I've got an 03' Flht and was riding the other day, pulled out of the gas station and couldn't hardly get my bike into second gear. I slowed down and tried again and it went...but since then second and third seem a lot "stiffer" than the rest of the gears specially when downshifting. what could be the problem? it shifts into gear fine just quite a bit stiffer than it used to be. should I be worried about anything locking up going down the road or anything like that?

 

1st thing to check is shift linkage, make sure all the arms are on splines tight. Mostly checking the rear that goes in the transmission.

 

will do, if it was loose would that make it stiff to get into gear? seems it would make it not go into gear at all if it was loose.....I'll check them first thing this evening hopefully that's the fix, Thanks for the reply, much appreciated!

 

check your clutch adjustment. is it hard to find neutral too?

 

it's not hard to find neutral ....all other gears seem to work find just 2nd and third require more force to get into gear

 

All the linkages seem to be tight and ok , I've been reading up on soke transmission issues with these bikes and wonder does anyone think it could be any of the bearings going bad? I do have 50k miles on the bike so far

 

Bearings make noise when bad mostly. Maybe the throw out bearing wouldn't be noisy but seems would be all gears if it was bad. I'm leaning towards fork being bent or worn but mine with 80,000 had very little scoring. If you work on it yourself you could check them for the price of gaskets. I think your year is like min, requiring the primary cover to come off to loosen bolt on starter gear to get starter off then top cover of trans. Then exhaust to get side cover off. Manual would be must.

 

The first thing I would do is check the oil in the trans.