2010 Street Glide 34,000 Miles

Cliff Notes of my day thus far:

1. My bike makes a rattling noise around the primary side.
2. Dealer says I need to replace Primary and Transmission Bearings (Cost $1200)
3. Mom and Pop Shop can do the same for about $600
4. I was going to change out my Primary Chain Tensioner myself 1st to see if that fixes issue.
5. Dealer says it's not tensioner, I'm wasting my time.

I'm just a bit frustrated. I really, really love my bike and have enjoyed my past 2-years of riding again. (10-months of which has been on the FLHX) My Glide is a daily driver, 60-miles a day, round trip to work. I'm the second owner and have put a LOT of money into her already and up to this point I have no regrets, but finding out that the bearings need replacement kinda angered me. I mean the bike only has 35k miles and I didn't expect something like this to happen in my 1st year of ownership.

So.... if anyone would mind chiming in on their experience with noisy primaries, bearings, or primary tensioners I'd really appreciate opinions and feedback.

Drew

(Sorry is this is a double post, 1st one didnt show up)

 

May only be the inner primary bearing, the noise will change when the clutch is pulled in. But it's also very possible the transmission bearing(s) may be bad too, it was a problem on the first several years of the 6 speed transmission. When you remove the transmission drain plug if there are chunks of metal (not just very fine metal) on the magnet, bearings are bad.

 

Any suggestions on aftermarket bearing for replacement?

 

Pull the primary, check the IPB, check the Primary Chain Adjuster (for being either too loose or too tight) and check the Compensator.
Go from there
.

 

Baker....
And buy a manual and DIY......

 

IPB first... when all apart you can grasp the clutch basket and move or try to move back n forth. It should be pretty snug, if not that could be shot as well...
The job might be a lot less if you prep it by removing the inner primary cover, clutch basket and comp...inspect the compensator...Baker has a good bearing.

 

 

 

What caused the bearings to fail? That's the $1500 question.

On my bike, the primary tensioner was worn about 1/2 way through at 27k with a chain that did not appear to be over tensioned. My issue was crank runout related which caused the chain to tighten up and then slack and I think I caught it before it took out the bearings in the tranny.

But, the auto tensioners are known to over tension the primary chain which puts an overhung load on all the bearings. If you have a severely worn tensioner when you go to change it and your chain is as tight as a piano string, you dealer is probably correct on needing to change out theses bearings.

if your chain is not tight super tight, and your tensioner is nor servilely worn, then you probably just need the inner primary bearing which is an easy change out. You got a bad one.

If if you have a loose chain with tensioner wear and bad bearings, it could be a crank runout issue. You can confirm it by checking the outer cam shoe wear, because both sides will run an eccentric pattern causing the chain to tighten up and loosen wearing out the wear shoes.

good luck.

 

I would want to understand what the mom and pop shop are quoting for $600. I did a transmission rebuild (no gears) and the bearing, gaskets, clips, seals were close to $400. If you love the bike and its your daily driver for work, etc. I would want to have piece of mind that I was going to have the transmission rebuilt right the first time.