Ed's transmission woes...

[Ed Miller]

Hmph.  As of yesterday I have considerably more to do and to spend, tho my income has not increased.  I was riding to the coast with my brother when I started noticing some weird vibrations, but I thought I might be imagining them.  Then the tranny started whining loud in 5th gear.  I pulled over to tell my brother I needed to head for home, but when we took off again I couldn't get past second gear before I heard the whine.  It did not seem to be clutch related, as the clutch seemed to be working fine.  I had the bike towed home, oh the shame.  At home I let it idle in the different gears (jack stand holding the rear tire up!) and got to third before I heard a low grumbling grinding sound from the tranny... sounds like bad bearings but I won't know for a while.  It has about 48,200 miles on it.

Annual mileage:  about 9,000 on the R65, about 2,000 on the Triumph (had fussy little issues with it, including that it took me much longer than I thought to paint it!).  I think I'm done for a while.  Naturally today is a beautiful sunny day!

I do have new roundels to put on the bike.  

[Justin B.]

Ed, that's about the mileage the tranny went south in my '95 RT.  [smiley=shocked2.gif] It started with a soft clunking sound when I would push it up into the garage after I got home.  Satisfied it was not loose u-joint flange bolts I continued to ride and kept an eye/ear on it.  [smiley=lurker.gif] I then started getting louder whine in the lower gears.  Once I started getting pronounced whine in 5th gear I pulled it and swapped in my "spare".  

Once I had the trans out it was difficult to rotate the output shaft.  :-? It would rotate fairly smooth about 30 - 40 degrees, then tighten up to the point where I could just rotate with my fingertips, then smooth, tight, etc.  Upon draining the lube (prior to removal) there were just a couple of shiny flecks on the drain plug magnet, along with the usual "fuzz".

Luckily I didn't let it get to the point where it was growling/rumbling and all it needed was a bearing and shim job.   If you don't let it go too long then the rebuild is not "real" expensive, mine was a little over $300 for new bearings, seals, shimming, gasket, and neutral switch.  

Oh, and don't forget your new emblems!  

[Ed Miller]

(suspiciously) ...hey, I didn't start this thread.  Mostly because I know how to remove the tranny.  This afternoon I'll drain the oil (checking the level first:  what if it's my fault and I can't blame BMW?!) but until I have a plan of action worked out I don't know that I'll actually remove it.  I don't want it to sit around for months in pieces for me to lose.  The local BMW guru is on vacation for a month, of course.  I emailed Matt at Boxerworks to price a working used one, and a friend of mine told me about another local guy to check out.  It would be nice to find a working used one (from, say, '93) to install for now, and have mine rebuilt when I can better afford it.  But $300 doesn't sound bad; I feared we were talking in the $600 dollar range.  

[msbuck]

If a shop does the work, you'll be looking at more than $600!  If you do your own labor, the parts shouldn't be too bad.  Graham had his rebuilt (after 139,000 miles) and we argued with the shop until we got the price down below $700, but they originally wanted over $1200!!  [smiley=thud.gif]  That's after we removed the transmission and took it to them...

I guess I'm lucky with over 60k on mine and no sign of trouble (knock on wood!)  [smiley=smash.gif]

[Bob_Roller]

Hey Ed, Matt from Boxerworks is trying to get ahold of you, go to Boxerworks.com for his email address.

[Justin B.]

Ed, I figured that since your troubles were technical in nature, and would likely produce considerable discussion, I'd give it a life of it's own!    My e-Bay 1982 R100 "spare" cost me $300 plus shipping which I think was in the  $15 - $20 range.  I figured with three bikes that were consistently ridden, that all used the same trans, it made sense to have a spare.  

I had the '95 trans rebuilt and "rotated" it to the "spares" shelf, although I may install it this summer to make sure the rebuilder got it right!     I have no doubts that it will be OK as the shop, Boxers by Bruce, is well thought of around this area.  You can contact him through http://www.boxerbruce.com/

I am interested in what you find on your drain plug.

Aïda, that's robbery!    Surely, that wasn't with your employee discount!!!    [smiley=shocked2.gif]    [smiley=shocked2.gif]    [smiley=shocked2.gif]  But, I suppose at that mileage he got his money's worth out of it...

[msbuck]

Well, that did include replacing the input shaft and 'while they were at it' since there was some signs of wear we had them replace all the bearings as well.  And the reduced price was based on an employee discount, although it wasn't the shop where I work.  Labor rates these days ain't cheap ($70+ per hour). We did check pricing at other places as well (including Bob's BMW) and it seemed reasonable at the time - at least the final price did. We did look for a used tranny as well, but you know they are hard to find when you need them...

[Justin B.]

Yeah, everything "hides" when you need one!    I decided that I would eventually need one so started haunting e-Bay for one and bid on every one that looked promising.  After about 6 months of patience I was able to get a "recently rebuilt" one from an '82 R100RT for $300.    But, I had seen one sell for over $500 during that six month "observation" period...  

[Ed Miller]

I sure hope I can flush one out of hiding faster than that.  Matt at Boxerworks (I called him, thanks for the heads-up.) was going  to see what they had and let me know some options, but the prices he was mentioning for a good used one was about a thousand dollars, a new one is up to almost 2,000 (dang our weak dollar!) and rebuilding one (bearings and shims) would be about a thousand dollars as well.  No pretty pictures there.  If I can't find something good but cheaper I may invest in some tools from Ed Korn.  I had the tranny apart on my Triumph but nothing was wrong so I put it back together.  The BMW tranny is very different, though.  

Oh:  I drained the oil last night.  There were palpible metal flecks, the biggest maybe .5 mm, of shiny hard stuff.  I'm thinking bearing material; certainly no gear teeth or anything really awful.

I will pull the tranny out today and hook the swing arm back up so I can roll the bike around as needed.  Luckily at my last tech day in Portland I helped two different people remove their transmissions.  One was Mike's!  

I'll keep everybody posted, and hopefully not month by month.

[Justin B.]

Dang, Ed, that sure seems awful steep...  e-mail Bruce, at Boxers by Bruce, and see what his price is now.  I bet it is waaaay under what you have been quoted, even with the shipping.  I hate "quoting prices" for a shop but when he did mine last summer it was more than $300, but less that $400.  This could have been due to it being the slow season when everybody's ridin' instead of fixin' but you might want to check with him.  I dropped my tranny off at his shop on a Saturday, and the following Wednesday he called and told me it was done!

I have thought about trying to do a rebuild myself, someday.  I have scrounged a 5 speed rear cover (with a busted clutch arm pivot) which I plan on having milled to the proper thickness to make a "shimming plate" and I think I have all of the measurement tools, etc.

[Ed Miller]

Here's a pretty well illustrated article on rebuilding one:

http://homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/joerg.hau/mot/gearbox.htm

And Ed Korn sells the tools.  Actually, I don't remember if he sells a distance peice; I think he uses a different method to measure the shaft end play.  I think that's probably a job I could do but it would take time.  I would like to find a working used one, stick that in the bike for now, then rebuild my tranny and install the updated shift kit at my temporal and financial Laure.

So far the only used one I've found is local, and the guy wants 500 dollars for it plus mine in exchange.  750 if I want to keep mine.  For perspective, my dealer will sell me one for a bit under 2200 dollars, with a 1 year warranty.  The used one is from an '83, so it should already have the 80 dollar shift kit installed, so that would be nice.

I emailed Ted Porter to get an idea of what he would charge to do the work, with the shift kit, as he's been helpful.  I'll get a  hold of Boxers by Bruce, too.  Thanks for the link.

[NC Steve]

Ed, I'm not too up on major component interchangeability, but there's a "totally rebuilt, with kickstarter" tranny from a '74 R90/6 listed on Internet BMW Riders website. Guy's located in Florida and is asking 600 bucks. Would that work?
If so, see link: http://www.ibmwr.org/market/adlist.php?cat=aps

Good luck!

[Chris_in_BC]

Ed,
Pretty sure the earlier gearboxes won't work for your 1981. The clutch throwout arrangement is different and if you use the earlier version it won't match up to your clutch, which only works with the later flywheel or clutch carrier as it is called.

Someone with more knowledge might disagree, but think you need to stick with 1981 and later gearboxes.

Chris

[Justin B.]

If an earlier transmission was used you would also have to swap in an early flywheel, clutch, and all the rest of that crap as well...

[westfalian_alien]

Hi Ed,
I've got a brand new 1980-1985 transmission (with kick starter's shaft), built 1992 (as stamped in), formerly on local police spare parts stock. I would give it away for $ 800 from my housedoor's off.
Remains the question of shipping approx. 20 kgs. to the US. Any idea? Any commercial relationship in Europe?
+++
westfalian alien