Gearbox Failure: Oh dear! What's that noise?
 

The gearbox on my tenere failed at just 27k...

Without any other previous symptoms, I started hearing some rattle while waiting at a red light while the transmision was in neutral. It stopped and rode home without any issues. Next morning I started the engine and while putting the helmet i heard the rattling again... on the road to the dealer it felt like at certain times the transmision was about to slip out of gear while riding constantly at 3k rpm... ironically when i was trying to show the mechanic what the symptoms are it all went smooth for about 20 mins - finally, it started again but this time it was on centerstand so i could see better what happens: bike out of gear, at around 3k rpm it seems like it couples first gear for a fraction of second, rattles and moves the sprocket few degrees...

Bike is left in the shop to open up the gearbox...

I haven't abused the bike much, changed the oil at every 5k and it seems to me a bit earlier for the gearbox to fail at just 27k under these circumstances... any idea for what might cause it?

oh dear! what's that noise?
 

well to cut a long story short my tenere is in the sick bay, ICU in fact

a month or so ago i was in the south of france doing a week of fairly rough offroading, towards the end the week the gear selector would just jam up neither going up or down the box, fiddle the pedal a bit and it would come fine. so i thought the selector has had a bit of a tweak on a rock etc.

anyhow it got me home fine and back to the usual commute. sarah and i went for a spin today, thankfully we didn't get too far. a crunching grinding noise started on a up change from a junction and loss of drive. ho hum,

on getting it home[trailor] and pulling the clutch basket i have found a part of a broken gear in at the selector drum/ mech [looks broke a while] so after dinner i need to pull and strip the 33,000 mile motor

more fun to follow

Not good news mate. Keep us all updated.

Bad news fella. Will be interested to hear what's inside the cases.

not only does that sound horrible it also sounds very expensive

hope the cure is not too crazy money

hi, at long last the motors mostly stripped, There seems to be a few issues going on

firstly when pulling the head down i could not believe, the cam was out a tooth, on inspection the tensioner was out to it's last hmmm, with the head and barrel off all became apparent. the timing chain guide[intake side] pivots on a imo flimsy metal bracket which had disintegrated allowing the guide to move up as well as rubbing the back of the chain. not an impressive design!

next the gear stopper bearing has collapsed, this hold the gear selector drum from rotating freely, it kind of indexes it to a set gear. i'm guessing with it being fecked it has allowed the gears to 'auto' change.

the elephant in the gearbox, well thats obviously knackered. it's the '3rd pinion gear', a broken bit has damaged the '4th wheel gear' [yamaha manual names]. so will get on to yam with my list of bit and bobs and all will be well again. hopefully!

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z...amily11528.jpg
.

Not good news, have seen this before.

Crikey Kev, I hope you haven't seen it too often. I was under the happy delusion that these engines were all but indestructible. Another belief down the drain. Sigh.

I am sorry to hear that you've been stuck with this badness, stoic bloke. Sucks.

but not Stoic-proof.

Remember this enginge has been pushed hard, and Bernard is a demanding rider, and while I'll stop short of saying he is some kind of 'motorcycle murderer', the bike/engine has been raced from Paris to Dakar (when other more 'germanic' breeds were failing), as well as the daily commute and other long distance trails - so if it's going to fail, it's going to be this one!

This is number 3 I know of, but the first XTZ out of thousands of XT660 over the past 5 years, so nothing to worry about.

hi kev, you say you've come across this before, the gear problem or the timing chain issue?.
I am suprised the tensioner guide is not more positively mounted, the bracket is kind of weaker than i expected, as for the gear, i have broken xr400 gearboxes years ago. more recently a gasgas 300. in hard use they fail.

in the bike's defence it has faired VERY well, it was not designed as a race bike and i have not held back, it's not through ham fisted use just pushing to it's limits

just thinking, i was using the ten on a mates motocross track last week, well for once it was dry!

actually the parts price was a suprise, very reasonable from our dealer. should have them friday

Looks a bit like this (my other bike):
http://upload.maniacsmedia.nl/thumbs/bwy1310496040v.jpg
Good luck with the repairs.

glad its fixable,

when you say reasonable ?

give us a ball park figure

reasonable in one mans eyes can make another cry

http://www.xt660.com/showthread.php?t=17351

seems like this has happened to someone else

http://www.xt660.com/showthread.php?p=159815#post159815

is this guy suffering the same fate as you ?

Thanks for the old thread, i'll be looking into it...

My bike hasn't got through the biopsy yet... the shop i bought it from and did all the maintenance by now got somehow closed... or at least for a while... and when i got it to another i found out it's holiday time :) so at least a week until it gets opened then wait for the pieces to come and so on...

Back on the street bike now, it kind of sucks. No idea how i rode it and was very happy with it 2 years :P

I'd estimate a max of 5k out of the 27k being done off the asphalt and it was pretty mild mostly, so I don't think it failed due to abuse.

I'll post more details as soon as I find out more, for now I'm gonna check the older thread.

hi, it is quite possible a simular failure has occured, when the other is stripped we'll find out.

as for my parts, 2 gears, timing chain, guide, 4 gaskets and the gear stopper lever came to �170, the most expensive was the headgasket at �28 +vat. i collected the bits today. though there was a mistake made with the stopper lever and it may take a while to get, the parts guy recons there is no stock of the part in the main store in holland, i hope he's wrong. anyhow the engine is assembled bar the gear mechanism and clutch casing. all looks well

at the start of the year my gasser broke the main gear shaft and corresponding gear, for just those parts it was �235, not good

fair play that aint bad, did you need any specialist tools to strip the engine ?

hi'ya, very reasonable indeed!

the stripdown was very straight forward, the only stumbling block was the generator/ flywheel, first i tried my 3 legged 10ton puller, chickened out before i caused damage and then fabricated a copy of the yamaha puller thats is shown in the workshop manual, which is a must for the various torque settings and the odd washer or shim that falls out! :laughing5:

btw the timing chain has a lifespan of 30,000 miles[manual again] so it was due a change anyway

a pile of bits in my untidy garage
http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z...rebuild008.jpg

by heck you dunt do things by halves

good luck with the re build

hi, the motors rebuilt bar the gear selector stopper, which is hopefully on it's way from japan according to the storeman at hurst's. and most of the engine is back in the frame.

i can never understand why the dealers sometime take months to sort out minor problems like the regulator issue, if i had all the bits on saturday the bike would be on the road again today. so i'm stuck in the van for another couple of days and typically the weathers not bad grrrrrr.

hi back on the road, yippee

yamaha did not come through with the required stopper lever so in my boredom i fabricated a roller out of phos/ bronze. yes i have paid for the lever and personally even when it arrives i don't recon i'll be changing unless something happens, anyhow a pic of the modded part

btw the engine now sounds like a mouse chewing newspaper! ok a lot of mice it is a 660 after all!

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z...geardoh001.jpg

well, it is his livelyhood.....

well to finish off this saga, the missing gear stopper has finally arrived from yamaha, as my modified part is working fine i don't think i will change it out anytime soon. ive covered just over 700 mls since the rebuild and all's good! infact the gear changes are much improved , not as many false neautrals from 1 to 2nd just generally more positive. so roll another 30k!

Hi Kev
Stoic Bloke said you�re the man to help.
My 09 XT660Z is in a mess. Lost 3rd gear (suddenly felt like neutral).
As soon as JT's in Swansea, Wales stripped the engine it was obvious that the engine was knackered due to all the bits exploding in the casing, it's also covered in swarf.
Is this normal on a bike with only 10,000 on the clock?
The bike shop reckon that I'll need a new engine!
I need a new engine....can anyone help?
Can you drop an XT660R or XT660X engine into a Tenere, are there any complications in doing this, ratios etc?
If I was to replace the broken and pitted parts, how much approx?
Thanks
Math

[quote=Welsh Matthew;161397]Hi Kev
Stoic Bloke said you’re the man to help.
My 09 XT660Z is in a mess. Lost 3rd gear (suddenly felt like neutral).
As soon as JT's in Swansea, Wales stripped the engine it was obvious that the engine was knackered due to all the bits exploding in the casing, it's also covered in swarf.
Is this normal on a bike with only 10,000 on the clock? No
The bike shop reckon that I'll need a new engine!
I need a new engine....can anyone help?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/XT-660-R-Bj-08-Motor-A45092-/150606916968?pt=Motorrad_Kraftradteile&hash=item23 10df2d68

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Yamaha-XT660-Engine-/120771488540?pt=UK_Motorcycle_Parts&hash=item1c1e8 aab1c

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Yamaha-XT-660-Motor-/260844416022?pt=Motorrad_Kraftradteile&hash=item3c bb89ec16


Can you drop an XT660R or XT660X engine into a Tenere, are there any complications in doing this, ratios etc? I don't know know one has tried, I know the front sprocket spline is different, I would measure up all the mounting points between the 2 motors..
If I was to replace the broken and pitted parts, how much approx? What parts are broken?

stories like this worry me, i got my ten as a long term bike.

but i could not afford another engine if something major goes wrong with mine.

i am starting to think about selling up while I still can and trying something else.

don't really want to as I love my Ten but I can't afford for it to blow up

maybe the gas gas randonne 125 aint such a crazy idea after all still get places just take more time

I have a suspicion the gear stopper lever bearing or spring has failed or is failing on my bike, so it will go straight to the workshop this morning. Gearchange became very soft with no resistance yesterday afternoon, it almost falls out of 2nd into neutral without any resistance. It does not jump out of gear or make any funny noises though so I should be ok.

Hold thumbs...

Blimey thanks for sharing and I wont be lending you one of my trusty steeds for sure but as a tester you are first class lol.....

Talking to me or stoic bloke :icon_biggrin:

I've looked through my XTr manual for this information and can't seem to find it.
Is the Tenere manual different?
Where is this mentioned?

I know this is an old thread...

Tenere Gearbox
 

Mm mom.
So 1 x 660R and four 660z s later .
On no. 4 tenere 65k odo. I hear a Blight rattle on idle. Think to my self that damn but on the crank or balance shaft has come loose again .
So I pop it in at Yamaha and the open the clutch cover . check everything and find nothing.
So after contacting head office as my bike just went out of warrantee 2 weeks ago.
They give the go ahead to strip.but if its wea
r and tare.customer to pay.
Engine out. Stripped. They start measuring gudgeon pin .piston.check bearings and finally find the 1st gear has a brass/oil lite./ sinted metal bush.except miy gear its very worn and the Centre of the gear has signs of overheating.
Sorry Sir. This is wear and tare !
I do 76 k on all my others bikes.all 660's .and now its wear and tare !!!
I will take a pic an post it later