BMW Motorrad ADVANTEC Ultimate

Sorry...You are all happy with the way your bikes shift into 1st gear from neutral?

You mean the thrashing and bashing that happens? It just seems crude and unrefined is all, and so isn't consistent with every other aspect of this '16 RT, which I adore! To me it points to a technically challenging engineering problem with big time room for improvement, beyond a judder damper bandaid. It must be very challenging to avoid. I wonder if any other similar sized wet clutch motorcycles do a lot better with it, or if it is just par for the course for heavier duty gearbox and transmissions and clutch designs. I get around the clunk by stopping the engine with the kill switch leaving the bike in 1st at the front end of longer signals, then just tap the starter just before the light changes and take off. For short stops I hold the clutch lever and leave it in 1st. At home in the morning if it's not very warm and the bike is cold I'll start in N and then shift to 1st before anything warms much and thereby avoiding the clunk. In the 35K miles I have on the bike I've experienced the N to 1st clunk maybe 8-10x in total. It would not be enough of an issue to replace the bike w/ a later model that does better, and as I say I don't experience it anyway w/ my riding habits.

You mean the thrashing and bashing that happens? I'm not happy with it at all--it points to a technically challenging engineering issue and I think there's big time room for improvement with this, beyond a judder damper bandaid. I love my '16 RT and get around the clunk by stopping the engine with the kill switch leaving the bike in 1st at the front end of longer signals, then just tap the starter just before the light changes. For short stops I just hold the clutch lever and leave it in 1st. At home in the morning if it's not very warm and the bike is cold I'll start in N and then shift to 1st before anything warms much and thereby avoiding the clunk. I just see it as a very inelegant solution, but not being an engineer am not sure what it would take to prevent it in the first place, let alone try to mitigate it w/ judder dampeners or what have you. In the 35K miles I have on the bike I've experienced the N to 1st clunk maybe 10x in total. It would not be enough of an issue to replace the bike w/ a later model that does better, and as I say I don't experience it anyway w/ my riding habits.

 

Afternoon NoelCP

 

There are a few ways to prevent the clunk when putting into gear. A solution could be as simple as going back in history to large truck transmissions. A lot of heavy duty large-transmission-gear trucks used what was called a clutch brake. Pretty simple actually as all it was was a little brake on the transmission input shaft that stopped it from spinning when the clutch pedal was pushed all the way to the floor. It worked amazingly well (IF) the driver knew how to use it correctly & it was kept adjusted correctly. Sloppy drivers would push the clutch pedal down too far on the shift then burn that little brake up in a few trips. A good driver could go 100,000+ without any problems.

 

That clunk is partly due to the wethead clutch design & partly due to the use of ultra thin motor oil so the trans gears have very little free-spin drag, so the oil in between the released wet clutch plates has more drive to spin the shafts & gears than the oil viscosity in the trans has to keep that from happening.

 

 

 

It would be interesting to see if BMW could create the first motorcycle pre select trans like Peterbilt....butter smooth.

Well if you want butter smooth then just build one like the new Wing with the DCT. That is as smooth as you can get. Not for me but smoooooooth!

Be careful what you ask for!