How do I diagnose which side is the problem?

If I wiggle the shifters side to side at the front (the shift levers) them seem to tighten up.

I have some back and forth play in the shift shaft up front.

Please help, I’m getting ready to leave for montana on monday =(

 

bump ol

 

I had this very issue today as I was doing a PGR escort. I was 130 miles away from home and my shifter just fell on the floorboard. Had to drop out of the motorcade to address the issue. I was able to put some pressure on the shaft (with the engine off) and get it in 4th gear. I started out and kept momentum as I was on the shoulder of I87. I had to reach down and pull the shifter up with my hand until it clicked. Then I was able to shift to 5th gear. Repeated process for 6th gear. Ran straight down the thruway to the PIP to Rt 59 to Rt 304 to the dealer in Nanuet NY.

Shifter shaft was stripped. The bike will be OOS for the weekend. There was another thread on this topic a while ago.

My bike is a 14 limited that I bought in October of 15 with 811 miles on it. Mileage at dealer today is 10798 miles. I don't beat on my bike and I don't "Ride it like you stole it" Go figure.

 

so it was the shaft not the trans?

 

This issue seems like a hit-n-miss. My King is good (knock on wood) so far for 27K miles. I do check lots of things when I wash the bike and these are tight as a drum.

 

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/new-r...ipped-yet.html

Check out this other thread. Seems to be a common issue. Post #20 describes what happened to me today. Good luck.

 

The pinch bolts have factory lock tight on them. Just trying to turn the bolt makes them seem tight. ALL of my levers (both front and and the transmission) were loose by 1000 miles. I broke the bolts loose and tightened them, never had another problem, now past 82,000 miles. Hardware store "L" shaped allen wrenches won't provide the torque needed for this job. A socket wrench bit driver with the correct allen bit is needed or replace the bolts with hex head bolts. Check on every oil change and avoid being stuck on the road.

Additionally, the ball joints on each end of the shift rod start failing at around 25,000 miles. Either replace them before they fail or go for the heim joint rod ends and eliminate the problem.

 

You should be able to take the front apart real easy. there is a allen type bolt that you have to look for behind the inner primay up front facing the front wheel. once you take that off, you should be able to slide out the whole assembly, Inspect that shifter shaft, then inspect the front shifter shaft lever. The lever is softer metal then the actual shifter shaft, so you should be able to to tell if its damaged. If it is, I would just replace it since it is a easy fix. If it's the rear, your kind of in a tight spot, and I would suggest taking off the linkage, backing out the allen bolt, replacing it with a grade 8 bolt from the hardware store, making sure the rear shifter shaft lever is properly adjusted, blue loctite, and then cranking the hell out of the new hex head grade 8 bolt. Put it all back together, then keep in the back of you mind that you may have to by one of those better lever style shifter shaft levers for the rear in the future, which means pulling the inner primary unless you want to take a shot at chopping it up with a dremel tool like some have successfully done on here.

 

I just checked the inner clamp and it was not tight so I tightened it up. I need to take it apart this week and loctite it in place. I have the outside set with blue so I am good but over looked the inner.