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Unbelievable. I was heading out Sunday and was maybe ten minutes from home. The clutch felt a little funny and I could hear some clanking from the primary every time I pulled the lever. I had just decided that I needed to turn around, and was approaching a traffic light in the left turn lane, which put me squarely in the middle of the road with two lanes of traffic on either side of me. Suddenly bam! a loud clank and my rear wheel locked up. Since I was approaching a stop light I was moving pretty slowly at that point, and somehow managed to stay upright and skid to a stop. Nobody was directly behind me, or right alongside me so I missed getting run over. I managed to quickly knock it out of gear and pushed the bike across two lanes and onto the shoulder. A good Samaritan stopped and helped me roll it out of the busy intersection and into a parking lot. AAA towed me to my local shop; the owner came down and opened it up to get the bike inside. So several miracles have already occurred. If I had been moving any faster when this happened, I probably would not be here typing this story right now.
This morning I stopped by the shop to see if he had opened it up yet and what he found, Here it is; a snapped transmission mainshaft! The weird feeling in the clutch and the clanking must have been the clutch basket flopping around as the shaft was coming apart. My indy was shocked; he had not seen this before. Anybody here familiar with this? Any ideas about fixing/upgrading this? It's an 89, with a tapered shaft. Is there any upgrade what will work with my existing inner primary? Options? Baker? Maybe now's the time to look at a Baker 6 speed. But this is already going to be big $ so I don't know.
Last edited by rivercityslim; Jul 16, 2019 at 12:17 PM.
I would find a used gear set with the splined shaft. Should go right in your case. Get a the newer clutch and you'll have a beefier driveline. You gotta match the number of teeth on the clutch you have. Also can use the upgraded sprocket which is thicker. I did it on my 89 Softail.
You do not need to make any changes to the inner or outer primary, starter etc, a splined mainshaft will fit fine with no mods there.
Several ways to go here :
Replace you mainshaft with another tapered mainshaft, cheapest way to go because you don`t need to replace the clutch, but that old clutch is a crappy design...
I can send you a used tapered manishaft if you decide to go that way...
I wouldn`t consider replacing just the mainshaft in your current gearset, you would need to use a 1990 mainshaft, it is a one year only design, and the only one that will work with the `89 and earlier gearset.
Find an entire gearset from `91 or later, the later the better.
If you use a `90-`93 clutch it will be plug and play, it will have the same size primary chain sprockets and the same size starter ring gear.
Last edited by Dan89FLSTC; Jul 16, 2019 at 12:49 PM.
I'd be curious as to how you ride? Are you on the throttle a lot or just cruising around at the speed limit, that looks like a pretty thick piece of steel. Wondering how hat happened.
I'd be curious as to how you ride? Are you on the throttle a lot or just cruising around at the speed limit, that looks like a pretty thick piece of steel. Wondering how hat happened.
I'd like to know that too. It's a heavy touring bike, not a race bike and I ride accordingly. Yes, I do tend to exceed speed limits (who doesn't?), but that's because most of the two-lane blacktop that I ride on has a speed limit of only 40 or 45. On highways (which I avoid if possible) I stay in the 65 - 75 range. So I'm certainly not abusing my bike.
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Snapped Mainshaft - Close Call
If I had been moving any faster when this happened, I probably would not be here typing this story right now.
