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Final Drive Oil Change 2006 K1200R

52K views 25 replies 18 participants last post by  Cpowel51 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
**I am on K-Bikes almost daily, but I do not often check this Tech forum. If you have a question on this procedure, please PM me, and I'll answer it, and if relevant, will post your question/reply here to the thread.**

Due to incompetent “Certified BMW Mechanics” (see thread HERE ) I changed my final drive oil today only 3 days after paying a dealership do it. I was looking for any damage they may have caused by not correctly filling the final drive oil. They only used 30ml rather than 230ml, and I rode 200 miles home like that.

If you do not have a factory magnetic drain plug, purchase one from your dealer before doing this procedure. Bikes prior to model year 2007 do NOT have a factory magnetic drain plug. Read entire procedure and understand it before beginning.

To begin with, I do not have a center stand, so I needed to create something to get the rear of the bike high enough to pivot the final drive down, and have enough clearance from the ground. I chose to make a large sawhorse.
I went to Home Depot and bought the supplies.

2x4 8 foot long $2.50 each, used three = $7.50
Sawhorse Brackets Set $5.00

Total cost was around $12.50

I cut two of the 2x4x8 into 4 foot lengths (four – four foot lengths)
I put a 13º angle on one end of each 2x4x4. The angle will go on the bottom when you screw it all together, this allows the bottoms to sit flush to the ground when sitting in the angled sawhorse bracket.

I cut the last 2x4 and used a 5 foot section. (3 feet left over)
Screw it all together and this is the final outcome.



Here are the steps I used:

1. Loosen rear wheel lug nuts ( T50 ) Easier to do this while the rear tire is on the ground and not spinning while in the air.
2. Hoist rear of bike using sawhorse. I used a sportbike chock to hold the front end, and used my pitbull stand on the rear to have the rear already off the ground. I had some ‘soft tiedowns’ that I looped around the pannier brackets. I attached ratcheting straps through the soft tiedowns and over the sawhorse. Then just ratcheted the straps to hoist the bike up off the pitbull stand, then removed the pitbull stand. Hoist until the rear wheel is between 5 and 6 inches off the deck





3. Remove the lug nuts and the rear wheel ( T50 )
4. Loosen the rear drain plug ( T45 )
5. Loosen the speed sensor screw ( T25 )



6. Remove rear Paralever bolt ( T50 and 16mm wrench ) Use one hand to support the drive when you remove the bolt. Apply slight upward pressure to allow the bolt to slide out. Lower the drive to about 30º, it will rest on the driveshaft. Take a look inside and see the two things you need to separate.
7. separate the pinion shaft from the universal shaft and pivot the rear-wheel drive down. I found it worked when I used my thumb and index finger to press the shaft forward. A slight rotation of the brake rotor helped it to release. It took about 30 seconds of fiddling, so give it some time. It only needs a bit of pressure and it WILL release, just work with it. Support the bottom of the drive with one hand to help release pressure on the shaft, and because it will swing down when it releases.



8. Remove Drain plug ( T45 ) allow to drain into suitable container. Inspect drain plug for metal shavings. If you do not have a factory magnetic drain plug, purchase one from your dealer before doing this procedure.



9. Remove Speed sensor screw, and use fingers to remove speed sensor. You may need to rotate the brake rotor to get good access, then be careful not to spin the rotor once the speed sensor is out, or you could pinch it. I flushed the drive through the speed sensor hole a few times with new oil as an extra precaution, but the oil came out clean (even tilted and spun the gear via the rotor) so flushing may be unnecessary.

Now to reassemble:

10. clean the splines of the parts you separated in step 7 and apply a light coat of fresh optimoly or a suitable replacement such as ‘Honda Moly60’ or ‘LocTite Moly Paste’. I choose LocTite Moly paste because it is packaged better for my use. It is a small resealable jar with a brush built into the cap. It is also 65% moly, and I ordered it online for around $20. Honda Moly is 60% moly, and comes in a small tube that you could load into a grease gun. The tube is not designed to be resealed, and a grease gun is not good for this application, though you could just dip a brush into the tube and use it that way. Honda Moly60 is cheaper and often available at your local Honda cycle shop, cost is around $15 in my area. These are expensive lubricants, but a tube/jar will last years and years. Plenty included to do 30+ bikes.
11. CLEAN and install the speed sensor flush so it is not in the way of a spinning rotor. Do NOT put the speed sensor screw in.
12. raise the drive assemble and slip the pinion shaft and the universal shaft back together. As before, spin the rotor to help them line up, and support the drive at the bottom to remove pressure to help get them together.
13. install the rear paralever bolt ( T50 and 16mm wrench ) and torque to 43Nm
14. Install the Rear Drain Plug ( T45 ) and torque to 20Nm
15 Remove the speed sensor again. Using the speed sensor hole, fill final drive with 230ml (cc is the same as ml) of the appropriate gear oil. I used Mobile1 75W/140. The M1 was darker and more red than the BMW gear lube. I used a MixMizer from the auto parts area of Wal-Mart to help with filling. It was less than $5, and worked great. Note the oil bottle in this image is not what I used for this replacement procedure. It is what I added as makeup oil when the dealership screwed up their fill.





16. clean any spilled oil, and take time to inspect your rear brakes and clean everything while you have the wheel off. Make sure there is no remaining oil on any of the brake parts.
17. install the speed sensor and speed sensor screw ( T25 ) hand tight only
18 install rear wheel, snug but do not torque lug nuts ( T50 )
19. Lower rear of bike onto pitbull stand SLOWLY and EVENLY, and then to the ground.
20. Torque lug nuts ( T50 ) to 60Nm
21 Inspect bike for anything not completed or forgotten.

It worked well for me, your mileage may vary ;)

**Note, you can also bottle some used oil and send it off for analysis like I did for the very first change** view that HERE
 
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#2 ·
Jeff,
Thanks for your clear and concise instructions on changing the final drive oil. I didn't remove the speed sensor. I was able to refill through drain plug hole. Being a cattle rancher I have a large selection of syringes.
My bike just had the final drive replaced at the 18,000 mile inspection because of excessive play.
I measured what came out, 230 ml, a little black with very little fuzz on the drain plug. The worst part of the whole procedure was the 97 degree heat in my garage!
I see how your dealer screwed up the draining by not disconnecting the U-joint. You have to completely disconnect the splines from the u-joint as your pictures show.
I refilled with BMW Super Synthetic 75-140 ( as per my local dealer recommendation). It looks like the BMW Synthetic 75-90 has been discontinued and Castrol SAF-XO is not marketed in the USA. Another dealer I talked to uses Mobil I 75-90 Synthetic.
Really a simple procedure. Anyone should be able to do it, even your former dealer.
Norris Cooper Andover Kansas USA
06 K1200GT
93 K1100RS
 
#3 · (Edited)
Great job Jeff.....:clap:
 
#14 ·
Old Post, I Know, but Still Relevant

I know this is an old post, but I just recently discovered that I was incorrect in believing I I could go virtually forever without changing the gear oil in the final drive shaft housing. Somewhere along the line (that I missed) the folks at BMW changed their minds and decided that this oil should be changed periodically (though no one -- including my BMW mechanics -- knew what that interval should be).

I after finding this terrific "How To" posting (Thanks Coastie!) of a couple years ago, I've decided to do this little piece of important maintenance myself. Today, I went down to Hollywood BMW for the supplies and discovered a few disturbing things: First, as I said, they didn't know what the interval should be between gear oil changes; second, no one there had heard of the magnetic drain plug option for the final drive shaft; and third, BMW has recently changed their recommended quantity of oil that should go in there. The print-out they gave me says that amount of gear oil should now be 180 ml -- not the 230 ml or whatever it was before. Apparently there were problems with "bursting seals" because of too much oil in there.

By the way, if anyone has a part number for that magnetic drain plug (for the final drive) or an aftermarket retailer from which to buy it, I'd appreciate a heads up.

Thanks.
 
#15 ·
I THINK that all of them are magnetic now. But unfortunately am not sure. I'll check around.

It's a shame and just plain WRONG that the dealer didn't know about that final drive issue. It's really inexcusable either from BMW NA for not adequately notifying their network of dealers or the dealer for not knowing.
 
#16 ·
Here's the part number for the magnetic final drive.

Bike's after 2006 may already have this.

33117705854 OIL DRAIN PLUG - M12X1 (from 08/06) 0.02 1 $11.87
 
#18 ·
Rbertalotto said:
Has anyone drilled and tapped a hole in the FD and installed a drain plug to facilitate ease of this procedure?
Although a logical question, it's a brave thing to do. Keeping metal swarf out of the drive would be a big headache.

I don't know how thick the casing is. Often when there are holes in castings they deliberately design in a thick section at least several threads deep, also there should be a flay surface on the casting to pull the drain bolt down on to and seal with a fibre or ali crush washer.

How will you know how thick the casting is at the point you want to make the hole before you drill?

...And you don't want oil emptying from your RD at high speed if you did a bad job.



 
#19 ·
The proper way to add a drain would be to remove the housing. Build up an area with TIG welding, drill the hole and machine a flat for a washer. thread the hole.......done!

If I could buy a used case, I'd attempt it.
 
#20 ·
Yes that's absolutely right, but I wasn't sure how far you might have wanted to go. If you were going to get a used case, you might as well get an earlier drive with everything there and keep the original as a hot spare.

I always keep a hot spare on the garage shelf ready to be sent DHL to anywhere in the world my bike might be, should it suffer the misfortune of a pool of oil pouring over the rear tire.

The important thing about the drain is not the drain plug per-se, but the fact that it is magnetic and allows you to watch for any omens like build up of swarf.

All you need to do on the bottom of the cover is cut a small square of 6-8mm thick ali and tig that on. But you would have to strip it down first and the BMW silver paint is some kind of extra dura epoxy polyester and a pain to match. BMW ali castings are a bit iffy on purity, so I'm not sure what results you would get.



 
#21 ·
Hi All,

First off, this write up was great! It gave me the confidence to do this job myself and I must say, it was easier than doing the oil and filter change on this bike!

It took a bit of time to prep for it as I had to make a custom jack stand out of some scrap wood in my garage. This worked out quite nicely to jack the bike using the mounts for the center stand. I also had to buy Moly paste from Amazon, and get a mix mizer.

I used the Mobil synthetic that the original poster said he used, purchased at local auto parts store. I also never took off the speed sensor. I just drained and refilled the oil back into the drain hole. Note that the mix mizer doesnt measure milliliters, but the thing full is 60 milliliters and I filled the mix mizer almost 4 times and filled until the fluid started coming out. This was just about perfect for 230 ml.

My bike had 12000 miles on it and was shifting kind of rough, after this its smooth! So glad I did this and didnt pay the stealership.

Thanks for posting such great details on how to do this! :clap:

Here are some pics of my custom jack stand:





 

Attachments

#22 ·
Changing final drive oil using center stand on '06 K1200GT

iehrlich said:
Is the final drive oil sae75w-140 per the picture? Would the procedure be exactly the same?
I have a center tand on the GT wiill it get the rear wheel high enough?
Thanks
The procedure is the same regardless of the oil used.

Using the center stand worked perfect for me. I just changed the final drive oil on my '06 K1200GT and the center stand provided plenty of room to change the final drive oil.

When using just the center stand (no jacks just the center stand) my final drive swung down leaving the drain plug at the 6 o'clock position. The center stand also provided enough room under the final drive for the oil drain pan.
 
#23 ·
I saw this thread come up, and happened to read it top to bottom.

This is just a warning that BMW reduced the amount of oil recommended for the final drive several years ago. The OP mentioned 230 ml, which is now incorrect. I vaguely remember something about too much oil pressure causing issues.

- -> The correct fill amount for final drive oil is now 0.18 l (liter) which equals 180 ml.

My copy of the BMW RepROM DVD is the 3rd edition, dated 02/2009. It says 0.18 l. As far as I know, the recommended fill amount has not changed since then.
 
#25 ·
I understand the original poster said the dealer was incompetent and I like to do the work myself but I had it done in combination with a rear tire change and checked the bill, it was $83. I think its worth it at every rear tire change at a dealer you trust especially considering the critical nature of rear drive mechanism.
 
#26 ·
I am on K-Bikes almost daily, but I do not often check this Tech forum. If you have a question on this procedure, please PM me, and I'll answer it, and if relevant, will post your question/reply here to the thread.

Due to incompetent “Certified BMW Mechanics” (see thread HERE ) I changed my final drive oil today only 3 days after paying a dealership do it. I was looking for any damage they may have caused by not correctly filling the final drive oil. They only used 30ml rather than 230ml, and I rode 200 miles home like that.

If you do not have a factory magnetic drain plug, purchase one from your dealer before doing this procedure. Bikes prior to model year 2007 do NOT have a factory magnetic drain plug. Read entire procedure and understand it before beginning.

To begin with, I do not have a center stand, so I needed to create something to get the rear of the bike high enough to pivot the final drive down, and have enough clearance from the ground. I chose to make a large sawhorse.
I went to Home Depot and bought the supplies.

2x4 8 foot long $2.50 each, used three = $7.50
Sawhorse Brackets Set $5.00

Total cost was around $12.50

I cut two of the 2x4x8 into 4 foot lengths (four – four foot lengths)
I put a 13º angle on one end of each 2x4x4. The angle will go on the bottom when you screw it all together, this allows the bottoms to sit flush to the ground when sitting in the angled sawhorse bracket.

I cut the last 2x4 and used a 5 foot section. (3 feet left over)
Screw it all together and this is the final outcome.



Here are the steps I used:

1. Loosen rear wheel lug nuts ( T50 ) Easier to do this while the rear tire is on the ground and not spinning while in the air.
2. Hoist rear of bike using sawhorse. I used a sportbike chock to hold the front end, and used my pitbull stand on the rear to have the rear already off the ground. I had some ‘soft tiedowns’ that I looped around the pannier brackets. I attached ratcheting straps through the soft tiedowns and over the sawhorse. Then just ratcheted the straps to hoist the bike up off the pitbull stand, then removed the pitbull stand. Hoist until the rear wheel is between 5 and 6 inches off the deck





3. Remove the lug nuts and the rear wheel ( T50 )
4. Loosen the rear drain plug ( T45 )
5. Loosen the speed sensor screw ( T25 )



6. Remove rear Paralever bolt ( T50 and 16mm wrench ) Use one hand to support the drive when you remove the bolt. Apply slight upward pressure to allow the bolt to slide out. Lower the drive to about 30º, it will rest on the driveshaft. Take a look inside and see the two things you need to separate.
7. separate the pinion shaft from the universal shaft and pivot the rear-wheel drive down. I found it worked when I used my thumb and index finger to press the shaft forward. A slight rotation of the brake rotor helped it to release. It took about 30 seconds of fiddling, so give it some time. It only needs a bit of pressure and it WILL release, just work with it. Support the bottom of the drive with one hand to help release pressure on the shaft, and because it will swing down when it releases.



8. Remove Drain plug ( T45 ) allow to drain into suitable container. Inspect drain plug for metal shavings. If you do not have a factory magnetic drain plug, purchase one from your dealer before doing this procedure.



9. Remove Speed sensor screw, and use fingers to remove speed sensor. You may need to rotate the brake rotor to get good access, then be careful not to spin the rotor once the speed sensor is out, or you could pinch it. I flushed the drive through the speed sensor hole a few times with new oil as an extra precaution, but the oil came out clean (even tilted and spun the gear via the rotor) so flushing may be unnecessary.

Now to reassemble:

10. clean the splines of the parts you separated in step 7 and apply a light coat of fresh optimoly or a suitable replacement such as ‘Honda Moly60’ or ‘LocTite Moly Paste’. I choose LocTite Moly paste because it is packaged better for my use. It is a small resealable jar with a brush built into the cap. It is also 65% moly, and I ordered it online for around $20. Honda Moly is 60% moly, and comes in a small tube that you could load into a grease gun. The tube is not designed to be resealed, and a grease gun is not good for this application, though you could just dip a brush into the tube and use it that way. Honda Moly60 is cheaper and often available at your local Honda cycle shop, cost is around $15 in my area. These are expensive lubricants, but a tube/jar will last years and years. Plenty included to do 30+ bikes.
11. CLEAN and install the speed sensor flush so it is not in the way of a spinning rotor. Do NOT put the speed sensor screw in.
12. raise the drive assemble and slip the pinion shaft and the universal shaft back together. As before, spin the rotor to help them line up, and support the drive at the bottom to remove pressure to help get them together.
13. install the rear paralever bolt ( T50 and 16mm wrench ) and torque to 43Nm
14. Install the Rear Drain Plug ( T45 ) and torque to 20Nm
15 Remove the speed sensor again. Using the speed sensor hole, fill final drive with 230ml (cc is the same as ml) of the appropriate gear oil. I used Mobile1 75W/140. The M1 was darker and more red than the BMW gear lube. I used a MixMizer from the auto parts area of Wal-Mart to help with filling. It was less than $5, and worked great. Note the oil bottle in this image is not what I used for this replacement procedure. It is what I added as makeup oil when the dealership screwed up their fill.





16. clean any spilled oil, and take time to inspect your rear brakes and clean everything while you have the wheel off. Make sure there is no remaining oil on any of the brake parts.
17. install the speed sensor and speed sensor screw ( T25 ) hand tight only
18 install rear wheel, snug but do not torque lug nuts ( T50 )
19. Lower rear of bike onto pitbull stand SLOWLY and EVENLY, and then to the ground.
20. Torque lug nuts ( T50 ) to 60Nm
21 Inspect bike for anything not completed or forgotten.

It worked well for me, your mileage may vary ;)

Note, you can also bottle some used oil and send it off for analysis like I did for the very first change view that HERE
I myself have a 07 k1200r sport. I’ve found that after reassembly my final drive has a slight leak from where the speed sensor is, I am assuming I have too much fluid and it’s pushing out through the o ring. I do not have a squeeze bottle yet but one on the way for the next time. Would it be safe to assume on the center stand thay once you pull the sensor off to let it drip until it stops? Seems like there is a ledge in there and I am thinking that’s a fill line but finding info is a PITA. Don’t want to do too much damage. When I did the drain I did the splines etc. there is always something..
 
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