Failure to launch

[voodooskin]

Dang.  Leaving work today, fired up the '97 K1100LT, put in 1st, started to depart the parking lot when horrible noises occurred and forward motion, she ceased.

In neutral: no horrible noises (all normal).

In first or second, presumably the other gears, horrible noises and no forward motion when clutch is disengaged.  Don't absolutely recall if clutch out was required for horrible noise but I seem to think all it took was shifting into gear even with clutch in.

Will have her towed home tomorrow and will start to poke at it.  I thought about taking to the dealer but:

1) I have a garage
2) there's time
3) good beer in the garage fridge
4) basic tools and mechanical expertise (having rebuilt a japanese car motor if that counts)

I hate to miss some riding weather in Oregon, which is a commodity, but I'm cheapish, stupid, and stubborn (all life skills) but admittedly, no K guru.  I did mention stupid, right?  I should be able to post in "what the hell did I do on my brick today" in any event....

Clearly I need a spare brick though ;-)

More soon...

- voodoo

[Rick G]

Well you got all the basics plus the garage, tools and time so go for it. Sounds like a clutch.

[Scott_]

Or drive shaft, but a clutch is probably more common.

[voodooskin]

will the rear wheel spin by hand in neutral while on center stand...

Yes it will.  Also, with the transmission in neutral, if I fire up the engine I can hear horrible noises (not as bad as when I tried to move in 1st though).  So it sure seems like it must be the clutch.  I can also move the rear wheel by hand when the bike's in first but you can feel and hear scraping and clunking.

I'll read through the Clymer book and have a beer and contemplate surgery ;-)

[frankenduck]

Or drive shaft, but a clutch is probably more common.

Nah, drive shaft U-joints blow up more often than clutch splines stripping. (Provided they're lubed regularly.)

Disassembly: http://www.motobrick.com/index.php/topic,1615.0.html

Clutch: http://www.motobrick.com/index.php/topic,332.0.html

[Rick G]

After reading your last post I would suggest playing the last post for the rear uni.

[voodooskin]

So, I finally braved disassembly and the culprit, as suspected, appears to be the clutch splines.

Here are the two pictures that tell the story:



and the transmission input splines:



A few more pics here:

http://www.debmail.net/joe/moto/

It's tough to get a good shot of the splines that's worth much.  If the Internet was any good you would see this in 3D

For those of you familiar with splines, if you can tell from the pics whether the transmission splines look serviceable or if they look shot.   If the latter, is there somewhere you can have the part replaced (or the trans rebuilt)?  I'm not sure I want to dive into the gearbox, and buying a  new transmission is right out. 

BTW, thanks Duck for the killer howto on disassembly!  I might have some addl. questions for y'all on what parts to replace (aside from the clutch pushrod which I bent) while it's cracked open, but first I need to know how hosed I am on the trans.

[frankenduck]

First get your hands on a new clutch plate and say how much play there is on the splines.

[pallum]

How long since the last spline lube? Doesn't appear to be too long ago...

Transmission splines are probably toast, hard to tell if camera blur is covering up damage on them near the transmission housing though. Shoot us a side view.

[voodooskin]

First get your hands on a new clutch plate and say how much play there is on the splines.

I'll start there then, will report back.  Off to the dealer tomorrow...

[voodooskin]

Hopefully these are not stupid questions, I've never dug this deep into this machine before  :eek2:

1) Weird.

When I disassembled the clutch (without quite removing the housing here's what came off the bike in order:

1) clutch housing cover
2) clutch plate
3) pressure plate
4) diaphragm spring
5) nothing
6) clutch housing

Where "nothing" is above according to the microfiche and my paper manual there's a wire ring and I have no such thing, I got diaphragm spring up against clutch housing.  Might that be a variation or did someone mis-assemble the clutch do you think?

It's not that big a deal, I can buy one when I'm getting other parts, it's just odd to me to be completely missing a part.  It's the kind of thing that makes you wonder if you're cut out for this shade tree mechanic thing.

2) is guard dog moly 525 OK to use for the minor reassembly lube of the wire ring (assuming I buy one) and the clutch pushrod?  Or should I go get something else?  I was planning to use GD525 for the splines, I have some, but don't mind getting the right stuff.

3) how clean should the clutch housing area be?  There's clutch friction material dust around, I've brushed a thimblefull of it out with an old toothbrush but should I wipe down the whole thing with a solvent coated rag or something?  Or, not worry too much about it?

Cheers and thanks, y'all!

[voodooskin]

When I disassembled the clutch (without quite removing the housing here's what came off the bike in order:

1) clutch housing cover
2) clutch plate
3) pressure plate
4) diaphragm spring
5) nothing
6) clutch housing

Where "nothing" is above according to the microfiche and my paper manual there's a wire ring and I have no such thing

Ignore this last:  I found the wire ring after all, it was just lodged in there good.  I thought that was just some feature of the housing.
<python> I have a bit of brain lodged in my head </python>

[voodooskin]

Just to wrap this up:  I'm back commuting on the few Oregon sunny days we have left.  Many thanks to Duck in particular for his awesome spline and clutch writeups, I doubt I would have gotten this done w/o that help.  Thank you sir.

The only issue so far was a minor gearbox oil leak at the clutch pushrod spring/boot assembly.  I didn't realize there was a specialized transmission oil level tool in the factory toolkit.  I created my own using the shock adjustment tool and the Clymer manual which has a diagram for a home grown gearbox oil level tool, but noticed after 0.9 liters and going the transmission was clearly taking more gearbox oil than the specs would indicate.  I put in 0.9L and stopped even though my homegrown tool was not showing any fluid at all yet, it was below my homegrown dipstick yet already overfilled.  Rode on that overfill for 15 miles or so and noticed some nontrivial gearbox oil leakage out of the pushrod boot.

Drained the trans, found the appropriate tool, put in 0.8L to spec (spot on when using the factory gearbox oil level tool), swapped back to the original pushrod boot and original pushrod bearing assembly (both of which were probably fine, my replacement parts from Max BMW are also probably fine who knows), and it all seems good at this point.  No leaks, shifts and rides as well as before my clutch splines stripped.

I could probably stand to replace the gearbox input spline shaft, the splines were not w/o some noticeable wear, but it seemed to me the new clutch friction disc didn't have much play when on the splines so I opted not to crack open the gearbox.  Maybe I'll get some good miles out of what's there.  Future project anyway.  Thanks all and drive safe -