Yet another 1150 gearbox "clunk"

[Ibram]

A while back I've bought '02 R1150RT, rides really well but there's one thing that does keep me up at night, the gearbox "clunk"!

So, I've read a bunch of posts all over the web but I don't think any refer to the noise my bikes gearbox makes... (or maybe it does and I worry unnecessarily)

I know getting into gear makes a "clunk" - I used to have a '84 K100LT and the gearbox was the same.
I know it's normal for the clutch to make a bit of noise with warm engine and with clutch in.

In my case there's pretty loud "clunk" from gearbox whenever changing a gear and releasing the clutch and also when going off and on the throttle... (i.e. in heavy city traffic when you're constantly off and on throttle) The sound is loud enough to be clearly audible when going in to 5th and 6th gears at speed, with all the wind noise...

I thought it may be the infamous clutch / input shaft splines so I've took the gearbox out (I wanted to take the whole thing apart to grease all gearbox / driveshaft / final drive splines - as it turns out they were pretty dry!) - it turns out clutch spines are fine - not a bit of play there, drive shaft to gearbox - no free play, neither drive shaft to final drive (all tight), final drive got an absolute tiniest amount of play...

Gearbox itself however seem to have a lot of play between input and output shafts regardless of the gear I'm in, seems to be coming from the front of the gearbox
Here's a little video of turning output shaft back and forth (unfortunately no video taken while riding)

This seems to be a bit excessive to me, especially since it seems to be coming from the front of the gearbox but maybe this is normal and I just need to get better earplugs? (I can still hear it with the ones I use now )

 

[ThreeDawg]

Do you know anyone nearby who has experience of oilheads who could maybe take your bike out for a spin?

Mine makes a noise like a brick being chucked into a metal bucket between first and second, but the higher gears are pretty slick, given the limitations of the drivetrain.

 

[Ibram]

Do you know anyone nearby who has experience of oilheads who could maybe take your bike out for a spin?

Mine makes a noise like a brick being chucked into a metal bucket between first and second, but the higher gears are pretty slick, given the limitations of the drivetrain.

Unfortunately dont know anyone here - new to the are and afaik nearest bike shop's 60+ miles away.
Yeah, I know between 1st and 2nd gear the clunk is normal - my second BMW with that "feature"
This sounds more like gears slamming into each other when putting load on the gearbox :/ makes it a bit jerky too, especially in the city...

You mentioning the rest of gears in your are fairly smooth does not give much confidence with state of mine, may try to find some local bike club and see how other r1150's behave

 

[theoneandonly]

that , to my ear , just sounds like backlash inside , i would have thought nothing to worry about ,but do that test on just the shaft to confirm.
just checked a spare g/box , and it has slightly less noise than yours .