I've just bought a 2004 Heritage Softail with 14,000 miles showing, which I mostly love. However, it has a couple of transimssion issues that worry me.
It makes quite a lot of primary transmission noise, bangs a little on starting and clonks a little as the engine stops. I changed the primary oil and reset the tensioner, but it's still noisy. I also noticed that the primary oil was VERY dirty as was everything in the primary chain case. I cleaned this all up and adjusted the primary, filled with new HD lube and... it's still the same! Question: the supposed primary chain tension is between 16 and 22mm slack - that seems a lot; is that right? Is it worth fiting an automatic chain tensioner?

My second bigger worry is that the bike also occasionally makes a very loud grinding sound that sends vibration right through the bike as I'm riding . This might happen just once in twenty miles, then it may do it a few times in a mile. The sound reminds me of when I have touched the running boards on cornering (a sort of loud metallic scrape) or when I've got a gear change wrong in the car and hit gears together (graunch). This loud grind/graunch can happen at any speed, is not linked to any particular gear and happens under moderate load.

Please can anyone suggest what might be going wrong and what I should do to check/fix this as I worry that it's going to fail badly one day

Thanks for any help

 

Compensator, next question.

 

Check your primary chain. You'll be surprised at the people who don't know that you have to adjust it. If it has a lot of slack it will make similar noises.

 

Thanks for the reply Wind Walker. I have checked it and it's within limits according to the service manual BUT that's still 3/4" or more, which seems a lot to me! What do you/others set theres to?

 

Hi Bestrafen, thanks for your reply.
I did think the compensator might be the noise on start/stop, but does that explain the nasty graunch, grind, vibration thing when riding as well or might I have multiple problems here?

 

Also check your belt if loose will make noise on turns.. Now I have noticed some first time HD owners have the same issues with the trans and primary noise some of that is normal on a HD.

 

Mrwhirly, I may be mistaken, but I think harley calls for 5/8 of slack. Also you could pull your primary cover off or just drain the oil to check for metal debris. Harley transmissions are clunky, but should not be grinding. Drain your Trans fluid also and check it. The primary and Trans both take one quart each. A little shavings is normal, but not big pieces.

 

Sounds like a combination of inner primary bearing and the compensator

 

Thanks again Wind Walker (great handle!). Gearbox dropped out clear and golden. Primary oil came out jet black and glistening with fine metallic particles. Also had find swarf on the mag drain plug - all NOT great! At least there were no big bits, but enough sparkly metal in the oil to make me think something's not right. Trouble with a used bike, I am not sure if the oil has ever been changed, which would make the oil 14K miles old and it's got accumulated debris from breaking in and general use, or if it was changed recently and there's big wear.
I did take the cover off to see properly and every part in there was so black that I chose to wash it all with thinners before oiling and reassembly. Nothing was obviously worn, but I didn't strip bearings out of the clutch or strip out the compensator because I wasn't sure at that point that I had a big issue.
Think I'll drop the new oil out into a clean pan and strip the primary right down now that I've had these pieces of advice.
Thanks again

 

Hi Balloo,
Thanks for your thoughts. I'm now committed to taking the whole primary apart to check the compensator, bearings, chain alignment and anything else that moves! It's not the happiest outcome as I only bought the bike a few weeks ago and have only ridden perhaps 100 miles, but I need this sorted before it breaks in a big way. in my experience, these things only get worse and create more damage that could be avoided by early repair.
I'll post up what I find, perhaps with some pics.
Wish me luck!!