The main problem is that the arm needs to be kept tight.. As soon as they are allowed to come loose, depending on how loose, you will need to keep tightening the thing until is no longer comes loose.. You may need to replace the bolt and adding an AN style washer under the bolt head will help to pull the end of the arm togehter. If the arm is kept tight from the beginning there won't be any issues. The problem is that the arm material is soft with the fit not perfect and it will come loose in the first few thousand miles..Once the splines seated they pretty much stay tight. It should be checked every oil change..

 

Agreed re: elimination of the heel shifter...the reason they were developed initially was for motor officers...they too didn't want to mark up their spit shined boots. However, for the rest of us, I believe that it's not necessarily a good thing...

When I first got a Harley with a heel shifter, I tried it, and found it to be counter-intuitive to what I was used to. So I got to thinking about it. In an emergency situation, choices are probably the last thing you want to contend with...and I believed I'd be better off just intuitively knowing that the thing that changed gears was something I always used with my toe, and the only choice I had was up or down. I was not concerned about the wear on my boot...generally, I consider my footwear to be disposable, much like brake pads...if they wear out, I just go get new ones. In over forty years of riding, I've never worn out a boot due to shifting. If I did, and I felt I was married to those boots, it's a simple matter of having a shoe repairperson put a patch over it.

So, with those things in mind, I eliminated the heel shifter, and haven't looked back. When talking to and advising new riders with the same issue of 'do I keep it or does it go?', I review the same issues, and so far, everybody has considered what I've pointed out and within a week or three, eliminated the heel shifter.

I think there's a great deal of validity in the suspicion that the heel shifter could be causing the OP's problem...I believe that the heel is capable of delivering a lot more power to the mechanism...that said, if what we're talking about is the shift rod between the tranny arm and the shift arm up front, it's a pretty easy deal to get a couple of Heim joints from say, McMaster Carr, and a quarter inch rod, cut to size and thread both ends, and that will take care of the problem for quite some time, maybe permanently. Quite a few folks on this forum have done the same thing and report excellent results. In my case, I just replaced the cheesy chrome shift rod the PO had installed with the stock cadmium plated stock part, works fine for me. Some picky folks would tell you that the Heim joints are noticeably better, maybe so, but my needs and wants are simple. I probably wouldn't notice the difference, but if the stock part ever wears out, I think I'll heed my own advice and install Heim joints too!

 

There is a caution in the OWNER'S MANUAL that using excessive force to shift may damage the mechanism. I presume that includes everything from the front levers to ratchet mechanism in the transmission. Better check the lever on the transmission. If that one strips out, it can be labor intensive to change (expensive). All of the levers were loose on my machine when new. They should be checked during set-up. I tightened mine within the first 2000 miles and have had no further trouble.

The next item to FAIL will be the ball joints at both ends of rod between the front lever shaft and the transmission lever. Converting to Heim joints seems to eliminate that failure AND improve shifting feel. You can either get a high dollar custom shift rod or get Heim rod ends which will thread onto the factory rod. Additional bolts, washers, and a nut will be required to complete the installation.

 

When I added a custom linkage with heim joints to my 13 neutral became extremely easy to find as well. Stock linkage seemed as if it was too long. Regardless of how many times I adjusted the clutch, neutral was hard to find.

 

It was the inside shift arm that was stripped. It was replaced under warranty. They said they get quite a few warranty claims on those parts, normally from the higher milage riders like the police bikes.

 

This AND stop kicking it so hard! Mine is an 11 NO problem yet (knocking on wood)

 

Yup I put a hex head grade 8 bolt and torqued the F__er down, a friend of mine had his come clean off while doing a ride once, don't have to read about it too many times before I think hummm better do something about this. Put one on my wife's new FX also. Hardest part is getting the stock allen head bolt off, they are on there tight.

 

Red loctitie on shift lever to shaft, let dry 24hr. Blue loctitie on bolt. After three failures, replacing the shift lever, shaft and linkage lever, 40,000 trouble free miles.

 

broom wrote above:
[[ get Heim rod ends which will thread onto the factory rod. ]]

Can anyone point the way to a source for these?

 

The problem I have with the heel shifter is that it gives you two different ways to do one thing. I think riding a motorcycle is too intuitive to have this go through your mind for such a simple operation. My heel shifter was gone the first week I had my bike, added Heim joints and all is well. Does Harley still produce that crappy shift linkage on the new bikes?