Poll - Torque limiter failures on 449/511

I haven't made one yet, no idea how much they are going to cost yet

Do you think this butterfly removal mod will put more strain on the limiter by making the throttle more snappy?

No. The butterfly mod just increases throttle response, it does not increase hp or torque. All of the TL issues I have seen so far have happened on engines without my oil mods. I suspect Kelly's lasted as long as it did because he has always refilled with 10W30 which is thinner than even 0W40. Large amounts of thin oil always cools bearing surfaces better. Not pushing heated breather gasses through the TL helps too.

I currently have a SMR without mods and run 5w40 would you recommend 10w30?

1150cc of 5W40 and a stainless steel oil filter should work fine.

So the torque limiter is similar to a limited slip diff in operation. Couldn't it just be shimmed up the same way to increase clamping on the plates?

Yes,
I've had torque limiter failure on my G450X engine twice. That engine has the 5 spd.wide ratio gearbox. I ran it with 13/48 gearing. First one was slipping at about I'd say 75 hours when I purchased the bike used. I noticed something wasn't right immediately once hot and out on the trail. Lots of hard pack and slow speed single track rock climbs. It was replaced at about 83 hours. It started slipping again at about 115 hours and I thought it couldn't be the TL again and replaced the clutch disc stack with dealer parts discs at about 124 hours, it still was slightly slipping in 5th gear under load. Engine got another New torque limiter installed soon after clutch discs and engine was pulled at 133 hours running fine except for the TL slippage.

That engine is sitting on my bench and was then replaced with a 2011 TC 449 Engine that I bought off of Ebay with a claimed 10 hours with the Hydraulic clutch lever, clutch cable hose, master cylinder and slave set up for $1630.00 delivered. It was like new. I replaced the torque limiter in it immediately before installation because I didn't want to have to go through this again. I have that one and another brand new one in a box. I would like to test the breakaway point of the one I removed from the TC engine but just haven't felt like taking it to the dealers 130+ miles away to do this. It would be interesting to know what it's amount of wear really is.

I always keep a near new tire on the bike. I change them out before there even half worn out. Size-140/80/18. Ive ran Michelin X12s, "Kings" hard pack knobbys held up pretty good, I am now running Motoz Tractionators. Great tire, on my second one. I weigh about 240 with out gear and wear plenty of it when riding with a hydration pack fanny pack and a couple of bike mounted tool bags usually, so am probably up at just over 265-270 when riding. "Fat Boy" yes. Slipping torque Limiter yes. Especially in 4th and 5th wringing it out. I was running full synthetic Royal Purple 10w40W at the time. Changed it with filter always about every 8 to 10 hours religouslyand always checked the level to make sure it was tooped off. I do like the wide ratio trans better than the TCs close ratio 5spd. The TCs trans has a taller 1st gear than the BMW and 5th gear is the same ratio as the BMWs 4th gear is. I run the TC with 14/48 gearing to pick up a little top end speed but it is rapid fire shifting all day and it runs out of gears quickly.

I haven't had any TL slippage problems with the TC engine as of yet. I run a full Oil recovery/recirculation baffled tank of my own design and ZipTy valve cover breather with return hose into the filler plug. It works fine for me. I use a S/S PC 167 filter and ZipTY magnetic Oil filter cap. Also am now running 1150 cc of the 0W40W Mobil 1 synthetic. No problems so far. I am building my own maps and am running the PCV with Autotune. I have ran few downloaded maps also but am still running the Autotune on top of those maps to overlap the fuel trims using my own AFR settings for my style of riding and altitude. Which is 4100 ft and above, up to about 6500 ft elevations. I have only put about 15 hours on the TC engine so far and only 3 rides with the PCV and Autotune running installed that I've downloaded the fuel trims, accepted and looked at. Total mileage on the bike is about 3550 miles. 147 hours.

One thing I can tell you is I had read about guys installing Husky Clutch discs sets in the BMW G450 engines, not realizing they were way thinner. When they were getting the Bullshit story from BMW dealers that it was the clutch going bad as is explained below. They bought clutch discs from a Husky dealer for whatever reason instead of BMW and The bike wouldn't even move forward in any gear. This was posted by a few members on the G450riders forum.

I have a set of used BMW plates I saved myself when I removed them from my G450X engine and when I installed the new Torque limiter in my TC engine, I had the clutch apart I measured the clutch plate differences and the BMW engines steel plates if I remember are approx. .080 thick compared to the Husky steels at .065 or so. The fiber plates on the BMW are approx .125 thick and the Husky fibers are approx..105 thick. Final drive plate is I believe the same and the clutch cover with the diaphram spring is the same. The clutch basket is comparatively shallower on the Husky clutch. I didn't write all this down and it is from my own memory and recollection.

"Tinken" at "ZipTy" can verify this exactly because he is currently building a G450 riders Members BMW G450 engine right now. He has Matts entire G450X bike who I steered "ZipTys", way because the BMW stealership quoted him about $3800.00 for this engine overhaul. The bike was purchased as a basket case by Matt who is also a "CH" member on here as well and it will get straightened out for him real soon by ZipTy. From what I understand this is the first BMW G450X that has been in ZipTYs shop so I hope they get it sorted out and learn all about that bike too. I've have certainly learned alot from them and the CafeHusky site being a member over here.


There was a known BMW recall on the torque limiters in the G450X bikes (I've read it myself) and was posted some years back on G450 riders forum. Remember these bikes were sold by BMW in 2009 and 2010 with models late in 2008 available and into early to mid 2011, with a 2 year-36,000 mile warranty. The first of its kind of motorcycle to have such a warranty I believe of this size, weight and capabilities. The dealers for the most part refused to honor this recall because of cost of engine removal and blew it off and told everybody it was clutch discs which weren't covered on the warranty. So they would sell you discs for about $235.00 instead. The only people I know of that got the TLs replaced under warranty were primarily customer / owners that had the clutch discs installed by the BSing BMW dealers and still had the same slipping problem. Miraculously some were honest enough to tell the customers about the recall, it would then appear and the TL was replaced under warranty. Or you had to remind the dealers about the recall yourself and complain enough. Not many people had that experience with the BMW dealers I can assure you and I am in contact with riders from all over the world. South Africa, New Zealand, Belgium, Germany, The UK, Netherlands, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, where these bikes are still very plentiful and popular. Of course the United States and Canada as well.

I'm hoping the oil recovery breather saves the TL from further damage and roasting it internally as I know a thing or 2 about what it takes to anneal aluminum, having been welding it for over 40 years.

Copied over from another thread, I found this information relevant here.

Running low levels of oil, plus the bypass gas heat allows the TL to slip easier. Once it starts slipping, it generates it's own friction. There are no fiber plates inside the TL, only steel on steel with oil passageways. The TL has small sealed bearings which need to be redesigned as well.

I had been working on a new design for a while now. Funny thing is that every time I had a new idea, Husqvarna would shoot it down and tell me it wouldn't work. Finally I just stopped listening to them and designed something they hadn't thought of. I redesigned the unit, but without clutch plates. No you can't just make it solid. It will have larger bearings, handle higher torque and clutch high torque loads without adding heat. I designed a new transfer gear that will work as intended and will not wear out.

Yes, the TL is kind of like a limited slip differential. But you cannot shim it to increase it's torque, there is only so much the cap screw can handle.

If you look at the picture below, you can see that the TL shaft is considerably smaller than the rest of the power train. Also this bearing is sealed in order to keep blow by gas from escaping or pushing through this bearing. With my vent kit, gas no longer flows through at this location, so the seal in which also limits lubrication could be removed from this bearing as well as the bearing to the left.

Tinken,
My BMW engine did not have a seal in the inner torque limiter bearing when I first opened it up for a torque limiter replacement. The Husky did though. I have a new bearing in the package from BMW. I'll have to unwrap it and take a look at it to see if it has the seal also.

I'd remove both of them. Check the bearing too.

Wow what a awesome discussion! I love technical things


But....has anyone actually welded the damn thing solid? For a supermoto bike with no jumping im not sure how you would break the weaker 6 speed gears?

I just got home from work and checked my spare BMW new torque limiter and spare new boxed inner bearing. It does not have a seal on either side Part # is 11277707171 its a (35x17x10) bearing. The outer bearing thats premounted to the TL (size 35x17x8) does have a seal and its not rubber, its a metal disc with rubber behind it. I also have the 4 pack of different thickness shims that are for changing the shim thickness behind the outer bearing that is pre-installed if you have to. The seal on it is not like the rubber seal in your picture which is just like the orange seal that my Husky engine had when I replaced it with the BMW bearing. I had bought it with that Torque Limiter. Which I got from Bike Bandit. These are the latest version torque limiters as there were 2 listed and still are at Bike Bandit. A&S BMW lists the latest version at $161.45 and the BMW part number is 11277719129. Bike bandit has their own part numbers system that they use.

The brand new one I put in my Husky TC engine was marked 239.0 Nm the other spare like new one I have that I took out of the Husky engine, I just looked at is marked 227.0Nm. I have another brand new one marked 237.4 Nm.

How do you get a torque limiter to have such a high rating of 242 ft lbs? Do you mean Newton Meters? Or did you stack them yourself? Or is that a typo as the Torque limiters I've purchased are all marked in Newton Meters. A new one is Rated at approx. 240 Nm when new. At 1 ft. lb. equaling 1.356 Nm that would be a newton meter torque wrench breakaway rating of "328 Newton meters". When a brand new one is marked 227 to 240 Nm from right out of the bag in the box. Just like the ones I've purchased myself ? My BMW CD states the torque limiters "When new" have a breakaway range of just 190 to 250 Nm and a worn out "wear limit of 140Nm". Which basically means if its under "189.ft lbs" you are supposed to replace it?

Am I missing something here? I have the greatest respect for Tinken and ZipTy but I don't get how any one of these Torque limiters having a Ft. lbs. rating of 240+ Ft.lbs is possible?

227Nm is not too good, are you sure it's a new part? Those are real low limits set by BMW... The TL in my bike is 328.1Nm

Its etched right on them. New

I see. I will note that I have measured as high as 280ftlbs. My new TL's will have a 300ftlb minimum rating.

2011 SMR511 owned since new.
Full ZipTy oil recirc kit installed at 5800km
Mostly moderate street riding.
Since installing ZipTy kit, approx 300km heavy track day riding (lots of learning how to back it in )

Just over 7000km total. No sign of failure yet.

View attachment 43352 Here is a picture of the new one I have marked 237.4 Nm and the 1 that I pulled from the 2011 Husky Engine which is like brand new. It shows no visable wear whatsoever on the teeth. Its marked as you can see 227.0 Nm. Also a picture of the bearing as well (no seal)and package it came in. So I guess Husqvarna had low low stock Torque limiter rating numbers as well. Not just BMW as you say these numbers are representative of.

Wow is all I can say.

Incredable I didn't know they had them available new with that high of a breakaway point out of the box and I've been buying the so called improved and upgraded part number each time.

Well those numbers you have stated in ft.lbs or something fairly close would then be printed on the new ones you have tested in Newton meters. Please show us a picture of one of these with the number rating on the edge of the gear, like I've shown on my post.

If you can get them new from whoever, be it BMW, Husky, or Kymco direct, at that high of a setting out of the box then its marked with that number during assembly right? Who are you getting these from? I'll buy a spare right now.

I don't think that would ever breakaway and create its own internal friction and begin to wear out, even with my fat ass on it.

Please post a picture of one of these factory TLs, Or is that proprietary also? Because I'd be down for one right out of the gate. Thanks...