Check ALL the bolts!

[jrsndman]

Really glad this happened rolling off the center stand and not going down the road!

[towerworker]

Incredible!!
So glad you didn't find it the hard way. How many miles?

[jrsndman]

I'm so thankful that I didn't find it about 10 seconds later. Only about 42,000 miles. Can't really understand how the ball joint unthreaded from the lower fork bridge. Threads are all intact and look perfectly fine. According to the Clymer manual, that connection should have 170 ft. lb. of torque. How does that unthread?

[kirby]

ANY signs of thread locker on the bolt? Most critical bolts,(if not all?), have thread locker specified. That is very important on the boxers! Fact is its a good idea to use thread locker on most all the fasteners.

Your saying that there were no symptoms at all? I would think there would be some unusual things in steering and braking. There seems to have surly been something. I always sorta of give my machine a little pre ride check of critical items like the swing arm and front end. This is common practice for aviators. Tires, critical areas should be checked each day you ride. Stop for gas or a break then look things over. When you do maintenance like oil changes you should really check everything, especially the critical areas for security. If a bolt is backing out it has to come a long way to be unsafe!( and probably many miles). The machine is talking to you ...listen.

Neglect this at your own peril, it easy to do and quick.

Amazing! Glad you didn't get hurt or worse.

[CycleRob]

jrsndman,
It looks like the ball joint base's fat threaded end "un-threaded" from the front fork bridge. I seem to remember that there was an assembly line omission of thread locker on a few bikes that made them susceptible to loosening up.

This has also happened before (long ago) to another rider. Soon after that I decided to safety-wire my 50R's TeleLever parts. It took some very careful drilling and hand wiring to tightly secure those very important parts, but the peace of mind was all mine. The parts blow-up of the front end parts shows where 13 unthreaded from 11. The 2nd photo of the TeleLever ball joint has 5 inserted mini-pics showing the sequence of operations needed to drill safety wire holes in the (very skimpy) right places. Industrial grade patience was required.

[jrsndman]

ANY signs of thread locker on the bolt? Most critical bolts,(if not all?), have thread locker specified. That is very important on the boxers! Fact is its a good idea to use thread locker on most all the fasteners.

No signs of any thread lock.

Your saying that there were no symptoms at all? I would think there would be some unusual things in steering and braking. There seems to have surly been something. I always sorta of give my machine a little pre ride check of critical items like the swing arm and front end. This is common practice for aviators. Tires, critical areas should be checked each day you ride. Stop for gas or a break then look things over. When you do maintenance like oil changes you should really check everything, especially the critical areas for security. If a bolt is backing out it has to come a long way to be unsafe!( and probably many miles). The machine is talking to you ...listen.

Neglect this at your own peril, it easy to do and quick.

Amazing! Glad you didn't get hurt or worse.

There were most definitely no symptoms! This I'm sure of. There is zero slop in these threads. Once the bike was back up on the center stand, I threaded the ball joint back in a few threads so I could roll it on a trailer about 50 yards away. Couldn't feel any difference from normal. I installed the Ohlins suspension about 3000 miles ago and there was no sign of anything loose then. I'm on the road for work 6-7 months a year and the last few years only used the roadster to commute to work while at home on occasion. So it hasn't seen many miles the last couple years. I can't understand why this came unthreaded.

You better believe I'll be in the habit of a pre-ride inspection from now on.

[jrsndman]

CycleRob, I was hoping you'd respond. Finally something that makes sense to me. Seems like I have one without thread lock.

jrsndman,
It looks like the ball joint base's fat threaded end "un-threaded" from the front fork bridge. I seem to remember that there was an assembly line omission of thread locker on a few bikes that made them susceptible to loosening up.

This has also happened before (long ago) to another rider. Soon after that I decided to safety-wire my 50R's TeleLever parts. It took some very careful drilling and hand wiring to tightly secure those very important parts, but the peace of mind was all mine. The parts blow-up of the front end parts shows where 13 unthreaded from 11. The 2nd photo of the TeleLever ball joint has 5 inserted mini-pics showing the sequence of operations needed to drill safety wire holes in the (very skimpy) right places. Industrial grade patience was required.

Thank you for this. Mine will now get this mod.

The Clymer manual calls for a "light coat of waterproof grease and to tighten to 170 ft.-lb." I've seen you say several times that bolts cannot accurately be torqued with lubricant or threat lock on them. How is this different and should I use grease (as per the Clymer manual), red or blue Loctite?

[Bogdan]

Boy....this follows cgguy's thread on telelever misbehavior. My Haynes manual states that the collar nut has a history on loosening. At some point BMW started installing locknuts.The manual advises replacing the non- locking nut with the locknut. It states you should get said nut at the dealer. It also says to apply thread lock which I assume is the same as Loctite blue. The torque spec question comes up when using a locking agent. I'm going to check, install a new locknut and torque to the stated spec. Hey..thanks to CycleRob I don't even have to look up the part info.

[peels]

holy smokes! guess I know what Im doing as soon as I get home!

[CycleRob]

Most are mentioning the top flange nut (14) being changed to a locknut -but- it is the ball joint's fat threaded end (13) that usually loosens up and disconnects from the front fork bridge (11), seemingly aided by road shock and steering movements.

jrsndman, After looking at that pic again, I would check that the fork tube top bolts are not bent from the weight of the front of the bike dropping down and having the long front forks applying a powerful bending force on those fork top bolts. Once the front end is elevated, spin the chrome fork tubes and watch the top bolt (under the rubber cap) for a wobble. It is also possible that the lengthy, leveraged bending force could have bent the Aluminium upper tree too. Check for parallel surfaces with a straight edge after removing the chrome fork tubes.

Tightening that ball joint into the front fork bridge will require a deep socket (??mm) and a BIG torque wrench to attain 170 ft-lbs. I would use Blue (semi-permanent) Loctite. I did not have the need to take mine apart, so you get (??mm).

[kirby]

I changed mine due to the rubber cover having a hole (high miles) and I didn't want water leaking in. The joint, on inspection, was in great shape..pity.

It took a heat gun to warm it up to near 300 deg to brake it loose. Due to the shape and size of the flange nut I was able to use an SAE socket and I don't remember what size but around 1 1/4 inch I think (12 point). I will measure and post later. Had to borrow a toque wrench as I didn't have one that would go to 170 ft-lb.

See below

BTW,
When I removed the nut it had green thread locker. So I used red for re assembly. This nut is in plain sight (the flange plug nut that screws into the bridge), and is one of the pre ride checks I make by just observing the that it is flush with the bridge. Any gap would warrant further investigation.

Just my experience as I'm not a professional wrench.

Again, happy you didn't get hurt.

As near as I can tell it was 1 3/4 or 1 11/16. around 43mm

[jrsndman]

CycleRob & kirby thanks for the info. Rob, good catch. I was thinking the same and will go over the whole front end. Actually, going to go over the whole bike.

FYI, the lower half of the ball joint takes a 46mm deep socket.

[sykospain]

There's a divergence of opinion about the value of Loctite or a similar thread-locking compound in motorcycle component assembly. Chris Harris says that a fixing that's tightened to the correct, recommended torque-value will not come undone. But when you watch the assembly-line videos made by BMW Berlin-Spandau, showing the guys who are silently putting bikes together, you see near each conveyor-line a tub of blue Loctite into which they dip most all the bolts that are crucial assembly items.
It's certainly a pain having to heat-up a fixing with a Bosch gun so as to be able to undo whichever bolt you need undone, but I reckon that's less of a pain that seeing for instance the front wheel of your Telelever stepping out and away from the bike's frame as you ride along !

[towerworker]

I changed mine due to the rubber cover having a hole (high miles) and I didn't want water leaking in. The joint, on inspection, was in great shape..pity.

It took a heat gun to warm it up to near 300 deg to brake it loose. Due to the shape and size of the flange nut I was able to use an SAE socket and I don't remember what size but around 1 1/4 inch I think (12 point). I will measure and post later. Had to borrow a toque wrench as I didn't have one that would go to 170 ft-lb.

See below

BTW,
When I removed the nut it had green thread locker. So I used red for re assembly. This nut is in plain sight (the flange plug nut that screws into the bridge), and is one of the pre ride checks I make by just observing the that it is flush with the bridge. Any gap would warrant further investigation.

Just my experience as I'm not a professional wrench.

Again, happy you didn't get hurt.

As near as I can tell it was 1 3/4 or 1 11/16. around 43mm

Red locktite..........since it takes 500+ degrees to break that plus 170 ft lbs of torque I'd say there is zero chance of that ever happening again!

[jrsndman]

There's a divergence of opinion about the value of Loctite or a similar thread-locking compound in motorcycle component assembly. Chris Harris says that a fixing that's tightened to the correct, recommended torque-value will not come undone. But when you watch the assembly-line videos made by BMW Berlin-Spandau, showing the guys who are silently putting bikes together, you see near each conveyor-line a tub of blue Loctite into which they dip most all the bolts that are crucial assembly items.
It's certainly a pain having to heat-up a fixing with a Bosch gun so as to be able to undo whichever bolt you need undone, but I reckon that's less of a pain that seeing for instance the front wheel of your Telelever stepping out and away from the bike's frame as you ride along !

Well there was most certainly not any Loctite on the lower half of my telelever ball joint(should have taken a picture). I'd imagine that it was torqued properly during assembly. It came undone! I will definitely be using Loctite on reassembly!

jrsndman, After looking at that pic again, I would check that the fork tube top bolts are not bent from the weight of the front of the bike dropping down and having the long front forks applying a powerful bending force on those fork top bolts. Once the front end is elevated, spin the chrome fork tubes and watch the top bolt (under the rubber cap) for a wobble. It is also possible that the lengthy, leveraged bending force could have bent the Aluminium upper tree too. Check for parallel surfaces with a straight edge after removing the chrome fork tubes.

Tightening that ball joint into the front fork bridge will require a deep socket (??mm) and a BIG torque wrench to attain 170 ft-lbs. I would use Blue (semi-permanent) Loctite. I did not have the need to take mine apart, so you get (??mm).

CycleRob, You're correct, the top bolts are bent. Unfortunately, it seems they are only available as a part of the whole upper fork tube from BMW at $387.62 each.

[sykospain]

Almost four hundred bucks each ! That's BMW's Spare Parts Pricing Philosophy for you. Have the bikes mostly made in China and then rip the customer's arms off when they need a part.
Just straighten them - without heat !

[jrsndman]

Well... been back on the road a few weeks now, figured I'd post an update.

I didn't like the bent fork tube bolts so I bought a "new" set of forks from Beemer Boneyard. They are from a 2004 and in excellent shape. Every time I buy something from BB, I'm reminded of how great they are to deal with.

Before I mounted the forks I did the safety wire mod CycleRob mentioned above.



I also took some time to clean up wiring to the gauge cluster, left & right controls and headlight. The outer jacket was just crumbling off. Never had this issue with any of my Jap bikes.





As if that wasn't enough, I overhauled all three calipers and did a 12,000 mile/annual service. I used the CycleRob brake bleeding method for the first time. It was the fastest way I've ever gotten to a solid lever/pedal.




Now that I'm done I may make an attempt at making it to the bash for at least a night.

[Buckster]

Very nicely done! My wires look about the same. What did you use? How does it work? I usually just don't mess with any electronics so my temporary cheap fix was to wrap the wires in electrical tape! I really like what you did there!

[ron prior]

As has been said,....it surely could have been worse , and surely glad it wasn't !

Not to hijack the thread but......What kind of Aux lights are those & can you show a better pic of them? How'd ya mount them?....Thank's in advance.

[two wheel tango]

Jim- Looks like you cleaned up the wiring with Techflex sleeves?

(Mine are just as bad - And am currently working on the same)