Frame & transmission housing misalignment

[garr2]

First of all let me say that this forum's diagnosis and cure for a squeaky starter were great!

Now for the awkward bit!
I know this is an R and not an RT forum but here goes anyway

I successfully cleaned the starter motor as per instructions on this forum. To do so on my RT however I had to remove the footrest plate.


On reassembly I have discovered that there was now a misalignment between the footrest plate bolt holes and the threaded bolt holes in the transmission housing. In particular the red arrow points to a spot where a bolt has to go through the footrest plate, the rear frame and into the transmission housing. The mauve arrows point to spots where there is a misalignment between the footrest plate and the transmission housing.


The next pic shows the misalignment of about 1 - 1.5 mm more clearly.


It would appear that the transmission housing has been able to move relative to the rear frame when the bolts were removed.
I can't finish reassembling the bike until I get this problem sorted and I don't want to go forcing things. I'm in enough trouble as it is.

I realise that the footrest plate is peculiar to the RT, but the misalignment between the rear frame hole and the threaded hole in transmission housing may have occurred to an R owner.

[AndyRR]

The tubular frame is made to swing up and out of the way. You should be fine to lift the frame to align the holes. There's nothing you could have done to twist things.

[towerworker]

"Never use force.............get a bigger hammer"



quote courtesy of my Dad back in 1960

[sweatmark]

garr2-

Your bike is sitting on center stand, yes? Rear wheel and all connected parts (Paralever, shock, rear subframe) will sag after that bolt is removed from footrest plate/subframe/transmission connection. You can move the subframe back up to align holes by jacking up rear wheel, or even using simple lever using 2x4 and appropriate fulcrum. Just don't lift too far and topple machine.

[garr2]

To AndyRR,
Thanks for concisely explaining how the problem arose and that it was fixable.

To Towerworker,
Thanks for the humour that reminded me not to take myself too seriously.

To sweatmark,
Thanks for the guidance on how to realign the frame and the transmission case.

Below is my version of the fix as suggested by sweatmark
First- use a tiedown to secure the front wheel and the main stand so it won't topple off the stand.
Second - wedge a piece of 2 x 2 under the back wheel.
Third - every hour use a hammer to further jam the 2 x 2 under the wheel thereby puting upward pressure on the rear sub-frame
Fourth - rejoice, problem solved thanks to this forum!


Once again thanks for the help - and all within 24 hours

Ian

[Kobe22]

I do see what you meant regarding my other post for instructional material Garr2, this sounds/looks like quite the adventure. In addition to a platform for deliberation -the internet, a community of willing master instructors makes ownership so much less of a hassle. Can you imagine being trapped in an era where collaboration was only possible for big multi-nationals? Heck even today BMW denies claims brought by groups with relevance at all levels ie both geographically and numerically. We all know in our case for instance that the transmission mating design could have been improved. I think there have been enough spline failure reports here alone to warrant concern by a company with high priority on brand loyalty. Man I hate loving this bike!

[MIXR]

Similar vein - Fitting after-market crashbars to the Roadster may also result in a drop of the rear-end and misalignment of the footpeg mounting points. As has been discovered here, no big deal, but scary when you first see it and try to figure out what happened!