaned me the tool.
So, I suppose, I should say: I trailered the BMW RT to Valparaiso, and I
watched two fine GSR members do the wrenching.
I didnt do any wrenching.
Yah, on the hottest most humid day of the year, these guys wanted to do this.
Mostly because are great guys, and cuz they wanted to see first hand what this BMW final drive failure is all about that have been hearing about - repeatedly - for nearly 20 years.
Many of you know Brian and Tim.
Mostly what I did was to use my one arm to keep a finger in the Clymer manual, and annoy these two guys by reading the next step.
I would be reading the next step and they are saying "yah, yah, this is just like the ujoint on a blah blah" or "yep, just like a yaddii yaddii on a HofferWaffer" or "yah, we already did that".
Was 80 and humid at 9am and well into the 90s by noon.
In addition to wrenching, there was some torching. Had to heat up some lock nuts and pivot set screws to break the treadlocker.
Spent a good amount of time trying to heat the first locknut. My 1500 watt industrial heat gun just wasnt getting it up to the required tempature. Tim had a plumbing torch, and that got things back underway.
Got my final drive off in about an hour.
Greased up the replacement final drive I got, and took a bit of fiddling to get the shafts and splines and what not to line back up.
Then the other fiddley task, the one that requires the special tool.
THe specail tool is a 30mm socket with a portion of the side cut out so can get a 12mm allen wrench inside it. Need to torque the pivot set screw (12mm) to a low torque (5 FtLbs), then hold it in place and tighten the lock nut (30mm) to a high torque (118) while holding the pivot set screw from turning -- and do all this before the red threadlocker sets.
Then finish the other stuff like rear wheel and brake caliper and sensors and stuff.
THen for extra fun, disassemble the original final drive to see what this BMW final drive failure is all about that has been an ongoing story for a couple decades.
THe main gears are fine (so is a candidate for being rebuilt). The bearing that fails is behind (behind in this pic, inboard toward wheel on the bike) the main ring gear, and all that stuff is press fit into the cover (right in pic).
CAn turn that main ring gear, but takes some effort, and can feel some grunching.
Was some talk about "Gee, Suzuki has been making these for since 1978 with no such problem."
But those have an axle thru them. These BMW's are a single sided swing arm.
Yah, good, so that makes it easier to remove the rear wheel and the final drive . . . . when the bearing fails.
THen time for test rides.
I told them they cant ride mo'cykls for decades and not experience a bike shaking sideways when cranking the starter, and not experience a bike that wants to tilt sideways when blip the throttle. And have to experience the over-powerfull brakes. And have to experience all this complexity for not much acceleration. And need to evaluate if sounds more like a 1960 Vee-Dub bug or what.
All done, loaded back up on trailer and out to lunch before 1pm.
Thanks guys. I greatly appreciate the help, and the friendship, and the adventure after being fairly inactive for 4 weeks. Now bike will be ready when I am.
