IBR Failures

[Lonerockz]

Long haul truck engines measure oil capacity in gallons (like 11+ gallons on a 12L engine) and have oil coolers. Of course they change their oil every 20K miles or so.

Long haul truck engines, like 11+ gallons on a 12L engine = a little < 1 gal/liter of engine displacement.

FJR, 1+ gallon on a 1.3L engine = a little < one gal/liter of engine displacement.

FJRs have oil-coolers.

same -- same.... :blink:

Ah well... as you see from my profile I do not own an FJR... and my bike is 2.3L for 650cc, with no oil cooler.

Even that said the truck does not use the engine oil to lubricate the transmission. And it red lines at 1800 rpm. So there are a few differences.

 

[Wheels Up]

Sorry, but you are mistaken. There is no correlation between high miles and long running times and FD failure. Bikes have been reported to have FD failures on test rides from the dealership, and well over 80k miles. Both weekend riders with low miles and short rides, as well as hard core LD riders during rallies.

We hear about the FD failures in the LD community more, but they happen to other riders just as often.

I just went and looked at the stats from 2007. In my memory I thought there were like 8 FD failures. But there were only 3, with 39 shaft dive BMWs in the field that is only 7.7%. I was thinking that the IBR failures would be higher than this, I agree that it is possible that the general public could be experiencing the same failure rate. Which would put my theory in doubt.

Of course BMW Motorrad won't release the percent failure rate ... hell, they continue to deny the problem, but the limited data available suggests a 1% to 2% failure rate. In automotive engineering (SAE), this is totally unacceptable for a critical powertrain component.

Jim Puckett, PE

BMW rider

 

[BigSTom]

At the risk of hi jacking this BMW FD thread...

Quote by BwannaDik.... A guy on an ST woth electrical failure

I have it on pretty good authority that this was not an ST failure, but a wiring/farkle induced failure. Which might be another whole thread....Things that otherwise rattle along pretty well are big stressed in a rally situation. And things that I would catch in my normal inspections don't get inspected every 1000 miles or so. Like Battery connections and such.

 

[Dan S]

Thanks BigSTom for the break. Now back to the FD issue. Too fun bashing the BMW FD. Looks like circumstances are over the board.

https://www.bmwfinaldrive.com/fd_failure_list.php

I can find this easily because my brother is on this list (twice). Now he packs a spare FD on long trips. He loves his bike but I LOL when I think of him packing that thing.

 

[Lonerockz]

Thanks BigSTom for the break. Now back to the FD issue. Too fun bashing the BMW FD. Looks like circumstances are over the board. https://www.bmwfinaldrive.com/fd_failure_list.php

I can find this easily because my brother is on this list. Now he packs a spare FD on long trips. He loves his bike but I LOL when I think of him packing that thing.

Wow! I've never seen that. I just read a lot of ride reports on ADVrider that feature headlines like: "How I spent my trip fixing my final drive assembly with jbweld and a rock."

My favorite pic is this one:

Which may have been a contributing factor in my lube break down theory...

 

[BouncinBob]

I bet if they ran an oil cooler on the FD gear oil there would be less failures. Of course I have no idea how you actually accomplish that.

This may have some merit. Just my observation, but I have over 150,000 miles on 2 K12RS's (totaled one). My observation has been that at 12,000 miles, the gear box drains clean fluid, the final drive dirty, very dirty. Now, this may be something to do with the pinion seal. I took to changing the gear box oil once a year and the final drive every 6,000 when it was only a little dirty.

 

[matey peeps]

While not necessarily a failure, Greg Rice was in my shop earlier today with a pronounced clicking noise from the left bank of cylinders and a marked lack of performance. Our tech removed the cover and found one of the sparkplug boots throwing a 1" arc to an adjacent piece of metal. There was a small hole in the spark plug boot that was patched with several wraps of electrical tape as we lacked a replacement wire. I hope it holds, he was doing pretty well before this stop.

 

[twistedcricket]

While not necessarily a failure, Greg Rice was in my shop earlier today with a pronounced clicking noise from the left bank of cylinders and a marked lack of performance. Our tech removed the cover and found one of the sparkplug boots throwing a 1" arc to an adjacent piece of metal. There was a small hole in the spark plug boot that was patched with several wraps of electrical tape as we lacked a replacement wire. I hope it holds, he was doing pretty well before this stop.

We all really appreciate hearing things like this! Thanks for helping out the rider, even if you didn't have the part. I bet that "fix" works for the remainder of the ride.

 

[Chaz Fisher]

I read an article about the FD failures some time ago by one of the BMW gear heads. Can't remember if it was in the BMW magizine or in MCN. IIRC the guys final analysis (obviously not confirmed by BMW) was an assembly error that put too much (or possibly not enough) preload on the big bearing in the hub. It had nothing to do with single sided vs. double sided swng arms, it was more of a machining/assembly error. Sorry about being so vague, age and alcohol ya know, maybe somebody in the BMW forums can find the article.

Bill Shaw did an article last year in MCN, which drew heavily on the analysis done by Anton Largiader for the BMW RA mag, On The Level. The design used up thru '04 required a very finicky measuring and shimming procedure to get the preload just right. Too much OR too little and it's prone to fail. BMW changed the design for the '05 R1200's to eliminate that procedure. And simultaneously made some other bonehead decisions - who ever heard of a final drive that was sealed for life?????

(And knock on wood - 95kmiles on my R1100RS with no final drive issues. Just don't ask about the engine or transmission! :angry2: )

 

[BwanaDik]

"Matt Watkins called from Minnesota to report that he has blown a rear shock." (See IBR thread)

So WTF is this?????