1150GS rear wheel bearing failures
My wife and I are currently on a RTW rour on our 1150GSA.
We are riding two-up. The rear wheel bearing has broken 5 times on this journey. Bike has done 130,000km. I've met many people who had the same problem with their GS when they load it heavy. I've tried a different make of bearing (NSK), but it still only lasted less than 10,000km. I came to the conclusion that BMW inserted a standard deep groove ball bearing (6917) that is not designed to take any thrust, or sideways load. If you load the bike as heavy as we do, the bearing take a lot of thrust and therefore they do not last.
I am changing the bearing now with a Angular Contact bearing (7917), instead of the standard deep groove ball bearing. The Angular Contact bearing is designed to take both vertical load as well as thrust. Old Mini Coopers (1970's) had this type of bearing as wheel bearings.
If you are interested in this modification and the result thereof, I will keep you GS guys posted on the progress. We are leaving the USA soon and will spend the next year in Central and South America, hopefully with no more wheel bearing break downs!
If anyone had done this before, please let us know what the result was?
Johan
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