In November of 08 I rode my 2006 Harley Davidson “Street Bob” from San Antonio, TX to Scottsdale, AZ for a work-related conference. On that trip, my shift level went slack. I stopped in to the HD dealer in Tuscon and they helped me stay on the road by tightening the shift lever down so tight that it wasn’t going anywhere for the rest of the trip. Well, the problem was that the 800lb gorilla that torqued down the lever screwed up the gaskets and seals that keep the chaincase lube inside the primary. So I developed a lube leak at the shifter shaft. So now it was stripped AND leaking oil. Time to repair it.
The shifter shaft is not an expensive part. It was about $30 from HD. No big deal. The problem is that it goes through the primary chaincase. In order to get to this $30 part I had to remove the battery, the battery box, the starter, the left foot peg bracket, the chaincase cover, the compensator sprocket, the clutch pack, the automatic chain tensioner and the chaincase housing.
All of this took about 5 hours total. If I had not already had all of the right tools for the job [table lift, speed sockets, torque wrenches, retainer clip pliers, etc] the job could have taken twice as long.
