Okay, so bear with me here -

I recently encountered a condition where the right side of the trans (I have a hydraulic clutch) ended up pushing the bearing in the trap doorslightly out of it's seat (less then 1/4", not out of the bearing boss in the trap door). I tapped it back in from the other side and it took little to no persuasion other than what you'd expect. I checked the hollow portion that receives the pushrod and it appears that the bolt and the trapdoor held up fine to this mess.

Anyways last night I got everything back together, got it all started up, and found that I could not let the clutch out in Neutral without stalling it. It is clear that in the last 1/3-1/4 of handle release is where it grabs and just kills the motor and lurches slightly. Obviously this means power is being transferred somewhere. It has a brand new clutch pack in it now (dry clutch), so I don't think it's a gunked up sticking mess, but I do feel the clutch basket gets RIDICULOUSLY hot, idling only a minute and it easily exceeds finger touching temperature.

So my question is, is this a case of stuch clutch plates? Or does 1/4" of lateral motion on the input shaft side of the harley require you realign internals to work right? Transmissions on these are my least well known piece of work for maintenance and upkeep other than gaskets and oil changes.

 

What bike you got? Does it have some sort of aftermarket dry belt primary or something?

carl

 

Doesn't sound like stuck plates...sounds like something is locked up...letting the clutch out in neutral should do nothing...

Can you move the bike by pushing it?

 

Are you saying you moved the trap door bearing 1/4 inch????

I`m not seeing that...without a problem.

 

Right, sounds like the main shaft is moving and it's pushing the bearing out of the trapdoor, and if he thinks he's in neutral he might not be. He might be locked into gears or something, it will play havoc. Time to remove the top cover and have a look inside...

 

I thought he was talking about the throwout bearing

 

I don`t think the OP is clearly describing the bearing issue...

 

True that. Both bearings are installed from the trap door side and are held in with snap rings . Pictures will help us see clearly the OP's issues....

 

Yep, just put it on. Might be taking it off if there's not an easy way to fix what I found in the photo.

Also nope - in neutral even with the clutch in there is significant resistance which led me to question if it was the trans.

Correct - there was a problem I didn't know about, I fixed it, and when reassembled, I ran into this problem as I was trying to disassemble the least amount of parts. at one time at least haha.

Sorry for the generics, I kind of ran out of time after a day of doing things nonstop, so I wasn't as explicit as I could have been. I have a 1996 FLHT. I recently upgraded it to a dry belt primary.

I did the math on the pushrod and cut one to length, then shortened it by 1/8" increments and inserted it until it fit properly before I put the PP in. What I didn't realize is that I fell victim to the harley seal swell - that is the outer seal on the hydraulic clutch swells up and pops out and prevents you from pushing the slave cylinder back in all the way. I just assumed I had a stuck slave so I squeezed extra hard, twice. On the second time I noticed the clutch pack was pushing out too. So I popped off the hydraulic clutch cover, and took a look, sure enough - the slave had pushed the bearing (with) rod out of it's boss by 1/4" (remember 1 full pull of a hydraulic clutch is 1/8" of displacement (as the pushrod I had cut too short) so it was still "in" the boss but not by much. When I realized this - I gently tapped with a piece of wood and a hammer on the input shaft and everything APPEARED to shift back into place nicely and I thought I was no worse for the wear as the bearing was back and seated next to it's snapring in the trapdoor. Starting the bike and the lack of neutral clued me into something being wrong though, as I couldn't let the clutch out. I figured it wasn't a stuck clutch pack as I can hold the clutch in and it'll idle all day long.

After reading yalls suggestions I put it in Neutral and tried rocking it back and forth, clutch in AND out and I have absolutely no neutral - I disassembled the top of the trans and took photos and found the following:
This is the clutch actuator side (not the primary side) I would assume they are supposed to thoroughly mesh and not be offset like that:


A short look in the book shows ONLY 4th gear (gears furthest to the left) are required to be fully aligned. So how would I go about fixing this - as it appears the book shows things just fit together and you can push the gears on with your hands? Is there a way to fix this without pulling the trapdoor?


+1 spot on explanation and did just what you suggested.

The throwout bearing on the other side is perfectly functional, as I can hold the clutch in and it'll idle all day long, but when I let it out, in the last 1/3-1/4 it stalls and tries to lurch a bit.

probably not, my bad there.

Picture provided - only the gear you see that's offset and the gear next to it seem to be displaced, the rest show their mesh points and seem to be accurate when compared ot their wear points.

 

Let me understand this clearly, the transmission worked fine till you put this new primary belt drive on? What belt drive did you install? I'm pretty sure both 4th gears should be lined up evenly. I'm thinking the nut backed out on the main shaft at the Trap door. or possibly when you torqued the clutch basket nut maybe you might have pulled the main shaft towards the clutch basket. I think you're going to need to pull the clutch release cover and take a look at the ends of both the counter and main shaft. The nuts they should be even with each other in the trapdoor... Post a pick of the trap door end showing both shafts and nuts...