Lost my clutch

[bdimon]

Last Friday after work, I got on the R1200RT to go home and got two surprises. First surprise: I noticed a greasy film on the GPS when I turned on the traffic for the ride home. Then I noticed the oily film covered the instruments and dash.

The second surprise happened when I pulled in the clutch lever. There was no resistance at all; I had no clutch! I pumped it a bunch of times and got a little resistance. I quickly started the engine and headed home. After I got on the beltway, I lost the clutch again and thought that it was acting as if there was a giant air bubble in the hydraulic line. I can upshift smoothly without the clutch but my clutchless downshifts are rather abrupt. I did okay until the traffic stopped on I-66 and I stalled. After ten seconds of pumping the clutch lever and listening to the car horns behind me, I got enough pressure to shift into first and take off without stalling.


So I am thinking of buying a new hose and can of mineral oil to see if that is the issue. I think I could change the hose at the Tech Day. Any opinions about the difficulty of replacing the hose or knowledge of the tools involved?

[mlytle]

have you looked at the hose? can you see where the oil is coming from? issue could be slave cyl, or broken hose. i would clean every thing off, refill the resevoir and carefully pump the lever while looking for the leak. should be obvious.

[thanatos1224]

oh boy, have you check out Northen BMW of Illinois youtube? He has some videos on replacing stuff like this.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8sSaR ... dtfXDOQ0pg
https://www.youtube.com/user/illinoisBM ... brake+line
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPCTzU5cafU

[bdimon]

I wondered why there was an oily smear on the instruments.


When I opened up the Mineral oil reservoir, it was low. When I squeezed the clutch lever bubbles came up. Not good.



My goal this tech day is to find the leak. Here's hoping it will just be a crush washer.

[Max]

I would not gamble on washers. Get new high pressure hose and washers kit. It is high pressure rubber hose that has metal wire around it. Hoses have a life time, they get chewed by high pressure and oil in them. In your case problem is high, on steering wheel where they mostly bend. It is a pin hole, that you can see how it is spread on your GPS as small droplets. It is no problem to change the hose, get some service manuals for your bike and you will find the info very fast. Slave cylinder problem is out of question, if it would be, hydraulic fluid goes into your clutch, not on steering wheel.

[Max]

BTW, wipe all that fluid off, it eats through your plastic and paint.