I'm not sure that I understand exactly what you are dealing with but it sounds like you are trying to get a broken ball pin out of the safety rod. If that is the case you have to remove the little wire safety clip first and it should then come out. Hope this helps.firedog said:
I am glad you got things going in the right direction Pat. From your description, I was thinking that you were going through the same thing that happened to me. While riding home from work one day on my '00 the ball pin nearest the shift lever snapped - had to limp home locked in third gear. My nearest BMW dealer is 100 miles away so I was down a few days, watching the mail box. I never did get any spare linkage parts and never needed them. The good news is that it was the lowest cost repair job that I ever had on any vehicle of any kind. This problem may be common but at least it is not frequent and prevention is simple - just keep 'em lubed.firedog said:Tips,
Thanks for the help. The ball pin broke in the middle of it's threads and left half of the shaft in the deflection lever (at least that's what the parts diagram calls it). I removed the safety wire from the ball pin receiver and popped the head of the pin out. Then I removed the deflection lever, which allowed me to rotate it out and get at the other side of the ball pin and unscrew it with vice grips. Now I just have to wait on a new set of ball pins which will be here on Tuesday. $3.33 and an hour of work and my bike will be back on the road.
There are a lot of guys on this forum who say they carry these extra parts with them just in case. Starting to wonder about a bike that I need to keep a trunk full of parts and tools in for the things that are "just in case".
When this broke, I was ready to sell the LT for scrap. However, upon reflection, I'll give the big girl another chance...
