Leaves only one thing man.... The crank. Just ride it and deal with it for now. Sorry to hear this man.

 

Damn ______________

WP

 

Kp sorry to hear this. I was truly hoping you had it sorted out.

 

Damn! Sorry to hear man. My younger brother (yeah he's only 54) riders a 1980 Wide Glide, pre dyna, pretty much an FL frame with a raked Sportster front end. He likes to say riding on the warning strips is no different than riding on smooth pavement. I've ridden his bike and he's ridden mine. He thinks I've got a Cadillac, I think he's got a John Deere 70 pulling a 4 bottom plow. To some degree it is the nature of the beasts we choose to ride.
Dad used to say, "Run it till it quits, then you'll know what to fix".
I was hoping your clutch issue would point me in the right direction with mine. Now I intend to ride it like a Harley and see what shakes out,
Best of luck KP, hope it works out for ya.

 

I figured that wasn't your problem when you said the vibration was always there clutch in or out load or no load. that bearing is bad in over 70% of the bikes out there and no one notices it until it gets real bad. and only felt under a load. the only thing that can cause the kind of vibrations you have is the motor. like it has been stated before it is a harmonic vibration. all engines have this there is no way to stop it. but you can stop things from amplifying the problem. like having the flywheels trued and balancing the rotating assembly and the biggest problem that is overlooked poor or low compression on one of the cylinders if the compression is more than 5 pounds difference it will amplify the problem.
that's why I try to tell ppl not to mill heads or shave pistons by thousandths. you have to cc them. on my latest evo build for the bastard fxr the heads were stock I wanted 76cc to get that number they only took .013 off of one and .034 off of the other. if I would have told them to just take .020 off the engine would have had a nasty vibration.

 

Is it worth picking up a new set of neck bearings or not worth the effort? They seem cheap enough autozones sells a trailer kit with lm44463 timken for under $30 for both sets and races

 

You can if you want to but I don't think it will help you at all.
As others have stated I think the problem is in your crank.

 

And they are probably right. I guess where I'm at is with the 12" apes on I can live with it but don't like them or the position. I have the stock bars on and like the position and look but I can't hang on in fact I won't even ride. So I guess I'm just grasping here trying to make it ok to ride but I guess I'm just wasting my time in the end.

How do I check the crank runout, if I have to pull the primary I'm going to stick a piece or dynamite in the gas tank

 

Pull the cam chest cover, cam, lifters etc... and put a dial indicator gauge on the crank pin. Best way is to split the cases and check it at both pins on a trueing stand though.

 

that's one thing I will say yes on if they are bad. I have a bike here that is totaled because of neck bearings. and my buddy knew they were bad and still rode it. the neck locked up so he forced it to steer and went into a high speed wobble then he whiskey throttled it causing the bike to high side.

the little bit of time and money it takes to replace them is nothing compared to 2 weeks in a ICU or even worse. so if they're bad replace them.