New noise from tranny

[Devo3136]

I just flushed the clutch fluid about a week ago, and thought everything went well. I have good feel at the clutch handle and it seems to work alright. But when in neutral I am getting a clattering sound out of the transmission, if I pull the clutch in it clears up. Any thoughts?

[AndyRR]

Does it go? I mean, once in gear, move forward?

[Devo3136]

Yes it runs great just getting noisey in neutral.

[boxermania]

Hmmm....how old is the bike and how many miles? Has any clutch work been done to the bike?

[Devo3136]

Its a 2002 R1150R with 18,000 miles.

[AndyRR]

I would pop the starter off and have a peek. Not exactly sure what to expect, but it's relatively easy. You don't want to see any signs of fluid. Other than that I think you are looking at a problem inside the transmission.
Could this be an sign of spline problems? Mileage is low, but it kinda fits. No one has reported any pre-failure symptoms though.

[owldaddy]

Sounds like a clutch issue to me, not the tranny.

[dbluefish]

Excuse the 'newbie' question but don't the BMW R series have dry clutches? So what is the clutch fluid?

paul

[jas]

Excuse the 'newbie' question but don't the BMW R series have dry clutches? So what is the clutch fluid?

Paul...I’m not quite awake yet (my only day off during the week), but I’ll take a stab at this. The clutch is hydraulically actuated, so the hand clutch feeds the slave cylinder through use of the fluid (on the 1150’s). The slave cylinder can go out at times in which case the clutch can become contaminated, I believe folks have also had a main seal on the motor fail a time or two resulting with wet clutch plates. By removing the starter, you can take a look inside at the clutch plates and surrounding area to see if in fact they are still dry, or if the clutch fluid (brake fluid) has contaminated them.

There are many more people more knowledgeable than I on this board and I hope they will chime in if I did not explain that correctly.

[Devo3136]

I have been thinking about bleeding the clutch, I used synthetic DOT 4 brake fluid would that make any difference than using conventional DOT 4 Brake fluid?

[R1150Rclean]

I have been thinking about bleeding the clutch, I used synthetic DOT 4 brake fluid would that make any difference than using conventional DOT 4 Brake fluid?

No, but the syn should hold up better and that is what I use.

[Devo3136]

OK I pulled the starter and looked inside, what I could see looked fine, nothing was wet with brake fluid or tranny fluid from what I could see. Starter is really cruddy though, can these be taken apart and cleaned?

[CycleRob]

I have good feel at the clutch handle and it seems to work alright. But when in neutral I am getting a clattering sound out of the transmission, if I pull the clutch in it clears up. Any thoughts?
-and-
Starter is really cruddy though, can these be taken apart and cleaned?

First, the starter. Taking it apart to clean it is the best way, but it requires patience and some wrenching experience so you won't cause some expen$ive damage. A search will show where it has been covered here.

Second, the noise you hear with the clutch lever released in neutral. My OilHead had that too after several years of the 8 year ownership. When the engine idles, the power pulses create a cyclic faster/slower rotational speed with the heavy input shaft's torque damper running at idle speed near the free rotating shaft's end. Any play in the rotating system downstream of the flywheel will hit both it's drive/driven boundaries, whether they are tiny or minute, as the cycling idle rotation tries to drive and slow that heavy spinning input shaft assembly. That play will be one or all of the following:

1--between the infamous clutch input shaft male spline and the clutch hub female spline.
2--between the internal mid-circumferential backlash springs in the clutch disc's driver/driven surfaces.
3--between all meshing gear teeth pairs.

When you pull the clutch in, the input shaft assembly stops turning, quieting all 3 of the above at once, making it difficult to diagnose -unless- someone has experience with hearing the noise then taking the whole damn thing apart.


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