Another close call...like dbltailexit's

SAHD · 05-08-2007, 06:14 PM

My BCR's torque arm did the same thing yesterday on the track at Calabogie.
And the grinding noise coming from my shaftdrive was sick.
Good that the belly pan prevents the torque arm from dropping
to the road surface. Lucky for me no crash and I was able to ride
back slowly to the paddock.

Dbltailexit, when your torque arm dropped the front bolt did your
U joint or drive shaft have any damage?
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/newr...threadid=253049

The BMW dealer here cannot look at it for a week or two.
They did a quick visual inspection and suspect the drive shaft
needs replacing. I hope the warranty will cover the damage if any.

To my knowledge the torque arm/fastners on my bike are still
untouched since leaving the factory. And my bike only has
12,000km on it, not enough yet for a vibration or shearing off of
the bolt?

Has anyone else had this happen to them?
Was there damage and did BMW cover it under warranty?

Daniel Restrepo · 05-08-2007, 06:24 PM

Yes. this happened on my bike (2000 R1100S with less then 10k on it back in 2002). i had owned it for only a couple months. The Previous owner babied the hell out of his bikes. He was a very wealthy gentleman with very good taste in motorcycles and cars IMHO. He sold me the bike at a very good price at the time (just months before the used market really took a nosedive). I was leaving a family party in the suburbs to return home. It was a beautiful weekend day (i dont remember which) and i was just getting on the interstate, giving it gas when i heard something fall of the bike. i chopped the throttle and pulled over to see the swingarm all disjointed. It was my first BMW but it was pretty plain to see what happened. i found the bolt and thought about trying to get it back in there but quickly gave up hope. long story short i got it towed to BMW in Barrington and they inspected and decided it was fine. I got lucky.

sorry to ramble. that bike kinda turned out to be a curse to me. but i loved it. the old bumble bee.

good luck

acidburn · 05-08-2007, 08:20 PM

Safffffteeeeeee wire, regular inspections, doh.

Dbltailexit · 05-08-2007, 09:34 PM

No problems on shaft drive with likely 5k miles since then. Also last month inspected U joint for other reasons and it was fine. ( Good riding Brian who was on the bike at the time)
It is likely a previous owner had changed out the torque arm and was not adequately fastened. yes i am safety wired now.

As acidburn says also regular inspections on everything and if i think something is different followup by stopping and checking.

anotheroldrider · 05-09-2007, 06:20 AM

Unrelated to this, but I had the cardan joint fail on my Le Mans at speed - like acidburn said, regular inspections are important.

ErricZ · 05-09-2007, 07:08 AM

That must not be very much fun. Glad to hear you kept it up and made it safely to stop.

acidburn · 05-09-2007, 07:35 AM

Girls this stuff is pretty much common sense.
Vibration = issues, sooner or later, issues to deal with.
Learn easy, do as reccomended, learn from others, follow reccomended practices, or learn the hard way.
Hard way = hurt way, expensive way, not reccomended.
Common sense needs to prevail or suffering of one sort or another is unavoidable.
The numbers will prove out, i promise you.

JonyRR · 05-09-2007, 03:01 PM

almost EVERYTHING on my S is loctited AND safetywired.
some have laughed at me for this, calling it 'racer-wannabe'.
but you know what?
I have NEVER lost a part yet...AFTER the wire.
WHAT prompted me to start safetywiring?
A loose-almost-gone front paralever torque arm bolt, that's what.
go figure.

PFFOG · 05-09-2007, 04:33 PM

Sorry to hear SAHD, but how did you like Calabogie?

SAHD · 05-09-2007, 05:28 PM

Thank you for your responses.
Alrighty then, I'll check everything from now on.

I guess it was silly to assume that a manufacturer would make
there product safe and free from liability issues.
I think they should safety wire the bike in the factory if their bikes
start to vibrate so badly that a structural support part will fall off
or become undone and potentially cause a fatal accident.
In the USA you could probably sue the pants of them I am sure.

Anyway the pic up load wasn't working last night.
Here are a couple of photos depicting the current state of affairs of my BCR!

And Yeskino me loves the track. Rode it last year too!
In the first hour of riding I broke down, but friends offered their rides to me...so I did some laps on a CBR1000RR and a race prepped SV650. And Dale (aka RC51drag) offered up his HP to me but I didn't have a chance to ride it...appreciate the offer Dale,
next time.

I was busy coaching and leading BMW club riders around the track. First timers, and on slightly less nimble bikes, ...2 LTs, a R1150RT and a R100RS. They had fun.

squall_line · 05-10-2007, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by SAHD
Thank you for your responses.
Alrighty then, I'll check everything from now on.

I guess it was silly to assume that a manufacturer would make
there product safe and free from liability issues.
I think they should safety wire the bike in the factory if their bikes
start to vibrate so badly that a structural support part will fall off
or become undone and potentially cause a fatal accident.
In the USA you could probably sue the pants of them I am sure.

Not to pee in your cheerios or anything, but why blame this on BMW? I mean, I don't religiously inspect my bike before every ride, but you can guarantee that, if I were going to do a track event, I would be checking every major support bolt, including the lug bolts, torque arm, telelever, etc. during the tech inspection before leaving the pits.

Then again, I've never done a track day, either, so maybe I'm over-estimating the inspection process that I would otherwise think would be a part of such an event.

Also, even in sue-happy USA (which, honestly, isn't that much worse than other countries), this would get laughed out of court. There's no way a judge would try to hold a manufacturer liable for using your bike on a track, and you'd probably end up getting counter-sued by your insurance company for insurance fraud once they found out you were out on a track with the bike, even if you didn't make a claim to them.

PFFOG · 05-10-2007, 09:07 AM

Actually Track days are not considered competition, but skill development so insurance, including collision is in full affect. Throw it away at a track day, and it is covered!!

Rapid Dog · 05-10-2007, 12:08 PM

...what happened exactly? the bolt sheared off or what?

squall_line · 05-10-2007, 12:38 PM

A point of clarification. The original posting wasn't a failure on dbltailexits' bike, it was on ExarKunONe's.

Quote:

Originally posted by Rapid Dog
...what happened exactly? the bolt sheared off or what?

In any case, in that instance, the bolt backed its way out of the nut, then out one side of the torque arm, then out of the frame, then out of the other side of the torque arm. Presumably it was the same in this instance for SAHD to refer to that time in his post.

I'm not entirely convinced that the entire process took less than 5 or 10 minutes, though. In theory, the loose nut would have been caught on a tech inspection if it had been checked.

It's certainly on my list of things to check weekly and before any long trip or track event now.

Dbltailexit · 05-10-2007, 12:52 PM

EXarKunone was riding Dbltailexit's (my) bike because i was so impressed with the difference of the different arms. I had recently sold my 01 Stock S and upgraded. We had just finished a great ride up in the twisty's coming back from Santa Barbara and were on the 2 mile straight when it let go. Exarkunone handled it perfectly, let off throttle and coasted off. Timing is everything in life.

SAHD · 05-10-2007, 05:10 PM

Ok let me clarify.

I agree, when we street ride or do advance rider training on a
closed circuit, or open track days, we should always make sure
not to take for granted any part of our motorcycle when doing a
safety check. Check everything.

I admit it, I did not physically check every bolt or fastner on my
bike that day.
I do admit that the annual service was just completed and the
bike was running fine the day before on the street.
And if the bolt was loose and ready to fall out, I think I would
have seen it when I inserted the spool for the belly pan fastner
or when I put the tie-downs on for transport.
The bolt is lost and we'll never know if it just backed out or
sheared off.

Any thoughts on this theory...
Do you think that when transporting and compressing the rear
suspension with the tie-down strap that it stresses the torque
arm bolts and loosens or fatiques the metal?

Bob Hancock · 05-10-2007, 05:28 PM

made me look

All three bikes are fine. (The 900SS has a brake link that looks like a torque arm that has been known to lose the front bolt and drop, much to the chagrin of the rider.)