Drive Shaft Failure

[MAD DOG]

A cautionary tale.
My 93 R100GS had been retro'ed with grease fittings in the drive shaft early in '07, prior to my taking ownership last Sept. This was part of the circlip retro. 7000 miles later, coming home from the National, the U-joint at the final drive spline went to U-joint heaven.
Luckily, Jeff Saline, A/M of S.Dak, lived 2 miles away. Tear down showed that the fitting was OUT, the splines were rusted, and the pivot bearings were toast. { Plus a lot of shaved metal that once was the U.}
VOR'ed the parts from BMW Sturgis, and back on the road after a bit. { With a sealed U-joint BMW shaft from NJ.}
Would like to publicly thank Jeff, who is just a great guy and Airhead.
Any food for thought here?

Jim Faucher

[SCQTT]

You got me? My 93 GS has been retired to Sunday afternoon trips not more than 50 miles from home. It is also good bike to make runs down to the post office.

I have the ugliest color ever made so you just know it will worth a ton of $ to some beemer geek one day.

I figure I will be able to sell it for about $25K in 2028 when it is 35 years old. At that point $25K will be a nice down payment on a new, Chinese made, scooter. My guess is the 2028 flingpoo will be one hell of a machine.

[milo]

.........

I have the ugliest color ever made so you just know it will worth a ton of $ to some beemer geek one day.
.

It wouldn't happen to be Carica Blue would it? :-)

[jdmetzger]

It wouldn't happen to be Carica Blue would it? :-)

I was thinking "flash green". :p

Still, it's not like a PD is winning a beauty pageant. I still love mine. 66,666+ miles on my driveshaft.

BTW: I've heard people say the "greaseable" u-joints don't do a whole lot of good, though I really have no personal experience.

[Solo_Lobo]

Well, IMHO the greasable u-joint coversion (as offered by Henderson Precision) is a great solution... the deal is that the u-joints must be greased every 10K or less and this involves taking the shaft out of the bike. With this 10K or less inspection of the joints, assuming you catch the notchy u-joints, you can remove the issues of having an unexpected failure. Also, you can pop in a $15 u-joint and not have to spend $400+ on the BMW part that may only last 20-50K

On another note, you mention that your paralever pivot bearings failed (had one go on my GS at 40K miles). Are you sure that the para pivot failure didn't do in the shaft?

Also, why not replace the rear -u-joint and not the whole shaft?

I'm a fan of spinning the rear tire weekly/monthly to listen for rumbling of shafts/u-joints/ etc failing on R100GS's.....

[SCQTT]

It wouldn't happen to be Carica Blue would it? :-)



<a href="http://s175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SCQTT/?action=view&current=spring07014.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SCQTT/spring07014.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>


What do you call that?

Bright purple with yellow & silver scrambled eggs?

[DARRYL CAINEY]

A cautionary tale.

Any food for thought here?

Jim Faucher

Sounds like a reccomendation for the Helping Hand Award is in order here!

Good to know there are still Good People out there!

Darryl

[milo]

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What do you call that?

Bright purple with yellow & silver scrambled eggs?

Ah *that* color! I wouldn't ride that bike much either. Any slight nick in that paint could seriously affect resale. A garage queen for sure! :-)

[jdmetzger]

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What do you call that?

Bright purple with yellow & silver scrambled eggs?

Maybe we can take up a collection so you can get a repaint. :stick

:D

I'd still take a purple and yellow Airhead over a LOT of other bikes, any day... but that's just me. I love 'em. :thumb

[ohiorider]

This crazy old bike! Doesn't realize she should give it up and refuse to go on another longer ride. She just turned 115,000 miles on the way home from a trip around Lake Superior. I have had the rear tranny bearing replaced (2x) .... last time (June 2007) I pulled and replaced the tranny myself, had the shop do the tranny work on the bench. Amazing how much has to come off to remove the tranny. Probably should have listened to Oak this time and had the circlip installed, but if history is any indicator, the current repair should be good until 150,000 miles. The driveshaft continues to soldier on ... it's the original. I may pull it in late winter and send it off for new U Joints. Personally I'd find it a PITA to pull the shaft every 10K to lube U Joints, so I'll probably go with 'lifetime' sealed U joints.

I'm sure the original valves and guides are the reason she lets out a huge cloud of smoke if left on the side stand too long, but a compression test on a warm engine indicated approx 140psi at each cylinder. The secret here is .... don't leave the bike on the side stand for an extended period. Not so different from the original K bikes! Valve clearances seem to stay in spec .... haven't had to tweak them for the past 20k miles.

Preventative maintenance this year was (a) carb rebuild, and (b) cam chain and tensioner replacement, well-done by Jamie at Mathias'. Maybe the heads next year, or the next.

Ride on!

Bob - 1991 R100GS - Original Owner
BMWMOA #56434

UPDATE: September 2009 - just returned from a trip thru MI, MN, ND, MT, WY, UT, NE, IA, IL, IN, to home ... approx 4400 miles. About 300 miles from home, in Western Indiana, it sounded like all hell was breaking loose in the final drive, and once home, I put her on the center stand and ran her thru the gears up to approx 4000rpm. Little or no noise in neutral or first .... noise got progressively worse as I ran the engine up to 4k rpm in the taller gears. Guessing the driveshaft u joint(s) finally failed on the original shaft at 122,000 miles. But I won't know the story until I pull the swingarm and associated parts.

[sdpc2]

Sorry to hear about the problems with the old girl. YOu know that i have nothing to add, as mine is sitting in the garage with a dead starter.... But they sure are fun to ride the rest of the time. :eat

sdc