Posts Tagged ‘check transmission sprocket’

Haven’t made it to the tool store to get a new breaker bar yet.  Kind of want to have some help available when I try to break the damn compensator lose.  So, I spent some time pondering what I might need once I get the inner primary off.

  1. Let’s see.  Going to heat the compensator nut.  Could be getting pretty hot too (I understand red locktite doesn’t melt until 271 degrees F.)  Main shaft seal is made of rubber.  Rubber melts.  Wow, Zen in action.  Better get a replacement mainshaft seal just in case….  Order one.
  2. Clutch hub in my bike had a lot of groves in the fingers and is original three adjustor hub.  Bike has been tugging a little bit in gear at stop lights.  Groves could cause such a thing.  Better replace it while the thing’s apart…. Order one.
  3. Fiber plates in the bike are THIN!  Better replace them too (Damn, my clutch wasn’t even slipping – could it have been from the grime between those plates?)  One set of Barnett Kevlar plates….
  4. Always a good idea to check the transmission mainshaft seal…. Order one.
  5. As beat up as the compensator bolt  is I feel better with a new one….  Order one.
    The adjusting nut on the throw out assembly was kinda rusty?  Gotta wonder how that happened.  Order one….
  6. Plus, gonna needs some gaskets (sooner or later.)  I’ll just get a complete engine set.  I’ll get the one with oil seals and then I don’t have to order a replacement.  Order one.  Cancel item 1.

That’s a start.  Now to get another breaker bar.

What Have I Got?

850 miles on the speedo now and I admit to myself that there is a vibration that comes and goes on the road.  Also feel some sort of “hammering” when just sitting astride the bike with it idling at a low pace.  I posted a query on a few other blogs and somebody suggested that the front drive sprocket on the tranny is known to work loose on this model bike and it could be causing the vibration.  Sounds reasonable to me.  That is just the kind of vibration it felt like – gear wobbling on its shaft.  Into the garage to pull the inner and outer primary so I can have a look.

The fun begins

Get the bike on a bike jack so I can lift her a bit off the floor for a better working angle.  Outer primary comes off  easy enough.  Gasket still good too.  Locate my trusty pressure plate washer.  Lock down the pressure plate springs and remove the pressure plate, 5 fiber and 4 steel plates of the clutch assembly.  Clutch hub nut (left handed threads) comes off just fine.  Now for the compensating sprocket.  Wow – what a surprise.  I have had many compensating sprockets off of Harleys in the past.  Some of them pretty damned tight too.  Nothing even compares to this one.

Wedge a gear jam between the bottom of the front primary sprocket and the top of the clutch basket sprocket to lock them gainst each other.  Get out the inch and a half socket and breaker bar.  Give it ALL I have and cannot budge the nut.  No problem I says.  Need a cheater pipe.  After acquiring a 3 foot piece of galvanized pipe we are back at it.  One guys holding the bike steady on the jack and two of us pulling on the cheater.  Nothing breaks loose.  Wow.  This SOB is TIGHT.

Take a break and then give another try.  Just me this time.  I put almost all I have into the counter-clockwise (right hand thread) bolt head.  Nothing.  A little more.  Nothing.  Screw this!  All I have got.  SNAP.  Half inch drive breaker bar twists off at the socket head.  Gear jamming tool is completely jammed between the sprockets.  Not coming out unless the compensator comes loose or I get a torch on it and cut it out!  The 2 hour project just got a lot more complicated.

We have decided that whomever put the bike together last must have filled the compensator bolt with red locktite and then put the damned thing back together.  A normal application of locktite would never have been able to withstand the torque I was applying to this thing.  So, I guess I am going to get a torch and heat the damned thing up to where the locktite melts and give it another try (after replacing my twisted off breaker bar of course.)  For today – done.

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