Earlier today Brother-In-Law and I finished installing a Baker Comp, Barnett friction plates, new chain case roller bearing and main shaft race plus new shift shaft seal and chain tensioner. Test ride around the neighborhood proved out to be like riding a better than new bike. Gone was the slamming into first gear, gone was the grinding and gnashing sounds often made when the bike was started. Gone was the increasingly loud clank when shutting the engine down.......oh, almost forgot, now I can snick the bike into neutral with ease and gone was the occasional wailing/screeching coming from the clutch when launching in first gear.


This bike has 40K miles and was on it's second original type stock compensator. We were surprised to find a semi-circular grove cut into the backside of the inner primary case, apparently by the backside of the clutch basket. Then we discovered the roller bearing was chewed up here and there on virtually all the rollers and the main shaft race was chewed up as well. Our understanding from several forum posts is the bearing and race damage is typically caused by the chain tensioner over tightening the chain and pulling too hard on the clutch basket. Whatever the cause for all the ugly noises made by the bike during the past several thousand miles and the first gear slamming and inability to find neutral from day one......I'm happy to see these problems gone. Time will tell how long lasting this overhaul will be but I am optimistic it will be substantial. Parts and tools came to $750.00-$800.00 including a race removal/installation tool costing close to 100 bucks with shipping.


FYI: The race tool we bought on Amazon, also sold on eBay, required extensive grinding in order to make it fit inside the drive belt pulley and to fit behind the race. Worked great after grinding about 1/8" off the round perimeter side of the tool allowing it to fit inside the pulley and another 1/8" off the bottom of the base allowing it to fit behind the race.

 

Nice to hear there is a difference with the Baker compensator.

My guy is just finishing putting one in my bike.

Cant wait to get it back;just in time to put it away for the winter.

 

Subscribed....and saving my lunch money to get one.

 

Congrats on the successful install. Was it that your race walked inward that much or the tool just needed that much adjustment to work regardless.

My bike has been on the lift for a few months now AND finally... I will be receiving the remaining parts to do the rebuild this weekend.

My son got into the garage and decided he MUST have the bearings inside the main trans bearing (which was new and on my rolling tool bin) and I took time off work, ensured I had a 6 pack, music on, tools selected... rolling chair next to the bike and PEACE AND QUIET... so how come I pick up the bearing and notice no cage and no bearings.

Wasn't a pleasant conversation as he stood behind his mother explaining "well Dad... what had happened."

Anyways... sounds like you are good to go! Congrats again.

 

That's good to hear. I have one on order. Hopefully it ships soon.

 

When the race walks like that the easiest thing to do is to grind a line into the race with a dremel and hit that with a chisel and mallet.
It will crack the race all the way across and it will slip right off.

It's also the thing to do when you don't have the actual tool...which is obviously recommended, but you can do it just the same without.

 

Well, that's a good question but we assumed it was right where the factory installed it originally. I imagine it could have moved inward enough to prevent the tool from sliding in behind it. We thought it was sloppy work by the tool company. Their ad says it fit Big Twins up to '07. Because my bike is an '09 I contacted the company and they assured me that it would work on my bike. The race is on there so tight that I doubt it moved. My best guess is that the factory installation has a little variance from one bike to the next. The tool company based there tool dimensions on one or two bikes they tested. The tool probably fits perfectly on some bikes and not on others but nothing a 4" grinder can't fix.

 

That's a good idea and we considered that approach but already having the tool in hand persuaded us to try to get our money's worth out of it.

 

Well, I can laugh now but I had similar disruptions during this project that didn't seem very funny at the time. I'm older than dirt, retired and no kids, so I didn't get zinged like you did with your loosing time off from work, etc. However, at my age I find it exceedingly easy to become distracted and when that happens off I go down a rabbit hole to frustration. For example: It seems that I cannot use a Allen head socket without it sticking inside the bolt I use it on and when I extract the wrench I don't always notice the socket did not stay on the wrench. When I was putting all the tools away from this project I noticed a missing Allen head socket and after wasting lots of time looking for it.....sure enough, it was still sticking in the bolt I last used it on....in this case the left floor board mounting bracket....and that was after I test rode around the hood for 30 minutes. Snap rings are a real bitch too, especially when they let loose from your pliers and bounce off the garage ceiling and slam down onto the hood of your wife's new car.