89 Electroglyde loose Trans. shifter lever
 

The shifter lever is loose and the bolt that goes through is tight. I bought a Shifter lever but I cant figure out how to move the shift rod to get the shift lever out. Any ideas? Maybe i need a transmission manual or something? Not sure how difficult it is to open the transmission. I'm afraid to move forward with repairs.

A factory service manual will be needed. You need to remove the outer primary, compensator, primary chain, clutch and inner primary. Once that is removed you can access the shifter shaft, remove it and replace with the new one. Yep - it is a stupid design by the moco that all of this needs to be done to replace that cheap shifter shaft on the trans. clean and inspect everything while apart, replace seals, bearings, clutch plates, whatever else while you are in that far.

If that all seems too much - bring it to a local independent shop and have them do the job.

I have the official service manual 1984 - 1990 FLT and it doesn't seem to go into detail about what you described and prescribed for repairs on my bike. Is there a more indepth transmision manual for my bike?

Many times you can remove the bolt, clean the threads, use a new bolt to do this along with a bit of lubricant. Then clean out the "gunk" with some Brake Kleen, apply a bit of Loc-Tite to ANOTHER new bolt and torque to specs. This has worked many times and save from having to tear the whole thing apart. If it doesn't resolve the problem you could also try http://betterlever.com/ it's a bit pricy but it is quite a bit less work. Good Luck

Follow the instructions for removal of the primary an it's pretty straight forward after that.

Oh and take that crap cast lever back to Harley get your money back, call me and I will get one of these coming.

http://cyrilhuzeblog.com/2013/06/30/...will-not-fail/

Then when you run into a snag while tearing your bike apart you can call me and I will guide you through it. 517-339-3835

What's an Electroglyde?

Just ran into this issue myself. The shifter lever was so loose it actually rubbed a notch in my primary. Didn't have the time to fix it this week so took it down to the indy for a new lever installation. $235 but with the my ride coming up this weekend, it was worth it.

I can't help thinking we may be talking about different parts here! Which 'shifter lever' are we talking about, as there are four candidates:

1. lever on the transmission, behind the primary,
2. lever on the front of the primary, behind it,
3. either of the two foot levers.

Item 1 does indeed need removal of the primary to replace, item 2 can be replaced without doing that, as the lever is a separate part from the axle (which the foot levers are also fastened to).

I went the betterlever route and am quite happy with it.