Adventure on jweicht! If you ever want to remind yourself of the lovely lines of the R11S, invite me up for a ride. I won't be following you on the gravel, though. :)

Thanks again!

Seal removed
 

I know you guys missed this thread. Here's what I've learned since last post.
1. Getting the seal out isn't bad with the screw trick. I carefully drilled a couple pilot holes through the seal first; tough little sucker. With only about a 1/4" (~1cm for our metric friends) of the screw buried in the seal, I used a pair of burly pliers and a scrap of trim to yank it out. Only took two pulls, one on each side of the input shaft.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1223337569.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1223337590.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1223337628.jpg
Bit gruesome looking isn't it?

2. Learned that the seal did not completely stop the goo from getting past it. It doesn't look like much; one swipe with a Q-tip and it was gone from the bearing. If I was going to be super anal, I'd probably replace the bearing, but I think I might gamble a bit and see if she'll pull through, particularly since the gear oil looked pretty clean minus some metallic looking streaking; didn't sight any clumpy rust colored bits. Maybe this is faulty logic ... ?

3. Where the goo seeped past and sat between the seal and the housing, it formed a crusty "concretion;" it's the golden-esque colored "halo" that can be seen just below the darker gray color. I would like to get the surface clean so the new seal has a better chance of ... well, sealing. I'm not sure of how to do so. I don't think I should spray any type of degreaser down in there for fear of it working into the bearing or into the gear box. Any suggestions?
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1223338982.jpg

That is a fantastic photo!

Looks clean enough to me... and unless you want to split the tranny cases.... replacing the seal is all you can do.

Thanks Anton. I finally found the USB cable so I could finally use my camera again; had been using the wife's which is great for almost everything except low light and macro, which is obviously exactly what you need for this type of shot. At the risk of straying off topic, my little Sanyo Xacti is really great at these type of shots because the flash is right next to the lens ... so you can peer down into things. Here's the initial shot I wanted to show at the beginning of this thread which better shows the sediment in the clutch reservoir, although unfortunately I did not take a shot with the reservoir full (had no clue I had problem until empty).
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1223342582.jpg

After a moment to think about it, it occurred to me that I might try mechanical means rather than chemical to remove the residue where the seal was. My wife is a bit of an artist and has a lot of supplies so in asking her for some kind of plastic knife, she whipped out "5 assorted painting knives" by Loew Cornell; price tag is $3 so I didn't feel bad about putt'n a little wear on 'em. In short, they worked great. I also used 90W with the idea of softening the deposits and I think that contributed to the effectiveness. I am now more confident about having the new seal hold. Wish I could get another money shot to show the cleanliness, but battery ran out in my camera.

I also drilled the weep hole. First step is to ensure that you do not drill too deep. I measured 1-3/8" to the depth of the "boss" (proper terminology?) where the seal sits. Therefore, I marked 1-1/4" on the outside of the housing for my hole. I positioned it as low as possible (as dictated by drill clearance) to ensure I see the first signs of problem (believe you me I will be shining a flashlight in there regularly in the future). Here's the best I could do with the wife's camera; first shot shows intended "trajectory." Be sure and mark your target with a good whack of a sharp pointy thing. Professionals use a tool that for the life of me I cannot come up with right now; I used a nail. Anyway ...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1223346904.jpg

Here's a shot showing the resultant hole and how low I was able to get with respect to the true bottom of the housing/casing/whatever.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1223347038.jpg

BTW, I used a lot of Q-tips dipped in 90W to clean the scrapings and the few aluminum shavings that penetrated. Recommend taping the interior prior to drilling so as to minimize that. Dee-de-de. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/suppo...leys/blush.gif

The new seal should arrive tomorrow ... re-assembly to begin!

center-punch is the word you were looking for.

Just some points, hydraulic seals in brake and clutch systems are usually allergic to petrochemicals and mineral oils, it causes the seals to swell up and fail as far as I know, so make sure there is no trace of those contaminants before you reassemble.
DOT 4 is water soluble so you can rinse parts with water and blow out with compressed air to dislodge contamination and dry the water off. Pure methyl alcohol (sold as mentholated spirits here) is another “safe” chemical to use and is recommended to remove any trace of mineral oil or other chemical contamination.
Fine wet and dry paper (800 grade) can be used to remove crud or surface corrosion from metal surfaces and leave a nice smooth surface for replacement seals to sit on. Just remember to flush the abrasive out with water/alcohol and compressed air.
Make sure your hands are oil free when handling hydraulic parts and use DOT4 as lubricant when assembling master or slave cylinders. There is also special rubber grease for use with hydraulic parts.
Obviously seals designed to keep oil away from the hydraulic parts will be mineral oil friendly so you don’t have to worry about contamination with them.

Good luck with your “project” you seem to be doing well so far. These mechanical toys are not really that complicated or scary when you get down to it. :D

Good to hear I can use water to clean out the clutch reservoir. I was not aware of that. Thanks much!

Assembly!
 

As promised, Bob's came through with the parts yesterday. First thing I noticed upon examining the slave cylinder is that there has been a design change! Check out the difference in the retaining rings (old in background). The new one adds support to the throw out bearing seal ring doo-hickey; feel free to comment if you know what this thing is actually called.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1223464331.jpg

I am encouraged by this change and wonder about the availability of the "fancy" snap ring for retrofit for those of you who may want to be proactive about shoring up your slave cylinder before it fails.

In comparing the old throw out bearing to the new one, the old one was definitely shot. While the new has a little "flex" to it, it does not rock from side to side like the old one.

Next came looking at the seal. Immediately I was perplexed by an included aluminum ring. It wasn't until I went back and closely examined the directions in the thread as supplied earlier by RBMann (http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showt...hreadid=336607) that I realized this is an install ring. That solved, I got to it.

A couple deep sockets were key. I began with applying a little 90W to the seal as the directions indicate. Next, I started seating the seal by hand (OK, fingertip) and using my "well-manicured" fingernail, it looked like I got the inner seal started correctly; that is, with the lip towards the clutch side. I then placed the install ring as shown, fit a 15mm deep socket over it, and tapped the top of the socket with a rubber mallet.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1223465202.jpg

I next removed the install ring and instead switched to a stiff plastic washer I found in my coffee-can-of-should-I-keep-or-bin-this that had the same interior diameter, but a larger outer diameter nearly matching that of the seal's dimensions. My reasoning being that after the inner seal was fit around the input shaft, I ought to distribute the load evenly across the seal as much as possible to fit the outer ring of the seal into the housing. A 21mm socket was recruited and with a couple taps and checks with a micrometer, I felt satisfied that I had successfully installed the seal to an even depth and that it was very near where the old seal was located. Note that it could easily be pounded in too deep and the only course of action would be to remove (and in the process destroy) it and re-order a new one.
Ta-da!
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1223465836.jpg

Having lubed the splines on the input shaft with Honda Moly, I reinstalled the gear box. The floor jack made it *SO* simple. I don't know if I got lucky, but it went on easier than it came off. I concluded my evening in the garage at about 10pm and hauled myself up to bed where I dreamed of curvy roads to come.

This is the last pic I took, but I actually got the airbox and battery tray fitted as well.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1223466097.jpg

One question regarding the paralever, the driveshaft should not be able to be freely turned (independent of the rear hub/wheel) correct???? I'm afraid the shaft may have slipped too far forward when I removed it. May have to tear into it as Bill & repoe3 had to do. Oh well, what's one more thing at this point?

Can the clutch push rod be pulled out from the rear after the slave cylinder is removed?

need some help....

anyone got any good ideas on how to get the seal out, when you haven't removed all the rear of the bike?

sucker is in there good, and I can't get a good angle.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1284226791.jpg

tried the screw thing, but still can't get a good angle to pull on it.

i'm heading to sears to get some long machine screws. fit one to my grip clamp and hopefully extract it. a bit worried now about how hard it will be to put the new one in....

got it out.

this is my extraction tool
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1284236104.jpg

now... what is the spring inside, and did I F$%K it up?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1284236164.jpg

found the answer. the spring is in the seal... and yes, I F$%Ked it up... fortunately the new one has one in it!...

thanks to Brian at CCBMW...

Another R1100S clutch failure
 

Hi,

I know this thread is now 10 years old, but I’m having similar issues on my R1100S BCR.
A few years back, after highway riding for a few hours I would loose hydraulic pressure on the clutch. No leaks. After getting cold, pressure would come back. At the timeI didn’t had the time to look into it, so the BMW dealership dealt with it. 3,000€ and a new clutch and it was fixed.
Fast forward to today, and the problem came back.

Exactly the same symptoms. After riding for a while at the highway, clucth would go. After cooling it would come back. On my last ride, to make things worst, the master ctlinder started leaking fluid as well.

Altough 5 years have passed since the original issue, I probably rode 2000km in the meantime. Altough I love the bike, I usually ride no more than 3 or 4 times a year.
This time I decided to fix it myself.

I’ve ordered both a master cylinder rebuild kit and the slave cylinder to replace both. Delivery should happen in a couple of days.
I started working on the bike and was puzzled by the look of the hydraulic fluid inside the master cylinder container. Completely black.

Remove the slave cylinder. And it was in a bad shape. Filled with this black paste, which smelled strange. Probably transmission fluid, right?

I plan on removing the starter engine tomorrow to check if there is any trace of oil in the clutch.

A few questions to anyone reading:
- can I remove the input shaft through the slave housing? I want to check if it’s the version with the felt.
- I definitely should change the input shaft rear seal, right?
- is it possible the change this seal with the gearbox in place? Or do I have to disassemble the rear of the bike and remove gearbox?

Many thanks,
José Caeiro

If you are referring to the transmission input shaft, no, you must remove the tranny.
Read this thread

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/bmw-r1100s-r1200s-tech-forum/306801-flattbutt-arkansas-thread.html