Need help

My brother, his girlfriend, and I went on a ride today up to Greenwich CT. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. Near the end of the day, my brother pulled off and we followed. He said, "Mike, you wanna ride the MV Agusta?". Yeah, of course I did. Then he recommended to his girlfriend that she ride my bike. I had a nice ride up and down the street. She did too. But when she came back, the wheel was turned and the bike slowed down enough that it was no longer holding itself up. She dropped my Buell. YIKES!

Anyway, long story short . . . the left footpeg broke. No biggie. Um, then we saw the transmission fluid leaking onto the ground. The shifter punctured the primary cover!!!!!! We JB Welded it sortof enough to ride home (with one footpeg). It was a 50 mile ride.

It gets worse. We are supposed to ride to Ocean City Maryland this coming weekend!!! She feels terrible, but she doesn't deserve to. It was an accident. Does anybody know what I can do about this primary cover? It has a hole in it where the shifter hit it and it bent a little bit and broke the seal where the access panel is. I think it's FUBAR. I'll go down to the dealer tomorrow and see what I can find. They should have one in stock, but I don't want her to break the bank--and I don't want to pay for it. (I advised against her riding it).

By the way . . . the MV Agusta = fast as all hell! It's like riding a rocket--twist the throttle and you get almost unmanageable thrust. It's fun.

Not sure if this is exactly your part, but here's a ebay listing for a lightning primary cover.

ebay

You could offer to pay the difference between this and the dealer quote for a new part.

They should have it in stock if not call up to SHELDONS HD http://www.sheldons.com/ It very common problem.

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OK, time you learned an important motorcycling rule: Don't let anyone else ride your bike!!!

Next, if you can't find a reasonable cover and you have all the pieces that broke, bring them to a TIG welder and tell them to put it back together for you. They can weld it up for probably $30, you grind it down and polish it and you will never be able to tell.

Dr. Hess wrote: OK, time you learned an important motorcycling rule: Don't let anyone else ride your bike!!!

Well, honestly, I didn't. My brother offered it up to her. That's the only part that pisses me off. And she should have used better judgement--she couldn't touch the ground!

But you know how it can be. After a long day of riding in the hot sun, good judgement can easily be overcome by stupidity. All three of us should have done something to stop it--especially me. I should have said "berkeley no, she's not comfortable with it and neither am I". But I thought I'd sound like a jerk. Stupid me.

Yeah, that should be a stocked part at any Harley/Buell dealer. You're not the first one to have a shifter punch through the case.

I'd recommend getting a new one, then seeing about getting the damaged one repaired, to keep as a spare. It's bound to happen again.

And if it makes you feel any better - not that it should - she probably feels a lot worse about it than you do. My GF dropped my bike a couple times when she was learning (the Hawk falls like a champ: bend the shifter/brake lever straight and you're ready to go), and it took her forever to get over it. Riding as long as I have, and working in a shop, I just know bikes fall over. It happens.

Now, if I dropped a carbon-bodied sportbike, I'd probably invent new expletives. But, with rare exception, I think real-world bikes should be designed to fall well. To deny the effect of gravity is to live in a pretty sheltered bubble of theory.

The primary cover was punctured in a fall-over? What is it made out of, paper?

alex wrote: Yeah, that should be a stocked part at any Harley/Buell dealer. You're not the first one to have a shifter punch through the case. I'd recommend getting a new one, then seeing about getting the damaged one repaired, to keep as a spare. It's bound to happen again. And if it makes you feel any better - not that it should - she probably feels a lot worse about it than you do. My GF dropped my bike a couple times when she was learning (the Hawk falls like a champ: bend the shifter/brake lever straight and you're ready to go), and it took her forever to get over it. Riding as long as I have, and working in a shop, I just know bikes fall over. It happens. Now, if I dropped a carbon-bodied sportbike, I'd probably invent new expletives. But, with rare exception, I think real-world bikes should be designed to fall well. To deny the effect of gravity is to live in a pretty sheltered bubble of theory.

It's fixed now. I just need to get the primary chain tension correct. Perhaps I'll take it to the dealer to have them do that. What do you think they'll charge? It'll only take 1 minute for them.

pinchvalve wrote: The primary cover was punctured in a fall-over? What is it made out of, paper?

Yup. It was punctured. It's made out of poly-metal alloy--liquid metal.

I wanted to change the transmission fluid anyway.

The Good Doc should be able to fill us in on a homebrew method for checking belt tension. I'm no Harley specialist, but I'd say some measure of deflection (specifically unknown to me) should do just fine.

Gotta be something on the intorwebs about that.

Yup. Apparently, the way some Sportster riders tension the chain is by running the bike, getting it hot, and then tightening the chain until you can hear a whine. Then you just back it off until you can't hear the whine. I just did it. It's pretty easy. I'm going to take it down the street to the Harley dealer (one block from my house ) and see what they can do to check it for me.

Uh, Buy the Shop Manual. On our Sportster, you set the primary chain tension by: Opening the access cover, stick finger in, push chain down, push chain up, adjust tensioner bolt until total movement matches the spec in the book (there's a hot and cold spec). The cold spec is 3/8 to 1/2", hot is 1/4 to 3/8". The book also mentions that you do that at the tightest point on the chain, but don't suggest a method to find that. I think pull the plugs, put the rear wheel up in the air, put it in 1st gear, spin the tire and look for the tightest point. Or hit the starter a few times and see where it ends. It doesn't take much movement in the adjuster to change the tension quite a bit.

I just did the clutch and primary chain on ours last week.

Yeah, Dr. Hess, you're right. I just asked them about it and that's what they told me. They didn't mention the "tight" spot in the chain. I don't have a way to get it off the ground yet.

If it's close, it's close, right?

Well, you don't have to get the wheel off the ground. You can just roll the bike forward with the wheel on the ground, which will turn the motor over. I just find it easier to work on it in one spot and not move along.

Frankly, I've never worried about the tight spot before, but then the clutch hub was loose on the bearing this time and I don't know the cause of that. Could be any number of things. In the future, I'm going to:

1. Change the transmission oil with every single oil change instead of every other one.
2. When I check the chain tension, roll the bike and see if there is a tight spot on the chain.

This clutch job cost me about six bills, with me doing all the work. I want to take care of it.