failed final drive bearing

[goggstrotter]

our 1150 GS ´adventure´, 2003 and 75000km is taking us (or was...) around the world, currently in Argentina, 1800km from Buenos Aires.

last night the final drive bearing threw its guts and we are holed up in a one horse town.

we are trying to get the bike back to BA and if BMW do not want to play ball with their so called ´good will´ policy then we will be doing it ourselves.

can anyone tell us a good way to change the bearing, what other associated problems to look fo,. hints, tips and any useful info.

by the way the Argentinians are great people but they still believe the Falklands belong to them and they refer to them as the Malvinas.....but one litre of lager and 400g of thick fillet steak is only 4 quid, in a restaurant to boot !!

 

[the celt]

Where are you in Argentina ???
It might be better to remove final drive bevel box yourself and then take this to BA, the final drive bevel box is easy to remove you need to put some heat on the pivot bolts to remove. Are you near Rio Grande if so I know a good mechanic there.

 

[oldstokey]

Sorry to hear about the drive. Really feel for you, we were worried about our final drive in Southern Argentina just a couple of months ago. Fortunatley it hung in there for us.

We had just had our bike serviced by BMW in BA. Expensive but great mechs.. I discussed with Marcelo (service manager)the options if we had a failure like yours. He had the same idea as the Celt. Take of the bevel box and send it to him and he will replace all the bearings and send it back.

Might be expensive but Marcelo is a lovely guy (little bit of English, but some one there will speak it if you struggle. I would at least speak to him and get some options.

Also try www.horizonsunlimited.com and get in touch with the local community there.

If you do get back to BA or need a contact there, put a note in the SA section of horizons, Dan Walsh is holed up there at the moment, sure he would help out all he can.

Best of luck, hope all works out for you.

Richard

www.eastofthesun.co.uk

 

[oldstokey]

Doh!

forgot Marcelos address!! There are two dealers in BA but this is the best..

Marcelo Sole

BMW
J.A.Cabrera 3698
(C1186ARR)
Buenos Aires
Argentina

11 4866 5727

[email protected]

 

[goggstrotter]

hi all you out there, the bike is on a truck back to BA, 300 peso and we are following on a bus soon so this is a short reply.

thanks for your help, we know Dan is in BA, probably having a drink today...seeing as its friday of course. anyhow we will assess the situation when the bike arrives and see if BMW are willing to help in anyway for reduced costs, bike is just 6 weeks out of warranty.

adios amigos

 

[goggstrotter]

the bike is still on a truck somewhere....

next question is.....can the ´bevel gear´ be removed from the housing without removing the housing from the paralever ?

 

[PatagoniaGS]

HI goggstrotter,

You can contact to Javier Kaper in Buenos Aires, is a very good mechanic, his e-mail [email protected], he belongs to the Horizont Unlimited Community since a long time, you can find a lot of references there.
I live 300km away from Buenos Aires, and meet in an HU forum.

I prefer not to talk about Malvinas/Falklands lot of people died in a stupid way

Goog luck.

Nicolas.

 

[goggstrotter]

we are in contact with Javier and hope the bike is gonna arrive soon.

you are right about the malvinas, then again all wars seem fairly pointless, as a country you are very patriotic and there is nothing wrong with that, didn´t mean to hurt anyones feelings if i did.

 

[the celt]

goggs you will have to remove the final drive box to get at the bearings otherwise its a pain in the arse to work on and as I said before to remove it is pretty simple you will need a good torque bar to refit it and as I said before you need to put a bit off heat on the pivot bolts to remove, be careful removing the pivot bolts if they begin to feel tight screw back in and add more head to losen the threadlock, please say hola to Javier from me the man is a pure gentleman.
regards
joe

 

[Steptoe]

the bike is still on a truck somewhere....

next question is.....can the ´bevel gear´ be removed from the housing without removing the housing from the paralever ?

Yes, if the large output bearing needs replacing , you can leave the final drive in place and just undo the 8 bolts and remove the output cover and take the inside drive out.

 

[goggstrotter]

jobs a good un, spent all day yesterday in ´dakar motos´ working with Javier, loads of helpful friendly people around, we drunk ´Mate', spent lunch/siesta time in a great restuarant eating cheap steak and generally having a good time........oh and we got the bike fixed.

took around 5 hours max after making up a few tools, etc. bearing cost around $120 US (70 pounds), not sure how much they are from BMW...perhaps someone knows ?

now we are back on the road, thanks for all those who threw in their pennies worth.

hey Celt, Sandra and Javier say hello to you, you were right Javier is a top geyser !!