I was riding my 09 streetglide from GA to NC today when i started to hear a growl from the primary cover area. I stopped at the next exit and when I slowed down the noise was so bad I was convinced something was coming apart. After nursing it to the house I drained the primary and found substantial metal slivers on the drain plug (oil was changed 1000 miles ago). After doing some searches on this and other forums I believe my transmission main shaft bearing is failing. I will tear it down Tuesday to inspect, I change my oil every 5000 and only use amsoil. The bike now has 18000 miles on it and the warranty ran out 2 months ago. No real point to the post just venting. I am so frustrated right now.

 

If you are right, I can see why.
Most all of us in my group use Amsoil. Give a up-date when you find out what it is... good luck.

 

It is probably not the transmission bearing thats in the transmission case rather the main shaft bearing on the back of the primary right next to the transmission bearing. A common problem for sure had to replace mine also. You can tell when they are going bad if you pull the clutch in you can hear some slight hint of abnormal bearing noise. Make sure you go ahead and change the inner race to this bearing also. Not a bad job to do your self with a manual but I did take it to a Indy to press the old bearing out and install the new one. I bought the tool to do the inner race myself and that was fairly easy also. Just make sure the C clip bearing retainer clip is oriented the correct way. It has to be positioned to let oil through the opening in the clip from the oiling journal hole that feeds the bearing. The Indy I took it to did not do this I guess he expected to see me again some day. But reading the manual and checking his work I found it corrected and put it all back together. If you to not have the SE compensator now is a good time to upgrade to that as you will be going in there and taking to compensator out anyway. Good luck glad you made it home safe and get back on the road soon.

 

the miles remind me of the infamous inner primary bearing failures that seem to happen like clock work at 16K - 18K miles.

lots of folks in this thread with the same problem.

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/touri...t-repairs.html

 

Just had mine done this weekend. I took my bike in for a radio issue, and started getting a nasty roaring sound from the primary. There went my cam money!

 

Since you say the chips are in the primary if you do have a bearing problem in there it's the inner primary bearing which is a pretty simple fix. I still have not figured a way to check it short of pulling the outer cover , primary drive and the inner cover. Still a lot less work then the transmission. I always see chips on the magnets on both transmission and primary so not sure what kind of indicator that is. Have you listened with a stethoscope at idle in neutral, clutch in and out on the back side of the inner primary cover? I would think with a noise like you described you could tell if it in transmission or in primary with a stethoscope. Really hard to tell without one. If you do it yourself take picture and post back.