Hi everyone... After being parked up for a year and a half due to a slipping clutch and some health issues, it's time to resurrect my K1100LT... I bought the bike about 3 yrs ago and found it had a slipping clutch. i fixed the leaking rear main that had contaminated the clutch, but cheapskated on the clutch by cleaning and reusing it (seemed like a good idea at the time)... I did 12000km on it but always felt like it was slipping under hard acceleration.

So my big question is, how hard will it be to leave the swingarm attached to the gearbox for removal and reinstall (will remove final drive for lube), and what is the best clutch to buy?... I'm going to check valve clearance while she's in pieces so I'm sure there will be more questions as I go.

Thanks Paul

No reason to remove the swingarm other than leaving it on makes things a little clumsier to handle.  

You are going to remove the final drive and the drive shaft, aren't you?  That stuff will really make handling the transmission clumsy.

I had my K1100LT apart many times and found that it was easier to remove the swinging arm because it was very bulky and awkward leaving it there. Get 4 150mm long 8mm bolts, they make assembly easy by aligning the transmission well back from the engine then sliding it forward onto the engine.
Check the steel clutch plates for dishing using a straight edge across them I had to replace mine after chasing a slipping clutch and after machining the old drive and pressure plate. The dish is usually to the outer rim with only about 5-6mm of plate contacting on the outer edge.

Hello Paul 

I find it easiest to remove first the rear guard then left foot plate followed by the right complete with foot brake master and calliper all left assemble

then the swing arm, rear shock top  bolt and wheel all left assemble and removed in one piece

next I zip tie the clutch arm up disconnect remove the battery and gear sender and tie up the water bottle

jack up and remove the centre stand and pull the starter motor backwards

then remove the gearbox bolts and replace them with sliding bolts  

I can get my gear box out in about 2 hours 

If you need a flat bar to hold the clutch I have one made up and I'm just up the road and i work in Logan  

There quite a few SEQ k on here that are willing to help

On my 2v K100RT Monolever off the entire as one, didn't even remove the wheel. Took an hour, 2 of us at it.

Did take it apart to put it back as there were other items in addition to the seal, as in gear position indicator etc etc.

It could have gone back as one so maybe Paralever is the same?

It will certainly come off easily as one. But I find it is just too cumbersome to reinstall the whole lot in one go safely, and not really worth the 'promised' time saving. I managed to wreck a clutch plate when I tried it: everything's too heavy and there's just no feel when you are offering the gearbox up to the engine.

Thanks for the replies guys... appreciate it... I ended building a plywood platform to support the box and swingarm complete... slid it off easy with no effort.. Now for that pesky clutch... I will just part with my $1000 and replace the lot I think... 

As per Matt heaps of help available, we regularly have workshop days. Between our group we have most of the tools required.
Regards Martin.

What do you mean $1000

That get you a whole new bike ?

Matthew-Brisbane wrote:What do you mean $1000

That get you a whole new bike ?

I know right... 

I just need to make sure I get it right this time.... 

I don't really enjoy removing the gearbox.... 

So I can use a straight edge on the pressure plate?

What about the spring, how do I determine the spring is good?

I got really good at removing the gear box when i keep failling at the rear main install

Suzi Q wrote:It will certainly come off easily as one. But I find it is just too cumbersome to reinstall the whole lot in one go safely, and not really worth the 'promised' time saving. I managed to wreck a clutch plate when I tried it: everything's too heavy and there's just no feel when you are offering the gearbox up to the engine.

My friend is an ex BMW tech and said much the same thing, only really works if you are fully set up for doing it all the time, you can slide it all back in if you use enough threaded rods to guide it in and its most definitely a 2 man job. Better to separate the bits and check them all out as you reassemble. In my case I ended up replacing [as intended] all the other seals, swing arm boot, clutch push rood boot, bearings etc etc.

92KK 84WW Olaf wrote:My friend is an ex BMW tech and said much the same thing, only really works if you are fully set up for doing it all the time, you can slide it all back in if you use enough threaded rods to guide it in and its most definitely a 2 man job. Better to separate the bits and check them all out as you reassemble. In my case I ended up replacing [as intended] all the other seals, swing arm boot, clutch push rood boot, bearings etc etc.

Agree with Olaf. The challenge comes with trying to position the output shaft splines on the engine to engage perfectly with the splines on the input shaft of the transmission while struggling to maintain perfect alignment with the axises of the two assemblies. There is no wiggle room.  Definitely a two person job to get back together.

The spring will be OK I have never seen or heard of a bad one and a straight edge will do fine, the dish can be anything up to 2mm on the inner edge.

Be careful man-handling it off and back on like that, a little slip and you can damage the end of the clutch push rod. The business end is just a press fit onto the end.

Removing the swing arm from the GB will give you an opportunity to clean, check and regrease the pivot bearings.
And if you want to properly clean and grease the output splines on the GB then the swing arm really needs to come off.

Thanks for all great responses and advice guys, I really appreciate it....

Matthew, I'm reallly happy that the one thing I seemed to get right was the rear main, as I have absolutely zero engine oil in bell. But I do have a very thin greasy greasy film on the clutch disc... I wonder if that could be from the staburags splatter???? maybe I went overboard with it...

Rick, I measured the dish on the pressure plate at .3mm   So I'm guessing thats in spec?

My clutch disc is down to 5mm, so even that's within spec,(just)..

My issues seems to be contamination either from not cleaning properly the first time or from staburags?... 

What is all that black stuff around the clutch in the intermediate housing?

I would guess you are using too much spline lube. All you need is a thin film on the splines. Chris Harris says that you don't need more than a dab of lube the size of a pea. Anything more just gets squeezed out.

To reduce lubricant carrier being thrown about and to keep the active component where you place it to allow the active product to do its job, mix the spline lube 50/50 with Wurth SIG 3000.  This is a very high viscosity lubricant which is extremely tenacious.  I use this concoction on my bike and it works extremely well.  The mixture is stringy like melted mozzarella cheese and is challenging to apply, but once on the part it stays in place.

Point-Seven-five wrote:What is all that black stuff around the clutch in the intermediate housing?

There is no black stuff... not sure what you mean.

Point-Seven-five wrote:What is all that black stuff around the clutch in the intermediate housing?

It's paint. Probably OEM.

Ahhh...got it! On my screen it looked like a bunch of oily dirt.

As Dai says.... it's paint. There's a lot of white splatter, which is probably excess spline lube that's been flung around. I apply it with a soft toothbrush and remove most of it leaving just a thin film.

Holister wrote:As Dai says.... it's paint. There's a lot of white splatter, which is probably excess spline lube that's been flung around. I apply it with a soft toothbrush and remove most of it leaving just a thin film.

That's it mate... I will use much less this time around

Well I got it all back together... new rego, new clutch, tyres, fluids, checked valves.... did 200km today and all went well... really happy considering when I let it run out of rego last year I didnt know if I would ever ride anything again.

As for my original question about removing the swingarm final drive and gear box as one unit... I did it and it was easy to do on my own... I built a support platform and removing and reinstall was simply a matter of sliding the whole unit back and forth, taking weight completely out of the equation.. the platform was built directly under the gearbox.