2012 Ultra Classic. 60K on the clock. Clattering type noise coming from primary at idle. It's gotten louder over the past couple months. I can't hear it while riding. Bike runs fine otherwise. Decided to take the primary cover off tonight to have a look. No metal or anything in the fluid or left in the primary once the cover was removed. I've always changed fluid every 2500 miles (meticulous to say the least). On visual inspection, the only obvious potential issue is the automatic primary chain adjuster show. See attached pics. My questions are: Could this be the cause of my noise and does this wear look normal for 60K?

Note: new SE compensator was installed at 48K and new clutch at 42K.

 

"They" say the grooves are cut by the links and the rollers in the chain ride on the nylon pad. The tensioner is supposed to ratchet up the length of the device and keep the chain at a predetermined tightness. Was your tensioner at the end of the ratchet notches?

 

No, it was not at the end of the ratchet notches. The chain seemed to be at an appropriate tightness prior to taking the adjuster out. There was no play that I could notice in either the compensator or the clutch basket. In all honesty, the internals of the primary appeared to be in tip top shape aside from the west on the adjuster shoe.

 

My bet would be be the compensator. The springs are now notorious for losing some preload. Harely got tired of replacing good compensators under warranty and developed a shim kit to increase spring preload. I had a brand new latest design get noisy in 1700 miles. I kept my old springs from the previous comp and installed a medium sized one as a shim and tightened everything up. all is smooth and quiet now, If you are curious, you can lock your primary as though you were removing the comp or clutch, then use a wrench to move the engine (the compensator play) as far as it will easily go in one direction. Reverse the lock piece and see how much torque is needed to move the crank as far as it will easily go in the opposite direction. That movement is likely the source of your noise. Mine was surprisingly easy until after the shim was installed.

 

You only have 12k miles on the compensator assembly. Does the noise continue even when you pull the clutch in at idle? You could have a worn out inner primary bearing.

 

Yes, the noise continues even if I pull the clutch while in neutral and at idle. I didn't want to believe it was the compensator again since it only has 12K on it, but I'm not horribly surprised. That's the 3rd comp I've had in the bike. The one it had when new, replaced at approx 1400 miles and then again at 48K. There seems to be some issues with the damn things. At least I can do the work myself and can save some cost there. I'd still rather not have to buy a $300 comp every 3 years(ish).

 

If the comp you have now is the one using the T70 Torx bit,head that is the most recent version. My understanding is that a pack of shims is around $10. After my experience, I would not install a new comp without the shim pack until Harley revises the springs,. When you take it apart, you can check for wear or fretting in the hub area and for wear on the cam and sprocket spokes. Especially with weak spring preload, you should see a wide wear pattern on the cam, more polishing than wear. The absence of shavings or "goo" on the magnet indicates little actual wear. If there is little actual wear, try the shim pack and save $290. When my inner primary bearing got bad, idle was noisy, and there was a very noticeable "growl" during shutdown as the engine slowed to a stop. Should you decide to try the shims, there used to be a different set that was used to align the comp sprocket with the clutch sprocket, that is NOT the same as the spring shim pack you probably need.

 

If you still have the old comp, run 2 of the small Belleville springs, one cupped into the other. Rattle will be less. I've been looking into going back to the PEEK thrust washer. The M8s have one that is the correct size. FWIW the new M8 comps seem to be pretty good. Not sure if they can be fit into a TC.

 

For what it is worth, on my 16 with about 36k miles at the time I was hearing the same thing as you described in your original post, except once the bike was fully warmed up the noise went away or seriously quieted down. Also, while I would get the noise (a rattling noise) just sitting and idling, it was more noticeable on deceleration.

I talked to a dealer's mechanic, because I was thinking it might be the tensioner was worn or chain stretched too much, or something along those lines also. He told me to try something before I just bought the parts and tore it down, because he thought maybe the tensioner may just not be clicking up one notch to take a little slack out. So I tried what he said and it quieted mine down.

He suggested to, when the engine was cool, find a good place to take off from a stop in 2nd gear, throttle it hard like you're on a drag strip and go up thru a few gears, then I also down shifted aggressively too lol. The idea being to load the chain so it was tight on the pulling side, thus maximizing the "slack" so to speak on the other side... and maybe the adjuster would go ahead and click a notch... and apparently it did.

Now, what I wished I had done... I wish I had gone ahead and taken it apart first, which I did anyway after I did this, just to check everything (chain slack, shoe wear, etc). If I had done that first, and had seen everything the way it was when I did open it up, I would have still tried the guys suggestion afterwards. When I did check primary the chain's tension was within spec and couldn't tighten another click, and the shoe had a little wear (similar to yours, but the grooves were about 1/2 as deep maybe). Those shoes are going to get grooves, they are wear items. Also the chain is going to "cut" or wear into the polymer shoe no matter what, as the part is a wear item. But that wear should really slow down as the chain and shoe "wear into each other".

Before you took the tensioner off, what did your chain slack measure out to? Was/is it within spec and was it towards the min or max of spec?
None of this may apply to your situation, its just what I saw in mine with something that sounded similar.

 

Did that first when installing my latest and greatest comp. Even that wasn't enough after 1700 miles. One middle sized spring cupped into the other spring (used as a shim) did the job. Harley really needs to revise the springs or change suppliers. My shade tree analysis is that the ramp angle is so shallow that greater spring pre-load is no problem.