03 compensator
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Road Captain
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 567
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From: San Diego
I've pulled everything off and the only things I have found are 1: the teeth on the rotor are chewed up and there is partial teeth missing or raised metal and 2: the cover on the compensator has some deep grooves where the spacer is against it. Also with it off I can shake it and the internals are moving. I'm going to replace the rotor. I don't if the play on the cover is normal. There are no limits in the manual. Also the drive belt is a little bit loose. I still don't know if the rotor could've made all that noise
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From: Honah Lee
I've pulled everything off and the only things I have found are 1: the teeth on the rotor are chewed up and there is partial teeth missing or raised metal and 2: the cover on the compensator has some deep grooves where the spacer is against it. Also with it off I can shake it and the internals are moving. I'm going to replace the rotor. I don't if the play on the cover is normal. There are no limits in the manual. Also the drive belt is a little bit loose. I still don't know if the rotor could've made all that noise
My alternator rotor stripped and the magnets were all that was driving it. It wore a face groove on it. This allowed the front to rear sprockets we're out of alignment. Chain started nipping on top of teeth.
Caused a ratchet sound in slow hard left hand turns.
The new one had a little back and forth rock which can tend to loosen the comp nut.
The OD of spline centers. That was still good. I took a small toolmaker ballpeen hammer and rolled some metal out on crank spline to fit rotor.
Only way to fix it short of a new crank. This is very common. Why Harley went to a serration a few years later.
Last edited by Jackie Paper; Jan 23, 2022 at 06:06 PM.
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From: poway
It ran loose. You need to trim about 0.060 off the sleeve part of the nut and replace the rotor.. The spring stack in the cover can be loose. Just make sure that the cover is not chewed up.
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Road Captain
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 567
Likes: 11
From: San Diego
Thank you. The cover just has a little groove where the washer sits, other than that it is fine. I guess that could explain all the strange noise and why it suddenly screeched and stopped making noise. not bad for a stock part with 68,000 miles and 19 years old. Thanks to everyone who responded everything was very helpful!
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Joined: Dec 2005
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From: poway
2003s were notorious for not having enough clamping pressure on the comp / rotor stack. Trim the nut and torque to the new spec.
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Seasoned HDF Member
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From: Honah Lee
Exactly what mine did. The alternator rotor is soft mild steel. The spline is only about an 1/8 long.. Very poor design. If you hit throttle hard or engine break, it will shuck spline. My spline in alternator was totally gone. What's crank look like were that part rode at? Does not look like yours was spinning since it still has spline unless crank area spline is gone. It does look like something was slipping.
Look at some of the chan links and see if you were nicking them from chain misalignment. 1/32 will misalign . When it does that, torque is still on comp nut.
What Max is talking about is how that funny designed comp nut is. Almost like a bolt. Be sure all old hard red loctite is out of the inside of it. Some maybe were not tapped deep enough and the thread bottom. That's what Max is talking about.
Clean everything up. Put it back together without alternator on. Make sure compensator nut(bolt) closes up far enough that it will tighten. Mine as designed did.
There's a picture on here and I will add it hopefully to make this clear on what he's talking about trimming.
Be sure to put that small spacer back. By 2004, Harley standardize it. They use to have 10 sizes for alignment. Sure that made the assembly line a nightmare.
Look at some of the chan links and see if you were nicking them from chain misalignment. 1/32 will misalign . When it does that, torque is still on comp nut.
What Max is talking about is how that funny designed comp nut is. Almost like a bolt. Be sure all old hard red loctite is out of the inside of it. Some maybe were not tapped deep enough and the thread bottom. That's what Max is talking about.
Clean everything up. Put it back together without alternator on. Make sure compensator nut(bolt) closes up far enough that it will tighten. Mine as designed did.
There's a picture on here and I will add it hopefully to make this clear on what he's talking about trimming.
Be sure to put that small spacer back. By 2004, Harley standardize it. They use to have 10 sizes for alignment. Sure that made the assembly line a nightmare.
Last edited by Jackie Paper; Jan 24, 2022 at 02:24 AM.
Seasoned HDF Member
Joined: Mar 2010
Posts: 38,300
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From: Honah Lee
How bad my alternator was. Checking to see nut goes on far enough. (won't do a bit of good to trim it if it's not tapped far enough. In production, the tap driver has a clutch that keeps taps from breaking. Problem is, sometimes it does not finish and the deburr and inspection crew miss it. My compensator. Hurts nothing but makes it noisy. Critical alignment checks off the back face. The chain is only .030 wider than sprockets. So it has to be close.
My tool I used to tighten the spline and save the crankshaft. How a 04 works. Not sure if 03 is different. That nut/bolt supports the cover.
At the time, the bike had an extended Harley warranty. They hit me for $50 twice and all they did was keep tightening nut. Didn't check why. When I finally took it apart, I ask for just the parts. They told me at the Harley Shop they would void the warranty for me working on it. Put it back together and they would fix it for another $50. They are lucky I am the polite type. They have a free Barbque every year there. That's when they see me now.
Last edited by Jackie Paper; Jan 24, 2022 at 07:29 AM.