Gearbox Failure: Gearbox problems
 

After 140.000km the gearbox of my 2009 Tenere gives problems. During some upshifting the mechanism blocks and I am unable to **** up. Some poking around frees it up and makes shifting possible again.

When it is shifting oke, everything goes smooth and it does not shoot out of a gear once it is selected. So it think I do not have bended forks but the shifting mechanism itself must be not as new.

Somebody experience with this. Can it be solved without splitting the cases because in that case it will be the end of the Tenere age for me.

No ways you can do proper gearbox repairs without splitting the motor.
Bit of a hassle but fairly straightforward.

Not sure what the xt looks like inside yet but my ktm had a shifting arm in the clutch side case. Might be an idea to have a look in there first as it might just be a broken spring in the shift mech instead of gears / forks

Found out shifting is doable when shifting really slowly, so pulling the clutch, wait a few milli seconds, shift up and release the clutch. Will see how long it will work this way.

Hi Neik, I had a similar failure 2 years ago, a spring loaded arm with a bearing attached is used to help locate the gear selector drum to the correct position, (peg against a star shape) the bearing on mine fell apart allowing 2 gears to engage causing the 3 gear to fail.
if you remove the clutch cover and clutch it is easily visible, at least it's handy to check before having to delve deeper into the engine!

offending lever bearing
http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z...geardoh001.jpg

damage to gears

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

Hmmmm nasty.

Hi Niek, just to add there's a bit about the gearbox overhaul here http://www.xt660.com/showthread.php?t=17351

That is more what I thought. This is located behind the clutch isnt it?

thanks

Nasty for sure....
think I should have a look at mine... Only have 36,000k
on it now...
So thats the de-tent.. that index's the selector drum ?

Hey dont panic Petenz, your mileage is much smaller AND I understand that the gearbox on the XT is really fairly bulletproof so this kind of occurance is a remote possibility. Does Stoic know what caused the failure????

That is more what I thought. This is located behind the clutch isnt it?

HI Niek, Yes, low down behind the clutch. if you have the pdf workshop manual from this forum. the clutch strip down is starting on p226, a good view of the offending gear change ratchet mechanism is on p244. it's fairly straight forward to check the lever bearing, mine collapsed. if that's fine the engine would be as well to be removed and split before real damage is done.

Petenz, chill out! unless you are experiencing gear change problems all's well, I've
done 25,000 miles since, without a problem, in all kinds of conditions

Roma, yes! actually i do know why

So come on tell all, what caused your gearbox failure please????

Thanks Stoic, I will dive into it.

Hi simonroma, ?????? it's already in the previous text,

the roller bearing on the arm holds the selector drum in the correct position for each gear, like a peg against a star shape.

if the gear change drum is allowed to freely rotate as mine was due to bearing failure, the gear will not be fully engaged, causing either, the full load on a small amount of the gear teeth due to not being locked fully home or a jumping between gears while on the move.

the problem started in the south of france on a offroad camping trip, there was little option but to carry on (less damage would have occurred if i had checked, hind sight is great!) . the symptoms were very similar to Niek's so it's a worthwhile place to start instead of waiting for the gears to get damaged or tearing the engine down unnecessarily

i hope that's a sufficient explanation. ?

It took some time but I solved my shifting problem. Took off the clutch housing and had a look at the shifting mechanism. Everything was working soomthly of course, at once the was a blockage, not visable why. After a while I went with my finger through the oil bath below the shifting mechanism a look what I found:
http://maniacsmedia.nl/imagehost/?di=5BA9
http://maniacsmedia.nl/imagehost/?di=AFB0
http://maniacsmedia.nl/imagehost/?di=57GA
http://maniacsmedia.nl/imagehost/?di=L10K

I have this problem already 20-30.000 km so I thing my gearbox will survive the winter. The bike is not worth opening it completely, already more than 140.000km on the ODO.

Thanx for pointing me in the right direction.

That ie one of the 'dogs' that mesh the gears together. Each gear should have three. Unusual to see one break off, normally they round off on the ends and start slipping out of gear.

Yeah, this one looks new. Maybe it broke off 100.000km ago:YellowCrazy_J8GDC6:

Good find! it's certainly better out than in!

i retained my broken gear and yes it looks remarkably like the gear mine broke up, 3rd, it actually has 5 of the 'dogs' so your's appears to have shed one, very odd. will post pics later of mine for comparison. i guess if you take it easy it might be ok for now, fingers crossed.
oh yeah the gear was less than �20 at the dealer so i guess it is a common fault.

it does need a pull down, tho they are straight forward to work on, a crank puller is as specialist as they get, even that is easy to make plus a torque wrench which reminds me mine was confiscated at dakar airport, bastids

Mine exploded at 27k kms
 

My gearbox exploded at 27k kms, yesterday. It blew up the engine chassis and launched a gear at high speed out of it.
Cool huh? Anybody had similar "issue" (...)?
No warning signs before the dreaded event, and care&maintenance performed regularly all the time before.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a...pshtyovymj.jpg

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps7sgeyv00.jpg

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a...psgqnnuif6.jpg

Omg!

Wow! Don't think you're going to fix that in a hurry! ;)

I've heard of 3rd gear letting go before, but never anything as drastic or terminal as yours!!

As well never seen it come through the casing before.

So how many Tenere's with dead gearboxes now?... Mine, Chenko's, Stoic Bloke, and one more if i good remember. Rather shocking.

I'm very worried. Seems to be related to that one bearing failing on the Stopper lever ass
(part no 5JW�18140�00). I've replaced mine and I'm going to buy a few more.

I wonder what the conditions are to cause the failure. High revs or bad gear shifting.

Dont want to sound bigheaded, but there is realy nothing wrong with my shifting. Never shift without the clutch, never lock the wheel on down shift and very rarely done halfshifts (neutral between gears).

I think in my case load on the transmission from heavy, fast offroad and jumping made contribution. But i think main problem is rather poor quality in modern products.

I Agee with the quality of modern bikes. I just retired a twenty year old bike that I did no maintenance on and screwed the living day lights out of it every single day and the thing would probably do another twenty more years it was just too fast for me and getting me in trouble.
I'm not sure if the tenere can be classed as modern anymore?
Anyway, there must be some other factors at play as a lot of teneres are seeing the world.

4 out of 10, 20, 30 thousand ???? How many world wide?? Shocking!!
Imagine if KTM had those stats, people would start to think they were reliable.

Imagine if you were one of those few. And I'm sure statistically wise the figure is much higher after reading other Australian forums.
Finally, how many bikes fail is incidental, the point is it should not happen under normal riding conditions. Yet modern consumers put up with all sorts of s....
If something similar would happen to me, I would be f.......d. I can't go to work and more importantly I can't by a new ktm I should have bought in the first place

I have the KTM now (and again - should have buy this in first place, not due to reliability, but due to fun factor) and i will be able to see myself if it's better or not if it comes to reliability. One thing i know for sure - i have choose Tenere before because i was able to give up power wheelies from second gear, 135MPH of max speed and acceleration close to sports bike for a price of reliability... now how disappointed i was when after two weeks from spending 500 pounds on proper service i have such serious failure. I'm sure for many people Tenere will serve long years and mileage - i was just unlucky, but this shouldn't happened in Japanese bike.

For those with broken gearboxes, I'd like to say that I feel for you. Very bad news.
I'm just going to throw my 2c worth in here, with the understanding that I'm not pointing finger but maybe offering a reason why the lower-mileage bikes might be broken.
It's my experience that no 'modern' big single engines, ie >500cc, like being heavily loaded at low rpm. I've seen XRs, DRs and TTs with hammered main bearings and broken gears because riders thought that big singles should be able to grunt around under 3k rpm or so. The problem seems (to me) worse in relatively long-stroke engines.
Also, with respect, I think that jumping a heavy bike like the Tenere and subjecting the gearbox to shock loads it may not have been designed to cope with could have something to do with a catastrophic failure.
I had a Husky TE610E which broke a gear dog, which luckily stuck to the magnetic drain plug. It ran fine, and still is, for all I know, without replacing the gear. I did about 15k km after the failure. But this sort of thing should never happen, and nor should engines/gearboxes fail for the reasons outlined above.
The reality is that they clearly do not stand up to severe use, and in some cases normal use, as well as they should.
So any engine which is thrashed offroad will usually have to be rebuilt sooner than one that isn't, I guess.

This is kind of ironic since #1 reason I bought this bike was reliability and low maintenance. So what are in your opinion the most reliable motorbike engines if not big singles? Trying to get some knowledge out of this bad experience.

Engines can fail at any time. There's nothing to worry about the reliability of an XT engine.
Mine is 88000 kms old. Nothing happend to it. Very reliable. I would buy my Z again. There are some people out there with more than a 100000 kms on the clock without any issues despite maintenance.

Not to criticize, but this doesn't seem help me in getting more knowledge, because it is just bringing your unique experience vs my unique experience. Which makes for 2 experiences that don't make any reliable statistic and I'm trying to get past this.

Design choices DO make a difference in reliability, I would like to understand what those design choices are.

your engine is fine so whole series is fine? right? Come on, as I see statistics now are pretty bad for xt660z.

Edited by ADMIN

Single cylinder engines are NOT the most reliable engines, far from it. They are simply the most easy to work with and fix it because complexity is low. Singles work in big stress so I wouldn't expect long life from it.

I prefer at least 2 cylinders, if one fail I can still come back home.

I guess the main problem here is xt660z engine is made in Italy...

Hmm. If one cylinder fails in a twin, the chances of you riding it anywhere after that are not good. Not impossible, but not great, depending upon the nature of the failure, of course.

Can you cough up the statistics you're talking about, please kc2ine? I'd love to see them. Remembering that there are a lot of motorbikes around with these engines, it would be cool to see what you have to tell us. Production numbers v failures, broken down into gearbox failures? Average km to each failure? Number of these engines compared with, say, KTM production numbers?

removed by furious admin

Statements like...

..and...

...are neither constructive, helpful or in the spirit of this forum.

You joined the forum and have asked in numerous posts and threads for opinions on the XT660Z, which is absolutely fine; it's what the forum is for. Please bear in mind Fridolin and 66T are only offering you their opinion based on their real world experience of the Tenere. It is not within the spirit of XT660.com to ask for opinions and then offer personal and defamatory retorts to those opinions because they perhaps don't happen to agree with yours.

Fridolin and 66T both own Teneres and have ridden thousands of miles/kilometres on them, their opinions (whether you agree with them or not) are credible and worth the respect they deserve. As far as I can tell, you've never ridden an XT660Z, never mind covered serious miles on one, so please think and be a bit more diplomatic before jumping in with your responses, which are sailing very close to the mark.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion (including you), but no body deserves to have it thrown back in their face - especially if they've been asked for it in the first place.

Now, can we please get back to the subject in hand, the OP, gearbox failures...

Forum Admin intervention

kc2ine, we appreciate your debate, but I am keen for you to understand that our forum IS and SHALL REMAIN a friendly and polite forum of discussion where every person's opinion must be respected.

Your reply above: "these are really BS and very silly statement" is deemed impolite here and capable of causing animosity and escalate in people bickering and becoming little keyboard warriors.

Not over my dead body, I would let this happen here.

So please control your replies keeping politeness and respect in mind. Think before you type. If you are one of those person that cannot control themselves, then this place simply is not for you. If you can keep cool, then all will be forgotten and we welcome your input as we expect you to welcome other's.

Myself and the moderators, will continue to monitor this thread's behaviour to see if we need to take drastic actions. I hope not. Thanks.

Now you are upsetting my mother land, place of birth. Oh dear oh dear, this is beginning to look bad.

Ducati

Benelli

Aprilia

MV Agusta

Beta Motor

Borile

Cagiva

Fantic Motor

Ghezzi & Brian

Gilera

Italjet

Malaguti

Minarelli (XTX/XTR/XTZ engine's plant)

Mondial

Husqvarna

Motobi

Moto Guzzi

Moto Morini

Paton

Piaggio

Terra Modena

Vyrus


Are all the Italian factories of bikes I can think of, some of them goes back to the turn of the 19th century

Benelli was established in Pesaro, Italy in 1911, which possibly makes it the oldest of all European motorcycle factories in operation. (Moto Guzzi - the oldest European motorcycle factory in non-stop operation - was established in 1921.)

You are not making many friends in this place, are you? Doesn't help that you are demonstrating very little knowledge too, by insulting the Italian motorcycle industry, that's talking loud and saying nothing.

Carry on... let's see where this will end. I smell trouble.