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Friend of mine dropped his 81 FLT off for me to do the main shaft seal. He has no manual and said he isn't buying one. Something I've never done is remove the inner primary on a bike with an oil bath final chain drive! I took the outer off and it looks straight forward. Looking at the job a little closer, do the oil bath covers (rubber chain covers) attach to the inner primary behind the clutch housing? Before I rip into this I'd like to know before I start. Thanks.
do a parts search for the inner and you will see they bolt to the inner it is a bit messy to do and a shovel clutch is what it has - dont for get to replace the inner rear sections gaskets against the trans case and remove the drive sprocket for the rear wheel as its a cog and not a spline and the hi gear gets chewed as well as the front drive sprocket when the nut becomes loose and they all do reason they went to spline
Thanks john! Kinda surmised that might be the case. ( no pun intended). Gonna make the job a little more different than I've done in the past. I changed drive chains to "O" ring but never pulled an inner with the bath. Thanks again.
There are 4 hex head Allen bolts that secure the rubber boots to the inner primary. Very hard to get at
I am pretty sure that an “O” ring chain will not fit on the final drive. Not enough room. Besides the oil bath chain a new x chain will last a very long time.
I never messed with one of those oil bath chain enclosures, but I would guess O or X ring chains are not going to fit. Add to that, not really needed as the chain is in the oil bath. Something to think about.
Thanks for the info. I put an "O" ring on this bike a long time ago with no issues, so they will work. His bath system was in bad shape and leaked out of every crack. Thus the decision to change the chain. Thanks for the pics and I'm gonna tackle this, this morning. Someone has been in the primary. There was no locking wire on any of the bolts, nice.
I got the primary off (inner) without much trouble. Sprocket looks great, but, I found I could spin the nut off with my fingers. The locking tab was there but not bent down on the nut. I'm glad I caught it in time. Nothing was secure inside the primary.
My sprocket had a set screw to keep the nut in place and so did the new replacement sprocket I put on. I removed my enclosed chain system cleaned it up and put it in storage,rear wheel and all. Run open chain and I isolated the primary. No automatic oiler in the primary now. Good luck with your project.
It is not that easy, It will require a different rear wheel, a new sprocket, and a spacer. I found a matching wheel on eBay for 35 bucks, I was lucky. Most are a lot higher. Repack the bearings set the end play transfer the brake disc and mock it up for a spacer that will substitute for the metal rear sprocket housing. The good news is you don’t need the special gaskets for the inner primary and you have a better selection of gear ratio setups, I am running 23t in the front and 48 in the rear. It is kinda a pooch on start but will Cruz 73mph @ 3100-3200 rpm well within the safe range of the engine. It is a PIA to do, you lose the maintenance free chain but there are other advantages you gain on the change over, and it is now not obsolete .
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81 FLT Inner Primary.
