| Author | Message | ||
     Leeaw |
Anon_R, Then how do I blame the problems on the dealer since they adjusted the belt tension when they changed the front pulley. It did not seem any tighter than it had been the previous 9K miles, and I never ride two-up. | ||
| Anon_R |
Lee, Your question seems to assume that it was correct for the previous 9K. Is it correct now. Bill, From what you posted I'd say your issue is NOT related to belt tension. I just wish EVERYONE would run the belt almost as loose as you do. The spec is 1.5-1.75" with NO load on the wheel at all. I lean to the 1.75" spec. 2.0" "could" cause some issues, but not as many as too tight. Bill, something I learned a long time ago about working on bikes. What ever you think it "might" be before you open it up is probably what it will NOT be. Don't guess, open it up and see what it is, fix it and move on. | ||
| Blake |
Lee: Get the trashed bearings and other parts (mainshaft?). An expert will be able to tell you the instigating failure mode of the bearings. I still contend that the outer (right side) main bearing might fail due to overtightened belt, the inner (leftside) bearing should not. If in replacing your front sprocket, the tech put any significant axial load on the shaft (like if he were to use a mallet to knock your new sprocket onto the shaft), your bearings would soon be toast. I know that insinuates malpractice; in your case the circumstantial evidence strongly supports that scenario (failed bearings within one month of front sprocket replacement and bearings certified as okay). As far as using Mobil-1 tranny lube: As long as viscosity meets that of the (unpublished HD requirement), then the bearings would not fail because of the non-HD lube. Interesting note: From my understanding of the law as it applies to warranties, maintenance, and parts, Buell/HD would be obligated to give us the Sport-Trans oil at no charge if they are unwilling to specify lubrication grade/specifications or alternatives. They specify engine oil grade/viscosities, why not tranny lube? | ||
| Leeaw |
Blake, I should have asked for the parts, but I had no way to carry them home. If it were a bigger, more expensive, issue, I probably would have pressed it. I am not inclined to investigate the issue further with regard to HD oil properties vs. Mobil1 to get more info on the possibility of failure. I agree with the belt issue, but unless a belt nearly touching the swing arm under no load is tight, I can't see what happened. I will take the few kinks that come along with owning something that is more than a vehicle. | ||
| Blake |
Lee: Like I said, since BOTH bearings failed, the cause was not likely a tight belt, rather the bearings were damaged during replacement of your sprocket. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Leeaw... When you were getting the repair done, you spoke some words of wisdom that I took to heart. "I will be Buell'ing again next week and smiling again. I was almost ready to buy something else when the pulley went bad, but then after realizing there is nothing else I really want, I just think about something else, play with my kids, and wait until I get it back and then ride" I think Blake is right about why the bearing failed. I also think that all you would accomplish trying to fight it is make at least two people pretty angry (one of which is you), alienate your dealer forever, and spend a lot of time. If you are going to continue doing business with this dealer, if anything, I would bring it up with the dealer next time I am there, pointing out that the most likely reason it failed was that somebody hammered it and that they should make a point of not doing that in the future, and indicate that nobody will ever know for sure, and you won't pursue it. Next time you go in and need them to be flexible, they will hopefully remember. Can't do it next week, but the week after I will tear into mine and see what the problem is. Sounds like my failure mode is nearly identical to yours, and I KNOW nobody pounded on my pully... at least not with anything more substantial then my forehead  IMHO. Bill | ||
| Leeaw |
Reepicheep, Glad I could help, I guess. Mostly sarcasm comes out of my mouth, and nobody takes me seriously. I would be very disheartened to think that the damage was due to the mechanic. That would kill my faith in the people working on my bike, but not in the service manager or others. I will bring it up and maybe talk to the mechanic himself to see what he feels could be the cause. I have to call BMC Customer Service to find out why there is one shoulder pad armor missing in my new jacket. Good luck. Lee | ||
| Leeaw |
I forgot to add an enthusiastic Thank You to the people here on the board, because I have listened, learned, tried things I never thought I could and and enjoy the whole concept. It's too bad there is no Badweb Reunion. | ||
| Raymaines |
Sporty Eric says: "I made it using a drill press as milling machine. I'm rather proud of it!" I'll bet he is!  | ||
| Sportyeric |
Thanks Ray. Turns out that the ground clearance isn't adequate, even with full butt hanging, since the motor sits lower than on a Buell. It looks a little (actually severely) scuffed around the end cap now. Full story coming up in the "tale section." Guess I'll have to re-think the design. Serves me right for stealing other people,s! | ||
| Reepicheep |
OK... back from the SC vacation, and finally got a chance to pull the primary. Here is a quick (hopefully) recap of where I am at. 1) Riding home, funny hoot while under motion. Think it also happened at idle with clutch in, but not sure. 2) 15 miles latter, barely feel a little drag while coasting (maybe), won't easily shift into first when stopped. Get rolling, then downshifts fine. More hooting / squeaking. 3) Got home. Grindy squeaky rotate back wheel in neutral. As bike cools, becomes less pronounced. So that's where I was. Here is the new information. 1) Pulled the primary cover. The tensioner is, of course, split across the middle, but all the parts are still captive in the bolt. Obviously, time for a new tensioner. Fortunately, only existing damage looks like a grooved (1/4 inch or less, lots of metal left) primary cover. 2) Removed the belt, front sprocket rotates easily, very little noise, but does make some slight sounds. Kinda like wet ceramic on wet ceramic... not very much resistance, but there is something there... Different positions "hang up" slightly, but at no point is it at all difficult to rotate the front sprocket with my fingers. Faint resistance comes and goes from time to time. 3) Front sprocket has very little play, but has some. You can hear it more then feel it, and it also seems to come and go. Some positions, absolutely nothing. Other positions, just a faint clunking when I try and pivot the front sprocket. 4) There was metal fur between 1/4 and 1/2 inch tall on the magnetic primary drain plug. No big parts. Conclusions: C-1) The tensioner is obviously shot. Replace with improved part. Questions: Q-1) Should I just replace the tensioner, say a little prayer, and put everything back together to see if the problem has gone away? I am inclined towards no... I think there is another problem, and it would ruin a gasket and waste a bottle of sport-trans fluid to try it, not to mention cause more damage if there is another deeper problem. Q-2) The manual makes all sorts of dire warnings about trying to remove the clutch basket without using the "harley tool" for compressing the clutch spring. Is this simply CYA, or will I have a retaining ring sized hole in my abdomen if I try this with just the spring clip pliars? Q-3) On a pully with no belt on it, anybody remember what these things feel like to rotate by hand?... (little rough? Smooth as silk? Steady resistance? Varying resistance?)? What does it sound like when you do this... (Totally silent? Grease being stirred? Knife blade going lightly across an oiled sharpening stone? Box of rocks?)? Thanks again for the help everybody... so far it has not been a particularly difficult job... and anyone who is not positive they have the updated tensioner should go out and replace theirs TOMORROW! (pics of failed tensioner to follow)... Bill | ||
| Reepicheep |
Here is the top view of the tensioner as it came out of the case....  And here is what the plates look like when the teflon shoe is removed....  And finally, here are the grooves in my primary cover...  Bill | ||
| Mikej |
Bill, You've already got the primary cover off, and you know something doesn't seem to feel right, so you might as well pull the tranny and have a looksee. Planning ahead to the day I'd be doing it myself I bought a clutch compression tool, p/n DS-197026, at about $60. You should be able to find a better deal someplace. | ||
| Aaron |
Clutch compression is not necessary for pulling the clutch basket and the gearbox. Just remove the front sprocket nut and the clutch basket nut (lh thread) and slide the sprocket and clutch assembly and chain off together. The clutch remains assembled. | ||
| Mikej |
Hey, that's neat. | ||
| Rocketman |
Yeah it is neat but sometimes those nuts are bloody tight. And as if that isn't enough, sometimes the front sprocket doesn't want to come off the shaft that easy. If you have to pry at it.....................you've been warned And no I aren't trying to put anyone off, it's easy, but just be aware, sometimes easy isn't as easy as it should be. Rocket in England | ||
| Chuck |
Hey Bill, My belt and front pulley are off, right now. In neutral, the countershaft turns smoothly and with a consistant amount of light drag. I would make sure your bike is in a "good" neutral and check the shaft's turning one more time...but if things still seem weird or "notchy", I'd yank the transmission...better safe than sorry...can you imagine what it would be like to have something "let go" while riding a high speed sweeper? - - - ouch  | ||
| Sportyeric |
I've recently learned what your shop manual sells for.Ouch. I'm pretty sure I didn't have to pay that much for mine. The benfits of mass production. I understand why everyone here is so dependent on the advice given here (which,of course far exceeds the bounds of any shop manual.) As I've said elsewhere, or else-when, removing those nuts in the primary is best done with an impact wrench, air or electric. Rent one. Use a bar of aluminum to jam between the chain and sprocket to keep it from rotating. (That's what Part no. HD 38362, Sprocket locking link, is.) After that, its all easy. Good luck. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Thanks Aaron... the service manual went straight from primary removal to clutch dissambly... and I thought that it was a necessary step. A little further digging in the manual, and I found the steps Aaron mentioned. Thanks Chuck... that's exactly the data point I wanted. I suspect the bearing is in early stages of failure... hopefully that's the only problem. And thanks to Eric as well... I will look into impact wrenches today... Gotta get some pretty big sockets to fit those nuts anyway.... I will keep everyone up to date. Replace those tensioners everyone!!!! | ||
| Reepicheep |
Just picked up the replacement tensioner... goodness, what a difference. Makes the original (now split) unit look like some sort of little toy. Aaron has some nice pictures over in the primary section of the knowledge vault. I guess this should go there as well, not here in the transmission section, but when the broken pieces of that original tensioner go churning through your engine, then it will surely become a transmission relted topic! The new part number is 39975-90A, and costs $14.50. Did I mention that everyone should replace that tensioner? It would probably only be a 1 hour job... do it with your next primary fluid change. Bill | ||
| Reepicheep |
An update (in case anyone but me cares anymore ) on my Cyclone... Last night I got the rest of the way into the tranny. I was able to remove the nuts on both the engine sprocket and the mainshaft (or is it the counter shaft... whatever) with a breaker bar. The nut on the mainshaft was still snug, but was nowhere near the right torque. It should have been 200 or so ft-lbs, and I bet it was more like 30, and I don't think it had much lok-tite. The engine sprocket nut was fine. I managed to get both off with a 1/2 inch driver breaker bar without too much grief. Once the clutch basket was off, the mainshaft front drive belt pully turned smooth as silk, with no significant play, so I elected not to go any further into it. I was only 5 bolts and a few spring clips from having the gear box all the way out. Aaron is (of course) right, it is not a bad job at all. I put in the new tensioner, and got about half way through reassembly before I had to go to bed. Once the clutch basket was on, it still seemed to turn very smoothly. I wonder if a non snug mainshaft nut (the one on the primary chain, not the drive belt one) could have been causing my other symptoms? The splines were fine, and everything looked solid, so the hooting from the cracked tensioner probably saved me a major transmission disaster of some sort if that nut had backed off any further. Of course, the cracked tensioner was not far from distintigration, which would have been a major disaster of it's own, so I think I just got lucky (if you can call all the grief and downtime I have had that). Somebody suggested cutting off bolts and notching the heads to keep the gasket in place while putting the primary back on... if you do this a lot, that is the superior approach, but for a shade tree mech like me, I just took a 4ft section of small hardwood dowl rod and cut it into 4" or so sections, and ran them through the pencil sharpener. They threaded nicely into the crankcase holes, and slid nicely through the primary cover while holding the gasket in place. Once the primary cover is on (make sure you lift the primary chain at the bottom while sliding on the cover so the tensioner goes under), you remove them one at a time and replace them with the bolts. So, here is what I hope happened. The tensioner metal support was split, so while the primary chain tension checked out fine while the bike was stationary, when the bike was running things were nutty and noisy and flopping around, and it messed with the shifting. The nut on the mainshaft primary chain was not torqued / loktited sufficiently (any more anyway) and did not provide sufficient tension on the mainshaft, causing some noise and a hint of play, along with less the perfectly smooth rotation (as rotated by the fingers). Now that it is mostly buttoned back up, it is rotating smoothly, but I may or may not have solved the real problem. I guess I will know when it gets back on the road. It will either be better or get worse, but at least now I know I can pull the tranny and get in there to figure out what is happening without too much grief. Thanks for the help everyone! Hopefully the next post on this topic will be to report how everything seems perfect once it is on the road... | ||
| Sportyeric |
Good to hear that your troubles are hopefully solved so easily (relatively speaking.)Ride safe. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Got it buttoned up and rode it last night... and (crossing fingers and saying a little prayer) it seems solid. Easy shifting, no funny noises, plenty of power. It probably worked because the Buell dealer where I got the gaskets is also a Suzuki dealer, and I sat on a TL1000 . Don't tell the cyclone, but while the TL looks great on paper, it has a seating position that is just plain silly, and feels way too long to be much fun. They were looking pretty good till I sat on one. When adjusting the clutch, be carefull to only lightly bottom out that slotted bolt that sticks out. I either over tightened it the first time (before the 1/4 turn back out) or had not properly seated the snap ring, and the whole thing popped out the second time I turned over the engine (which I did to rotate the chain to check the primary tension in a number of positions). Fortunately, everything stayed relatively captive and nothing got ingested. You know this happened because your clutch lever goes from working fine to completely inert with a little "pop" when you pull it. Fortunately, you can get at everything without pulling the primary. Thanks to Aaron for making me get snap ring pliars before I started I will have to pull the primary cover one more time... I missed one corner of the gasket and it sticks out by 1/8 inch or so, and has a slight leak. When I was using my dowl rod trick I mentioned above, I did not want to wake the kids with the pencil sharpener so I did not use one for each hole. No big deal... one new gasket and one new bottle of sport-trans, and maybe 1 hour work. This is probably not a bad idea anyway, as it lets the 10 miles I put on last night work out a lot more of any junk from my ground up primary cover and split tensioner, and I will just flush and pitch that fluid. Thanks for everyones help! Replace those tensioners everyone... this was a 2000 cyclone with under 5000 pretty gentle miles. I got VERY lucky. Anyone else found that nut on the mainshaft side of the primary (but in the primary case... the nut that holds on the clutch basket) loose? Mine had not loosened up enough to have play, but it was sure as heck not at the 200 ft-lbs the manual said it should be at. Hate to think what would happen if this backed out. Probably worth checking the torque when replacing the tensioner (since you have the primary cover off anyway). | ||
| Aaron |
Congrats on the job ... not hard at all, eh? 200 ft/lbs on that clutch basket nut? I don't have my shop manual in front of me, but I was thinking like 75 on that one, 150-165 on the sprocket shaft nut. I know I can do the clutch basket nut with a standard 1/2" drive torque wrench and my foot on the brake. Just have to make sure you have a torque wrench that works in either direction. AW | ||
| Aaron |
I just looked ... clutch basket nut is 70-80, sprocket shaft is 190-210, according to my '99 Cyclone book. I don't have a torque wrench that'll do 200 ... I just put some red loctite on there (per the book) and hit it with an impact wrench. Never said I was a pro at this! AW | ||
| Reepicheep |
Thanks for checking... I remember setting it at that now (had to use the big torque wrench, but not the breaker bar). Regardless, it was not as tight when I pulled it off as it was when I put it on, and not much red loktite left in the threads. As for the 200 ft lbs on the sprocket shaft, I (at around 200 lbs weight) just stood 1 foot out on my 1/2 drive breaker bar And if you own 6 Buells, and more then 3 of them are running at any given time, you ARE a professional Bill | ||
| Roc |
? My shop manual tells of a locking link that prevents the primary drive from rotating while removing the nut on the front sprocket, how does this work and can I use somthing else? I thought my problem, no power transfer from engine to rear wheel, was clutch related but that looks ok. I now think it may be the transmission. Turning the inner clutch hub, clutch removed, turns the rear wheel if I do it slowly. If I give the hub a good spin there is a metal on metal slidding noise in the transmission and the rear wheel does not move. A mechanic at Modesto Buell said it sounded like a spun gear on the counter shaft, ouch. That being the case: I will probably need a press and pullers I do not have, I need to move out of my garage in a few weeks, it will probably go into a real shop. Befor it goes into the shop I'd like to take it appart and learn a bit more. Any thoughts are appreciated. | ||
| Hoser |
Roc: You have spun the splines out of the drive pulley Jeff | ||
| Sportyeric |
The answer to question one is given July 23. But anyway, a piece of 1/4" aluminum bar (from a scrap dealer near an airport or shipyard) will serve the purpose. And since the clutch side is open already, would it be worthwhile to jam the primary side with such a thing to get the pulley off? It's not necessary, according to the manual, just turn against engine compression, presumably with the brake on, but could it hurt? Hoser's right though. The two stripped pulleys I've seen have had the large nut deform the locking plate as the nut, surprisingly to me, maintains orientation with the shaft and so pushes against and wears away at the backing plate. | ||
| Roc |
Thanks guys, Sorry I did not notice July 23. I jammed the clutch side with piece of plastic, one small screw driver handle - not so happy, and got the clutch side off. I thought I had to remove the drive side too, to loosen it and get the chain off. Trying a similar technique on the drive sprocket really chewed up the screw driver handle and it felt as though somthing were starting to flex. I took the flexing feeling, maybe in my mind, as a bad sign and thought I'd ask. |
