Distance travelled on bike: 0 kms
Cumulative distance: 9,390 kms
Sponsored by: Ross Castorina.
Unfortunately I travelled this leg in one of the support vehicles because of the blown rear drive seal on my 1200 GS. My bike was loaded on the trailer and towed by Pam and Rod by our sweeper van. I went to a supposed local BMW guru to have confirmed that it was the outer seal on my final drive that had failed. I knew more about it than he (Ronny) did though he was very supportive on my suggestion that the outer seal had definitely blown!! I immediately contacted BM Bikes in Perth to order a new seal. I asked the proprietor, Thorsten Friz whether he could ship me a couple of seals to Esperance by the 2.15pm flight via Rex Airlines. He said he would check it out and call me back. He did just that and said the seals could be shipped to Esperance on the 2.15 pm flight and it would cost $457. The seals were $100 and the freight charge from Rex was $357. I told him to go ahead and organise. Thorsten made sure the seals were picked up and delivered to Perth airport for the 2.15 pm flight. That's what I called customer service! !!
I picked them up at Esperance Airport at 4.15 p.m
The weather today was wet and miserable so not a day to be riding. I was glad of a comfortable ride with Kathy in the support vehicle.
Erica very generously lent me her bike to go to the airport at Esperance to pick up the seals.
When I got back to the motel in Esperance from the airport everybody joined in the process of extracting the old seal and installing the new one. I have done this repair before on my 2006 R1200 GS but it was a bit more difficult extracting the old seal on this bike. Eventually I got it out but in the process I scratched the edge of the hub with the tools I used. I managed to get the new seal in place and added 180 ml of gearbox oil to the hub. The only test on how successful I've been is when we ride to Balladonia tomorrow praying no oil will leak from the hub. Andrew the eternal optimist reckons there will be no problems. I hope he is right.
Everybody in the group were very supportive and a great help. Even the owner of the motel came up with 6mm self tapper screws to help me extract the old seal.
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| Old seal after being extracted from hub. A bit knarled. |
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| New seal ready to do the job!!! |
