I went to start the chopper. It's been sitting a while. New battery, crank, crank, and whirrr. Great. Starter clutch is shot. Pulled the primary cover off to pull the starter, have the starter in my hand and looking at the primary chain I notice that it has been hitting on the inside of the inner primary cover. It appears that the compensator sprocket is like 0.200 or maybe a quarter inch further inward than the clutch basket sprocket. I haven't pulled it apart yet, but, suggestions? Ideas? This is a late style clutch, which I've never taken apart before. Guess I'll have to look that up too.

This is a chopper. A true chopper, not some "here's 40 large, we'll work the pennies out later" "chopper," a bike built by a guy without much money from parts he found, was given, bought used, etc. The motor is a new crate motor. The rest of the bike, well, let's just say there's "issues."

 

There were 2 different lengths of sprocket shaft spacers (that the main seal runs on) and I don't remember which witch was which for year make or models but if memory serves, seems there was about .350 difference between the two.

Seems if that were the case, the rotor would be gouging somewhere also....

 

old spacer longer used until 1994, 1995 and up spacer shorter if I remember right

 

But if the chain is hitting the inside primary cover and the compensator sprocket is 0.200 or maybe a quarter inch further inward, I would think the compensator would need to be spaced out ward to match clutch primary, I'm I missing something??

 

Most of this bike seems to be late 90's. I suspect a lot of it was off a scrapped/parted out late 90's softail. I wonder if someone left the spacer out altogether. Guess I'll pull it and see. Is the spacer behind the rotor?

 

there is a spacer under the rotor and washer type spacers on top of rotor

 

but the rotor isn't rubbing the stator is it?

 

Not as far as I can tell. It charged fine, didn't make any funky noises. I would that that if the rotor and stator were in contact, Bad Things Would Happen. Maybe it's missing the washer type spacers on top of the rotor. Also, the compensator itself seems "sprung" sort of, but I've not had one of these apart in years. I can see a good gap between the outer and inner part.

 

There's plenty of daylight just looking in there at the cams. The only touch on the tips and valleys until you get some torque on them. I looked some more and the inner bearing spacer was a xxxxx-70 up until '97.

Even if both rotor washers were missing it wouldn't add up to 1/4" and yeah, if the rotor ever hit anything a deaf man would hear it.

Whatever is amiss, it has to be the compensator extension shaft mis-matched or maybe a '98-up clutch assembly and the hub too long for the other parts. I can't say, been lucky and never had to decipher too many things on these...

I've got the washer spacers, compensator, rotor, not sure if I have a loose sprocket shaft extension laying around. It'd be tomorrow before I could measure any of it. Let me know, be glad to if it'll help.

 

With a engine swap found the spacer was 2 different sizes from different rated charging systems, width of the stator bell matches the different spacer size. This old school engineer may have the short spacer in it with even a smaller lower rated charging system stator bell and not contacting the primary. The longer spacer is for something like a RK or Electraglide, short is for a light bike, also found out a Roadglide has even a wider spacer and wider stator bell due to a large charging system for twin head lights, used the normal bagger spacer and didn't come out to good.