Second opinion

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I noticed a drop of oil a week ago on the garage floor and traced it to something between the transmission and engine.  Long story made short, I am in the midst of repairing what turned out to be a leaking countershaft seal on an 08 R1200R.  When I pulled the clutch slave cylinder, it looks like this:

I know that’s not terrible like some of the ones I have seen online, but I did see thinned grease or oil migrating up the push rod and some yellow fluid in the slave cylinder cavity.  I am not sure what the yellowish fluid was, didn’t look/smell like gear oil and the clutch fluid is mineral oil and has never been touched.  Could be gear oil I guess, but the seal doesn’t look like it is leaking.  Just to avoid another mess, I am replacing the transmission seal there as well as addressing the slave cylinder.  At the price of a new slave, I am second-guessing myself and just thought I would get a second opinion.  I have no idea what the slave cylinder should look like (I know there should be some grease on a bearing under that seal, but would it migrate outward? There was no fouling on the transmission side, so whatever that substance is, whether grease or funky clutch fluid, it wasn’t spreading)  I had no problems with the clutch that I am aware of (I realize I could have gotten used to a deteriorating condition though), I just noticed this when pulling it apart to get at the countershaft seal. Is this slave cylinder actually going bad?  Any thoughts are welcome and much appreciated.

Dave

[Roger A PivonkaKeymaster]

Hmm, Not having ever been into one of those but hearing lots of bad stories as you have, what I am seeing is that the “E” clip is CLEAN indicating to me that nothing is leaking. Yes some bit of grease has been forced out over time but I’m thinking if there IS a leak then even that “E” clip would be goopy.

Better luck with the next opinion. [ so what I’m saying is “I wouldn’t worry about THAT” but, what do I know.

[WGingerichParticipant]

The slave cylinder looks normal and if the clutch push rod is not wet with oil I’d say everything looks fine. I would certainly recommend drilling a weep hole in the cavity (see online forums) to let fluid drain out should the slave develop a leak later on.

I’ve replaced two slave cylinders on older bikes that use brake fluid in them – one was still working fine and I replaced it as preemptive maintenance, and the other was completely gone with all the fluid drained out and into the clutch. A weep hole would have prevented this.

You can get new slave cylinders at Beemer Boneyard for just over $100, and you might want to replace it for peace of mind.

 

[JRihaParticipant]

I replaced an 03 1150R that failed completely, and my 02 1150R that was still working ok though would have failed soon. When doing a spline lube I inspected it and found it to be an ugly goopy mess, so it’s amazing it actually worked at all. Fortunately neither soaked the clutch.  I drilled weep holes on both transmission housings as Wally mentioned. There is a nice video on YouTube of the procedure being done on a k1200lt, and probably others.  Not sure if it was still an issue on the 1200’s, but the hydraulic line was notorious for trapping moisture and rotting out. The fix was to cut some of the sleeping away at the bottom. I had that issue on mine as well, and performed the mod on the replacement line before installation. The 03 was ok, but I trimmed the sleeving as a preventative step.  Having said all that,  I feel like your cylinder is most likely fine, and am guessing what you see is just some liquid residue that has leached out of grease from the bearing. Likely nothing to be concerned about, but hard to say for sure from a distance.

[Anonymous]

Thanks all! I’ll probably just take a wait and see approach on the slave, but I will replace the seal on the gearbox since I doubt I can do that with the bike put together.  I’ll see about the weep hole as well, the only references to that I saw were on the older cup designs, but I don’t see why the same principle wouldn’t work on the r1200 design.  Appreciate the feed back!

[Author]

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