Updated Push rod

Anyone fitted the updated clutch push rod before (called a thrust adaptor by BMW) ? Wondering what difference it made. Have just ordered mine.

This is the bulletin - Note 3: Poor clutch disengagement and clunky gear changes in GS models up to engine No. 122EN36130280 may be caused by a clutch component that has since been upgraded – refer to your BMW dealer for details. Similar symptoms in all models may be caused by too much oil, incorrect oil, or oil additives.

My bike is July 14 and engine number is well below the affected versions cut off point. Looks easy enough to fit. apparently original is machined slightly too short so doesn't open plates far enough when engine is hot. Had this a lot on recent trip of Spain which made the gear lever stick in traffic and hard to get neutral.

Is that in the clutch pack itself.. so you'll have to take the front cover off and then the middle of the clutch??... They should make them adjustable like my Harley one.. never any problems with that...
Never had drag, but gear changes when hot are quite clunky... I've even got my oil level at the half full point, but not sure its helped any?

beaver said:

Is that in the clutch pack itself.. so you'll have to take the front cover off and then the middle of the clutch??... They should make them adjustable like my Harley one.. never any problems with that...
Never had drag, but gear changes when hot are quite clunky... I've even got my oil level at the half full point, but not sure its helped any?

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Yeah you just have to remove the pressure plate to change it, the pack itself can stay in situ. Mt Brother has a 15 plate bike with the updated part and whilst in Spain in traffic, he could snick neutral etc fine but my bike would literally feel like the lever was stuck at times unless you blipped the throttle and would lurch going into 1st. (Clutch is bled properly).

I got the part for only £14 from Motorworks so thought I have nothing to lose by trying it.

Ahem, "a friend" who worked at BMW told me they fitted an uprated pushrod to a lot of early bikes when they were in for servicing and didn't tell anyone about the problem at the time ..

That is interesting. My bike has a March 2017 build date, but the engine number starts 122EN1017xxxx which is a surprisingly long way below the number quoted. I have been a bit disappointed in the quality of the gear change, particularly in the lower gears, given that this bike was supposed to have an improved gearbox. I also have great difficulty finding neutral once the engine is warm, and complained to the dealer about that. I wonder if BMW will replace this under warranty.

As you say, quite straight forward.. my bikes a 15 plate so hope its ok.. but never had drag like you describe.. you'll have to take some pics and let us know how you get on...

I had a Suzuki GSX1250 once and the gear change was so smooth the only way I knew I’d changed gear was the change in revs and the gear indicator. Of course, that was an in-line 4 but even with GSAP the transimission on the GS is far from slick - but it has got better. My ‘14 GS was appallingly bad...

It would be interesting to know what engine numbers are appearing on different years of bikes. A bit hard to see on the bike itself, but the last eight digits (part after 122EN) is quoted on the V5 registration document. No need to quote the whole number - the first 4 digits would be enough. Mine is 1017xxxx on a 2017 GS.

The parts lists seem to suggest the old part went out of use 07/14 so I presume engines built after that date have the updated part. My bike was registered 07/14 and my engine number starts 2901 so affected engines must have at least been still fitted up until late 14 early 15. It also mentions the updated part is for bikes up to MY2016 so at a guess bikes post 2016 might have a different batch of engine numbers.

I can't see a 2017 model bike having the old part.

spoonz said:

The parts lists seem to suggest the old part went out of use 07/14 so I presume engines built after that date have the updated part. My bike was registered 07/14 and my engine number starts 2901 so affected engines must have at least been still fitted up until late 14 early 15. It also mentions the updated part is for bikes up to MY2016 so at a guess bikes post 2016 might have a different batch of engine numbers.

I can't see a 2017 model bike having the old part.

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Thanks - that is useful information.

I did a bit of online searching and found the following which led me to check the engagement point of my clutch lever.

https://advrider.com/f/threads/2014-gsa-1200-adjusting-clutch-engagement-point.1050313/

I put the bike in gear on the centre stand and tried to rotate the rear wheel with my foot while gradually pulling the clutch lever. While this might not be entirely representative of real use, I was surprised to find how close to the grip the lever had to be pulled to fully release the clutch, and I think this may mean that the clutch was not fully disengaged while changing gear when riding, which might explain the poor gearchange quality going from 1st to 2nd especially and to a lesser extent from 2nd to 3rd.

I have now adjusted the engagement point of the clutch to set it at a point where the lever is significantly further from the grip, so needing much less lever movement to disengage. Note that this is not done by changing the lever position with the four way adjuster, but by adjusting the position of the plunger which operates the master cylinder.

The end of the plunger takes a small allen key (2mm I think) but needs to be unlocked before it can be moved. It is unlocked by adjusting a grub screw which goes into the underside of the plunger pivot. In my case the opening in this was blocked with red paint which I had to remove before I could get the allen key in to back it off. Once this is backed off a turn or so the plunger can then be screwed in or out to adjust the clutch lever position with respect to the clutch biting point. I found I had to turn the plunger two turns clockwise to move the biting point to where I wanted it, slightly less than halfway through the lever movement.

I have not yet tested this, and I guess I will be disappointed if it makes no difference, but will report back once I have had chance to try it.

It's possible that adjusting the plunger achieves the same result. Be interested to hear the outcome as it will be easier than opening up the clutch.

I had a late 2013 build Gs, I had the new rod fitted about 3 months into ownership, it improved the clutch, i now have a Rallye 2017 Gs & my old bike is at least as good as the new one, so it worked for me.
However, the bite point changes during a ride, so I’m not entirely sure there wasn’t something else wrong with tolerances inside the gearbox but it wasn’t a problem for 14,000 miles.

Also I would try a warranty claim as this is a known problem & OUGHT to be covered.. GOOD LUCK

spoonz said:

It's possible that adjusting the plunger achieves the same result. Be interested to hear the outcome as it will be easier than opening up the clutch.

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OK - I've tried the bike after the lever plunger adjustment, but with mixed results. At first I found that the clutch engagement was too close to the beginning of the lever movement when actually riding, so maybe having the engine running and gears turning makes a difference compared to feeling the engagement point with the bike on the centre stand and not running. Although there seemed to be an improvement on low gear upshifts, possibly due to it being quicker/easier to get more complete clutch disengagement when shifting up, it completely screwed up my downshifts, which had always been very good.

What seemed to be happening is that as I shifted down and blipped the throttle while releasing the clutch, it now took a significantly longer time for the clutch to re-engage, which messed up my muscle memory timings to coordinate shift, blip and clutch release. As a result the bike freewheeled momentarily before the clutch caught up, and re-engagement happened after the throttle blip leading to a very uncoordinated and jerky downshift. It is possible I would eventually have adapted and used much less clutch lever movement on downshifts, and adjusted the timing of the throttle blip, but it seemed to be too extreme a change so I decided to back off the adjustment a bit.

I now have a bit of an improvement on upshifts, and I will work on improving it further by trying to ensure I use as much clutch lever movement as possible in the lower gears to ensure full clutch disengagement. For downshifts, the now smaller change in clutch biting point after the second adjustment has been relatively easy to adjust to and get my timings in line for, so I think I will find that OK to adapt to after a period of use - no worse than riding a different bike and having to adjust to it.

While this may be worth trying as it is a relatively easy adjustment to make, I think it is really only affecting where in the lever travel you get maximum plunger movement. I would assume that the pistons in the master and slave cylinders only have a limited range of movement, so if, due to the push rod in the clutch being too short, the maximum plunger movement is not enough to fully disengage a hot clutch, then there may still be some clutch drag. However, I would have thought that if this is happening you would get the bike trying to creep forward when stopped in gear with the clutch lever held in and the brakes off. I don't get that with my bike, even when hot, so I am reassured that the clutch can be fully disengaged within the range of available lever movement.

Incidentally, in looking into this I have not so far been able to find any exploded diagrams showing the location of the slave cylinder and where the clutch actuating rods are accessed, but the limited information I have found seems to indicated that the slave cylinder is at the back of the engine behind the starter motor, hence the long actuating rods. I'm not sure if the final section, which seems to be the push rod in question, can be withdrawn and replaced from the back which seems unlikely, or whether it only comes out from the front so needs the clutch cover to come off and the oil to be drained first.

A further thought on the GS LC clutch is that it is a bit of a Heath Robinson type design if the slave cylinder is at the back of the engine and has to activate the clutch through long metal rods, and with a very long hydraulic line between master and slave cylinders. Ideally the slave cylinder would have been at the front of the engine acting much more directly on the clutch but this was presumably too difficult to accomodate without a taller clutch cover which is already fairly critically close to the front wheel. I wonder if the thermal expansion of these actuating rods, which will be significant due to their long length, is what causes the variable clutch biting point that a lot of people seem to complain about on this engine?

The clutch rod is really 3 parts, the final part which they call the actuator is only about 3 inches long. It's that part which has been elongated slightly on the updated part. It has to come out via the clutch basket so the clutch cover has to come off meaning draining the oil and then removing the 3 bolts holding the clutch pressure plate onto the basket. I'll take pics and update on any improvements when I get around to doing it.

It's also possible that it has had the updated part already and I will be wasting my time but we will see. I know of 1 other owner who has an early 04 bike that had this mod and he said it transformed the gear change etc so fingers crossed.

spoonz said:

The clutch rod is really 3 parts, the final part which they call the actuator is only about 3 inches long. It's that part which has been elongated slightly on the updated part. It has to come out via the clutch basket so the clutch cover has to come off meaning draining the oil and then removing the 3 bolts holding the clutch pressure plate onto the basket. I'll take pics and update on any improvements when I get around to doing it.

It's also possible that it has had the updated part already and I will be wasting my time but we will see. I know of 1 other owner who has an early 04 bike that had this mod and he said it transformed the gear change etc so fingers crossed.

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Those three sections of actuating rod add up to quite a long piece of metal, so I think there must be some variation in length with engine temperature. I wonder how they allow for that? Maybe the whole engine expands equally so it is not an issue!

It will be interesting to hear how you get on installing the new pushrod, and what improvement if any it makes.

There's a youtube showing the hydraulic slave cylinder being unbolted and moved away and for sure no fluid comes out because the piston seems secured with a circlip. So, how are the three rods removed? Are they screwed together meaning a simple pull to remove all three ? FWIW I believe this job was done on mine in 2015 when the clutch failed to disengage and it fixed mine although 1-2 still clunky.

GrinningGSer said:

There's a youtube showing the hydraulic slave cylinder being unbolted and moved away and for sure no fluid comes out because the piston seems secured with a circlip. So, how are the three rods removed? Are they screwed together meaning a simple pull to remove all three ? FWIW I believe this job was done on mine in 2015 when the clutch failed to disengage and it fixed mine although 1-2 still clunky.

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I may be totally wrong, but I thought the clunky changing was something to do with a sensor, and a software fix.

You are probably thinking of problems with clutchless changes with GSAP. No sensor or software involved in normal gear changing as far as I know.