How much back and forth movement should there be on the tranny shift lever? Mine must move back and forth a good 1/4 inch.. ( seems farther in the top end of the arc with the lever ) is there an external adjustment? Looking in the service manual it mentions shifter pawl adjustment. Can this be done on an FLT? and will it cure the problem?

 

My FXR has a little slop in it but don't seem to hurt anything ..

 

Every Hd I Have ridden has varying degrees of slop. SOme more than what you mentioned. No real easy way to tighten it up that I know of.

 

Degree of slop appears to vary. Try installing one of these:
http://www.debrix.com/Shifter-Anti-R...p/44411-m1.htm

 

What you need to do is loosen off the shifter and push it in toward tranny then retighten, but I beleive there should be some give/slop there so it doesn;t bind up. Persoanlly I don't like messing with shifter allan bolt even though I need to give mine a bit of torque a couple times a year.

 

I fixed a whole bunch of slop by installing 2 heim joints on my shifter rod. Shifts super smooth now, no rattle and neutral is even easier to find.

 

Interesting, what exactly is a heim joint? Is it legal?

 

 

Been there..done that.. Im talking about the back & forth movement of the tranny shift lever before it feels like its making contact. It just seems like its too excessive..

and its not the lever itself..its snug on the shaft..its the shaft the seems like its too loose..

 

The important thing (to smooth shifting) is the forward and rearward free play is equal. You can check it with the transmission in third gear. Move the transmission lever (by hand) forward and back and the point where you encounter resistance should be equal.

If it's not you need a pawl adjustment. It's very simple and straightforward and even though the below shows how to do it with the transmission out of the bike you can do it with the transmission installed. You may have to cut down an Allen wrench so it fits behind the motor-plate but other than that it's easy. Just remember once the lock nut is loose it only takes a very small amount of adjustment to get the pawl centered up.

Fig 4 and 5 just shows what adjusting the pawl does, you don't need to be able to see this when doing the adjustment.