Another Bike Repair Page

 

With all the extra time on my hands during this holiday season, I
actually managed to get some work done on my bikes.  And even had time
to document it on the Web site.

The one below has to do with diagnosing the cause of a weak clutch on
the Street Bob (over-heated):

http://www.xidos.ca/Technical/RepairitYourself/ClutchRepairStreetBob/tabid/191/Default.aspx

Any comments, criticisms or useful suggestions will be received with
appreciation, of course.

 


That's quite the finest 'special tool' bodg^h^h^h workaround I've ever
seen. Who cares if it's a chunk of timber? It did the trick.
Excellent.

(I thought Harleys were belt primary drive these days?)

 


Thanks, though it wasn't a totally novel solution.  The Service Manual
had a picture of the proper tool in it; which looked like a simple
steel bar, cut to the right length.

It will be interesting to see how well my wooden tool holds up when I
try torquing the assembly back on.  Should be okay, I guess - unless
it requires less torque to loosen a bolt put in at a particular torque
than it does to tighten it to the same value (possible, I suppose...).


You're thinking of the secondary belt there - the one that runs from
the transmission pulley to the rear wheel.  The one that runs from the
engine output shaft to the clutch (the 'primary' chain) has remained
as a chain.  Enclosed, it can nicely run in an oil bath and
practically never wears out.

One improvement recently made (not on my '98 Road Glide for instance)
with respect to the primary chain can be seen in the top row of
photos.  There's an auto-adjusting chain tensioner in there now.  Used
to be that, every 30K miles or so, you'd have to adjust the tension to
keep the chain from getting too sloppy (caused mainly by the fact the
nylon pad would get a groove worn into it).

In fact, there used to be a chain adjustment opening in the side of
the primary for just that purpose.  New Harleys no longer have that
side hole.

 

On 1/4/2010 2:05 PM, Road Glidin' Don wrote:
<snip>


I'm pretty sure Sporties still have the manual adjustment. I know the
2009 Buells do. I still adjust mine every 5K. You'd be surprised at how
fast that shoe wears when doing track days :)

 


Could be.  I adjusted the primary chain tensioner on my wife's Sporty
a few months ago - just before we traded it in on a Softail.

On my Road Glide, I think I've replaced the shoe once or twice in the
200K kms.  As you know, it eventually gets grooved so deeply that
there's not enough adjustment to tighten the chain anymore.