Another Final Drive @ 12K service...

[WindyChuffer]

My March '09 12GSA in for its 12K service today. Final drive rear wheel bearing thingy gone. Warranty job thankfully.

 

[ebbo]

My March '09 12GSA in for its 12K service today. Final drive rear wheel bearing thingy gone. Warranty job thankfully.

Amazing these things are still failing on relatively new machines, does BMW have no idea how to stop it failing

 

[autogs]

final drive rear wheel bearing thingy eh,i hope the dealer explained it a bit better than that,

 

[anthonybrown]

Diff

My 07 GSA went in for the fuel pump controller mod 2 months ago and came out with a new diff again as well. Thats the second diff in two and a half years. Good job for the extended warrentee :jeiger

 

[andyshooter]

how much would this cost if not coverd by warranty?

 

[CaptainSlow]

Amazing these things are still failing on relatively new machines, does BMW have no idea how to stop it failing

I only got my GS in October. Are there any signs I need to look out for to indicate the bearings are knackered?

 

[ebbo]

I only got my GS in October. Are there any signs I need to look out for to indicate the bearings are knackered?

1200's are allowed 1mm free play at the rim because the output shaft isn’t shimmed to put tension on the bearings, the 1mm allowed is the natural free play in the bearing, anymore than 1mm and your FD output bearing maybe on its way out. To check for wear, put the bike on the main stand, grasp rear wheel top and bottom and try to rock it against the bearing. Also lookout for oil deposited on the rim, this may mean just the oil seal has gone or it may mean the bearing has disintegrated and damaged the seal. Whatever, it would need investigating.

I don’t even check mine once a month (but I would check it a few times leading up to big trip). So if the failure mode is slow I might catch it and just end up replacing the output bearing, if it’s quick I’ll probably get caught.

By the way, some bikes go to very high mileages with no problems, some have repeat failures at low mileages

 

[Padge]

output shaft isn’t shimmed to put tension on the bearings

The shimming is to give proper mating between the crown wheel and pinion.
Too much shim and you get excess backlash
Too little shim and the crown wheel forces against the pinion..which is probably the cause of the premature wear on the pinion bearings which are an absolute bitch to change.

The other piece of genius design is there is no inner race on the main shaft so the bearing runs on the hardened ground surface.. Any wear on this means replacing the whole crownwheel/shaft assembly.

how much would this cost if not coverd by warranty?

About €600 to replace all bearings and dealers now seem to be kitted out to do a rebuild.
Motorworks quoted £900 ish for a new replacement.

 

[gsman1]

Cost

About £850.00 plus labour I believe

how much would this cost if not coverd by warranty?

 

[CaptainSlow]

1200's are allowed 1mm free play at the rim because the output shaft isn’t shimmed to put tension on the bearings, the 1mm allowed is the natural free play in the bearing, anymore than 1mm and your FD output bearing maybe on its way out. To check for wear, put the bike on the main stand, grasp rear wheel top and bottom and try to rock it against the bearing. Also lookout for oil deposited on the rim, this may mean just the oil seal has gone or it may mean the bearing has disintegrated and damaged the seal. Whatever, it would need investigating.

I don’t even check mine once a month (but I would check it a few times leading up to big trip). So if the failure mode is slow I might catch it and just end up replacing the output bearing, if it’s quick I’ll probably get caught.

By the way, some bikes go to very high mileages with no problems, some have repeat failures at low mileages

Thanks - that's very helpful

 

[Bear]

About £850.00 plus labour I believe

plus VAT on top.

 

[theop]

Amazing these things are still failing on relatively new machines, does BMW have no idea how to stop it failing

errrr.. they do, but its too expensive to reengineer the whole lot..

what really bums me is that the manufacturer who invented shaft drive and showed everyone else the way, currently makes the most under-engineered (aka cr@p) such component system without any acknowledgement to their failings. Shame....

The 1200 drive systems are proving to be below standard, thats for sure...

I reckon that in a couple of years time we ll be having 08 GSAs on par pricing to 03 GSA 1150?

Just sold my 1200 GS and missing it terribly (somehow the brain only chooses to recall the good times) so I am thinking about a tractor 1150 plain or adv... 03/04 ones...

 

[(RIP) Bin Ridin]

You would have to question how / if a drive which has oil in it can be on the way out at only 12K miles. What are the symptoms?

 

[rattler]

Mine went at 3800 miles Sept 58reg, Warranty job thankfully

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

Failure seems to be very random, some go on forever and some only have a few thousand miles on them. The only way I can explain this is that it isn't a poor choice of components but poor assembly. Possibly the preloads aren't being set consistently or the machining is a little bit random. These coupled with a marginal design would result in the randomness of the failures. Nothing wrong with marginal designs as they are light but they have to be assembled spot on or they will fail.

 

[jpooch00]

Failure seems to be very random, some go on forever and some only have a few thousand miles on them. The only way I can explain this is that it isn't a poor choice of components but poor assembly. Possibly the preloads aren't being set consistently or the machining is a little bit random. These coupled with a marginal design would result in the randomness of the failures. Nothing wrong with marginal designs as they are light but they have to be assembled spot on or they will fail.

My understanding is that there is no bearing preload on the current FD's. I may be misinformed on that though.

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

My understanding is that there is no bearing preload on the current FD's. I may be misinformed on that though.

There are shims on both the crown and the pinion and detailed instructions on setting them in the RepROM.

 

[RickG]

There are shims on both the crown and the pinion and detailed instructions on setting them in the RepROM.

Yeah, but these do not preload the bearings, they are there to set the alignment between pinion and crownwheel

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

If you get your gear mesh pattern wrong you will put too much load on the pinion bearing which is as far as I can tell one of the first bearings to go in the FD. Its certainly a bearing that BMW has increased the size of on later models. I don't know what all fails in them to be honest but the pinion bearing seems to be one of the first. Maybe some one who definitively knows what goes wrong can post.

 

[RickG]

There are two pinion bearings. The smaller needle roller supports the end of the pinion shaft. The fact that this was beefed up at the end of '06, and BuMW introduced the drain plug so the oil could be changed clearly indicate it was (and probably still is) a weak point. I reckon once this bearing goes it puts a big axial load on the main pinion bearing which then wears out too.