Vintage BMW Motorcycle Owners

Did the transmission need shimming? I would think that the two covers have different dimensions.

I was thinking about that after the new cover went on.

Everything rotates, so it's not binding.

I have a pack of shims. The only way I would know how do try this would be to take everything apart and try to use something like plastigauge to squash in there, and then take everything apart again and measure what was squashed.

OR - figure that I'm not German, it's not perfect, I don't ride it much or hard, and if it's not perfect, I'm eating in to that German Engineering Margin and it's fine.

I'm going to say for me, it's fine.

Fine can mean you ride it for 100K miles or fine you ride it for 100 miles?

Certain things have ways to do them, while we are not talking about having the tolerances and "fussiness" of an F35, there is a certain amount of engineering involved which requires a degree of learning the proper way to maintain and repair.

I joke a lot about my new coined Previous Owner's disease. Sadly, one of the ways it infects bikes is by doing things slap dash.

Things rotate freely, fine, that does not mean they are done and right.

I have done repairs on my bikes and learned the very hard way that sometimes it is far better to send out or take to a shop that specializes. Sometimes the second time costs far more money due to slap dash or my ignorance. Some of the stuff in the transmissions are now NLA, I myself would hate to "repair" a transmission with my skill set and knowledge only to have it fail down the road with a burned out bearing that is NLA, all because I didn't do things according to the BMW repair book

Ah well, it is not my bike and I really don't have a right to tell you what to do, so I hope you make out okay with any other repairs. St.

Here's a video that talks about how to shim the shafts. a few special tools required....

Fast Forward to 22:09.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve1563s5rHM

Well - at least I know how to get the cover off without damaging it.....

Plate ordered to be able to help calculate shim depth. Also ordered a better depth gauge than my el-cheapo harbor freight caliper.

Also - with the case pretty much apart again, I'll change the seals on both the input shaft and the shifter. Might as well - so easy to do right now.

Got the plate today from 2valve, and made some measurements:

Plate thickness From Plate gasket cover shim Total stickup from gasket Depth in Cover Difference
Drive Shaft 7.55 7.18 0.3 15.03 15.23 0.2
Lay Shaft 7.55 7.27 0.3 0.5 15.62 15.65 0.03
Input Shaft 7.55 7.28 0.3 15.13 15.21 0.08