I just get done rebuilding my sons sportster engine and decided to go for a ride on my 2005 Softail Classic. On my way back home I hear what could best be described as a roll of wire getting run through a trash disposal coming from my engine, it only lasted a second and was gone. I could not find anything obvious so.. thinking it maybe my cam tensioners (the Bike has 20480 miles) I pulled the cam cover off, and they looked fine, I will change them since its now open. So with that done I went and drained the transmission fluid so I could take the Primary off and it came out blue/green/white!
I had recently bought this bike and had intended to change the oils etc, however I got involved as I mentioned in rebuilding my sons sporty and had not immediately done so.
Does anyone have any idea as to what this stuff may be, I am confident that the white stuff is water, but blue/green tranny fluid?

 

That's Dawn dish washing detergent. After you flush however, it's best to put oil back in there.?? HA. It's probably Valvoline 10-40 Blue diesel synthetic. Think that white is EP additive. Let it set in a jar. If it's really water, you will see it settle out. I do not think it's water. Good idea to check tensioners if they have never been checked. They are probably OK. Mine have 45K on them. If you do itself, you measure wear on inner by eyeballing link chain pins to tensioners and relate it to front one that you can see. If I had to pay to have someone check, just replace them.

https://www.google.com/search?q=blue...LTLI9pxCrNM%3A

 

Thanks for the info I was hoping I was wrong and someone had an idea as to what I was looking at. Any idea on the noise I heard that started this adventure? Just eyeballing the tensioners they look ok the inner one is tough to see completely?

 

Redline MTL.

Here it is running out of a 5 speed case...good stuff

 

Know this is going to make this a oil thread but I would not run 75/80W on the clutch. Not sure how cool the weather gets that you run down there in NC but I would guess your first gear engagement would be pretty rough on startup.

 

Yep that's it ! Thanks. I guess I'm going to have to keep digging to figure out what that rattling was all about. Thanks for the reply guys!

 

Check all the cogs on the drive belt and rear pulley. You may have picked up a rock and this is what you heard. Front is steel and nothing will hurt it.

 

It gets down into the teens that's about it but trust me I;m not riding it when it is. Ive only had this bike about three months and have only put about 280 miles on it. I was really negligent in not changing the fluids out after I bought it. I just had that noise last night, and this morning fired it back up and sound great as usual. Friends have suggested "It might have just been a intermittent thing, put it back together and run it"! Well, I don't just want to "Run it" I would think it prudent to at least look around on its insides and see what I can find. So far nothing.

 

Ripshaw, Thats a real possibility I was on a dirt road when it happen. I never gave that a thought! Geez

 

To be clear here, you drained the primary fluid, and not the tranny, right?


Pretty much any motor oil (without friction modifiers,) will work just fine in the primary. Because it does get dirty, I change mine with the motor oil at 5,000 mile intervals.