To get to the center of a Burgman 650 final drive?

Let's say you're running way behind getting on the road, knowing you have 600 miles to your destination. You know a chunk of the ride is in the middle of the Nevada desert. Once you check the state of the Sierras, you don't worry beyond that about weather...

But, you also know you're overdue for fluid changes, and you're getting ready to run at high speeds across Nevada. So, you decide to change your fluids. On the Burgman 650, just like my Beemers, that means engine, transmission, and final drive.

The engine oil change is straightforward. Dump the engine oil, fill engine oil to the "Full" like on the sight glass.

The transmission oil change is weird. Dump the oil from the drain plug under the transmission. Replace the drain plug. Remove the level plug. Pour oil into the fill hole until is starts coming out the level hole. Seal up the level hole and the fill hole.

The final drive has a drain hole and a fill hole, both flush on the side. Drain from the drain hole, replace drain hole and fill until oil starts coming out of the fill hole. Seal fill hole.

Fluids changed, I took off. Things were great. On the highway, the Burgman gets around 50 MPG. I was making really good time without going too fast. I filled up Fallon, heading south down US 95 and was around 50 miles short of Hawthorne when the bike started jerking, the speedometer went to 0, the FI (fuel injection computer) light went on, and the display started reporting an error. When that happens, the transmission goes into fail-safe mode.

I was 311 miles from home. 250 miles or so from my destination, Amargosa Valley, NV. I stopped on the side of the road and went into the back for my cell phone, figuring I would call down to the destination, because I knew there were trailers there. No cell phone. But at least I brought my charger.

When the transmission goes into fail-safe mode, the Continuously Variable Transmission stops varying. Instead, it picks two ratios, low and high. The high gear seems to cap at 65 to 70 MPH at redline. That's how I limped in the next 250 miles. The Burgman drinks lots of gas at redline.

The next morning, I pulled out the service manual, and started looking over the speedometer sensor troubleshooting, as I figured that was the most likely error. Among other things, the speedometer went to 0, and the cover for the final drive, which I had off for the oil change, goes right on top of the sensor cable.

After a great deal of work, I got the speedometer sensor out of the final drive, only to find a horrible, molten mess. I retired to my room, figuring I needed to find a way home. If one was ever unsure how great the folks from bmwsporttouring.com are (though I've known for a long time) you just need to have something go wrong. Within an hour, the scooter had a ride home, an offer to get it to Vegas, an offer to work on it in Vegas, and various options to get me out of Amargosa Valley. The picture in this post is with it tied down in the back of Killer's pickup. Bob hadn't really intended to come to the Bay Area right now, but decided to come anyway.

Next, I got together with Bob, Jamie, and Leslie, and we were going to go over and visit a wildlife refuge nearby. As I started going over the process I described above, I gave Jamie the variant as I did it. Rather than replacing the drain plug in the final drive, I fill it, similar to the process for the transmission, until oil just started coming out of the final drive drain hole. Jamie mentioned that this didn't make sense to him. I stopped, pondered it, and started to think, "I've made a huge mistake."

Basically, I rode nearly 600 miles on the scooter with virtually no oil in the final drive. I'm afraid to see what the result is.

Oh, now I get it; after seeing the pic and your "Sniff", I thought you'd sold it. Ouch! Good luck!