Check your shifter mechanism arm
#1
Check your shifter mechanism arm
Good thing I was adding a nice set of DK Custom Product's Heim joints to replace the breakage-prone ball and socket joints that come on the stock shifter rod. They went on just fine, and with a little polishing look pretty decent, too, BUT...
When I was putting it back on, I felt the arm that moves the rod was loose. The shaft from the shift pegs isn't exactly a tight fit and moves around a bit, but when held steady the arm was still a bit loose on the shaft.
I tightened the snot out of the pinch bolt, but still loose. I'll get about 1/16' play for and aft, and side to side on it. So apparently the splines or whatever is there is wearing. Looks like the dealer will get to fix it, I might as well get the 10K service done a thousand early. Hopefully it won't fall off on the way there next week, but cancelling our ride for today.
Y'all might want to take a look on your trikes and see if it's like that, too. It'd be pretty inconvenient to not be able to shift all of a sudden.
Oh, here's a couple of pics.
When I was putting it back on, I felt the arm that moves the rod was loose. The shaft from the shift pegs isn't exactly a tight fit and moves around a bit, but when held steady the arm was still a bit loose on the shaft.
I tightened the snot out of the pinch bolt, but still loose. I'll get about 1/16' play for and aft, and side to side on it. So apparently the splines or whatever is there is wearing. Looks like the dealer will get to fix it, I might as well get the 10K service done a thousand early. Hopefully it won't fall off on the way there next week, but cancelling our ride for today.
Y'all might want to take a look on your trikes and see if it's like that, too. It'd be pretty inconvenient to not be able to shift all of a sudden.
Oh, here's a couple of pics.
#3
#5
One of the 1st things I do is ditch the factory shift rod with rod ends, I've seen them fail and strand people. Last year my dad had the shaft and arm the OP has loose strip the splines on the way back from out west. I managed to hog down on the pinch bolt which got him home. I replaced both the shaft and arm, they were both shot.
#6
#7
It'll be time well spent. I was on a trip out west in 2008 when one of the bikes failed a shift linkage, the nearest Harley dealer was 150 miles away. As luck would have it, the gas station we were stranded at had a guy who knew a friend that had the parts to fix it.
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#8
One of the 1st things I do is ditch the factory shift rod with rod ends, I've seen them fail and strand people. Last year my dad had the shaft and arm the OP has loose strip the splines on the way back from out west. I managed to hog down on the pinch bolt which got him home. I replaced both the shaft and arm, they were both shot.
#9
Good thing I was adding a nice set of DK Custom Product's Heim joints to replace the breakage-prone ball and socket joints that come on the stock shifter rod. They went on just fine, and with a little polishing look pretty decent, too, BUT...
When I was putting it back on, I felt the arm that moves the rod was loose. The shaft from the shift pegs isn't exactly a tight fit and moves around a bit, but when held steady the arm was still a bit loose on the shaft.
I tightened the snot out of the pinch bolt, but still loose. I'll get about 1/16' play for and aft, and side to side on it. So apparently the splines or whatever is there is wearing. Looks like the dealer will get to fix it, I might as well get the 10K service done a thousand early. Hopefully it won't fall off on the way there next week, but cancelling our ride for today.
Y'all might want to take a look on your trikes and see if it's like that, too. It'd be pretty inconvenient to not be able to shift all of a sudden.
Oh, here's a couple of pics.
When I was putting it back on, I felt the arm that moves the rod was loose. The shaft from the shift pegs isn't exactly a tight fit and moves around a bit, but when held steady the arm was still a bit loose on the shaft.
I tightened the snot out of the pinch bolt, but still loose. I'll get about 1/16' play for and aft, and side to side on it. So apparently the splines or whatever is there is wearing. Looks like the dealer will get to fix it, I might as well get the 10K service done a thousand early. Hopefully it won't fall off on the way there next week, but cancelling our ride for today.
Y'all might want to take a look on your trikes and see if it's like that, too. It'd be pretty inconvenient to not be able to shift all of a sudden.
Oh, here's a couple of pics.
I changed out mine to heim joints this morning, don't know why it took me so long. Looking at your pictures do you not have any locking nuts for those end joints?
#10
There wasn't enough thread on the rod to include them. It would have been too far between ends with them on, so I left them off. When I put the ends on, I used a ton of blue threadlocker on the ~1" of thread that goes into each. The front one is bottomed out and snug, the back is only 1/2 turn from bottoming out. Should be fine; it's not like they can go anywhere even if they do get loose.