Life of a clutch

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Nobby

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What is the Average life of a clutch in terms of milage. I know this is one of those how long is a piece of string question, but looking to get a general consensus.
 
It really is how long is a piece of string. A bike used perdomatley on the motorway will have a much longer life than a bike that is used around town or off road. That’s all other things being equal. But things never are equal with different riding styles and abuse and the unpredictable outcome of oil leaks and mal adjustments and hand guards/ muffs making clutches slip and wear out or overheat. JJH
 
Greatly depends on the rider,if you treat a bike with a dry clutch the way you would the clutch on one fitted with a wet multi plate ie a japanese multi it will greatly foreshorten the life of the unit
 
So let’s say 3 owners and 76000 miles would you do a clutch as a caution or wait till it goes, there’s no info of clutch being done in service history.
 
Personally I’d wait. Your not expecting it to go bang are you? Usually there’s a bit of warming. Now if you were in there for another reason...... JJH
 
What model of RT ?

You've posted in the generic RT forum, cover lots of different all RT models.
 
Sorry on me phone, r1200rt 2006
 
Take 10/15 mins and measure it (thickness) .... not hard to do

cover - wire(s) - 2 allen screws - brain (cause it's hard to directly measure !)

could go on for 200K ... could be on the edge of death ....... ??
 
Don't own it yet.
Take 10/15 mins and measure it (thickness) .... not hard to do

cover - wire(s) - 2 allen screws - brain (cause it's hard to directly measure !)

could go on for 200K ... could be on the edge of death ....... ??
 
Take 10/15 mins and measure it (thickness) .... not hard to do

cover - wire(s) - 2 allen screws - brain (cause it's hard to directly measure !)

could go on for 200K ... could be on the edge of death ....... ??

It's an RT....... L/h fairing needs to be removed so a bit longer than 10 minutes.
 
A lot depends on factors which you cannot know about.

Thus:
R1200RT has a 5 and a half speed drag racing gearbox in it. First is far too high, 6th is far too low. Great if you are drag racing, but not if you have a passenger on board and stop on a hill with full luggage. You will not take off without smoking the clutch.
Police refused to take the bikes with this gearbox, and police bikes have a much lower first.
My bike has 55k+ miles on it and clutch is still apparently perfect. I have had to smoke the clutch a few times on steep hills.
However, since I do not generally use the clutch once on the move, it probably suffers little wear there.
Why worry. You pays your money and takes a chance.
Myke
 
r1200rt 2006
Well my Oilhead RT has 126000 with the original clutch. My buddy has one that needed changing at 40000. It really is impossible to answer you. You can't even ask the previous owners because of the number of owners. However if the price is right, it is not the end of the world to replace the clutch when the time eventually comes.
 
Me thinks the op is doing sums and trying to factor in the cost of replacement in his figures. JJH
 
Inspect Clutch Plates by Removing the Starter

You can inspect the clutch plates roughly as a guide by removing left bodywork, disconnect the battery and then remove the starter, then you can look at the plates, a small steel ruler and two feeler gauges are necessary,When you pull in the clutch lever (disengaged), the housing cover and pressure plate separate, releasing pressure on the clutch disk. Insert two thin feeler gauges on both sides of the clutch disk, then release the clutch lever. The pressure plate and housing cover will come back together, trapping the feeler gauges in the �sandwich stack�.,the measure the clutch plates thickness, additionally check for any crankshaft or balancer shaft oil leaks.
(oil residue) should be bone dry inside and sniff for burnt clutch plates! an endoscope hand held camera works well in here.

see: http://bmwsporttouring.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=812872 photos and diagrams on this link.



I replaced my clutch earlier this year at 42540 miles, it was not slipping at all, but decided before embarking on trip to Nordkapp better make the bike as near perfect as possible, my bike is ex metropolitan police and possibly had a lot of start / stopping in London.

Upon dismantling i noticed it had had two replacement clutches before as the clutch i was removing had been fitted and date stamped in 2009, but the bike is a 2007 which i have had since 2013.
so as a preventative measure before going on a 6000 mile trip to Nordkapp, i decided to replace the clutch, clutch slave cylinder, crankshaft and balancer shaft oil seals, all gearbox oil seals, a new starter and new driveshaft as that had 1mm of free play in the universal joint, an expensive project but i saved a fortune doing it myself.

Upon removal the plates had only 3.5 to 4mm thickness left so glad i replaced it.

I fitted the expensive MW Oil Resistant clutch plate and it works perfectly.

At your mileage i would ask the previous owners or note the chassis number and ask any BMW dealer if they have details on the BMW computer system as to if and when a clutch was replaced ?

If only riding in the uk then dont worry, ride it till it starts slipping, you should be able to limp home, just dont ruin a holiday and make sure you have breakdown cover or a mate with a trailer.

At that mileage i would check everything carefully, it may have already had a clutch ? i have done over 18000 miles on mine in 4 years, 7000 miles since August 2017 on the new clutch, they are great bikes, but regular maintenance is the key to reliability and cheapest in the long run.

With careful riding i would expect a clutch to last at least 30,000 miles, maybe 100,000 it depends how the bike is used, stop starts and short journeys it wont do as many miles as riding in top gear on the motorways.

Every winter when the bike is laid up, i shall as a matter of preventive maintenance spend two hours, removing the starter to inspect for oil leaks and at the same time check the clutch plate thicknesses, this prepares
the bike for touring later on.



Join the BMW Club then you can hire the special tools for next to nothing if you are going to do the jobs yourself.
Get a factory DVD for your computer for about £10 off ebay, or free via a download, that is fantastic and makes the normal H Manual a waste of time.

Regards: Steve
 
My 2007 did 65k, but that included many hours of London commuting - filtering and clutch slipping...

The friction plate was then down to the rivets - still only slipped at high torque loads.
 
Greatly depends on the rider,if you treat a bike with a dry clutch the way you would the clutch on one fitted with a wet multi plate ie a japanese multi it will greatly foreshorten the life of the unit

Please explain?

If im not mistaken, its the same clutch type arrangement you would find in a car,

So why should the life of the clutch be vastly different to that of a car type clutch,

and they (car) get slipped every time you pull away, and haul a dam sight more load than a bike & rider

Yes i know wet multiplate clutches are designed to be slipped, but unless your dumping the clutch, and lurching off

from stationary, how else are you going to pull off slowly and smothly without slipping the clutch (car or bike ?)
 
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