Gearbox or gear selector failure on TC88

[ed]

Hi guys

Failure without warning this afternoon, and I wonder if anyone has had the same happen to them:

Bike running perfectly on a normal brill afternoon ride, with normal gear selection and no missed gears, when without any warning all drive was lost at a junction. Not a sausage. I can select either first or second, but they drop straight out when I take my foot off the gear lever. If I hold my foot there I have drive. There is no neutral light showing now. Gear selectors? A little spring somewhere? Anything cheap and easy to replace?

Doubt it.

There is no grinding or other noise. The bike has covered 32,000 miles and is a 51 plate Dynaglide fxd.

I have a bike lift and can easily take off the primary cover, but it may be better to wait until a mechanic can be found to look at it.

If anyone can help diagnose this from the symptoms, or point me in the right direction, I would be very grateful.

Thanks

Ed

[SX 150]

Pawl spring?- good news 50p part,- bad news the gearbox has to be completly dismantled to get at it.

[ed]

Thanks. Feeling sick now.

[banquo]

I am definitely no expert on this, so large pinch of salt required, but as far as I know, the shifter assembly can be removed from the top of the box, and the shifter pawl spring can be replaced without further dismantling?

Got a manual?

[SX 150]

It can be done without removeing the case from the bike. (I did it like this on me second gearbox rebuild)

Not my text.-I shamelessly cut and paisted this from a post way back from Kiwi Dave.- so respects to him.

The tranny has two covers; a top cover and a side (trapdoor) cover.
When you pull the top cover and remove the shifter cam, you'll probably see
that there's no way to get at the shifter pawl to remove the shifter arm
without pulling out the gear set. You'll have to go through the trapdoor.
The trapdoor is actually in two parts, sort of like a cover on a cover. The
outer cover lets you get at your clutch cable and throwout bearing without
messing with the gear set. Pull that first and disconnect your clutch
cable.

This should also give you access to the shifter fork shaft so you can pull
your shifter forks. I'd recommend taking a piece of wire and running it
through the forks and flagging one of them with a piece of masking tape.
It's not that big a deal, but it can get pretty frustrating if you get
turned around on which fork goes where. When you pull the trapdoor itself,
assuming all the top parts are now tucked safely out of the way, the gearset
should slide right out. Go ahead and check the bearings for any wear. As
long as you're this far in, it's no major trick to press out the old
bearings and press in new ones if you notice any wear. You don't want to
have to go through this again on the off chance that a chunk of spring found
its way into a bearing.

Run a magnet around the inside of the case. This should pick up any broken
spring bits. Clean out the case with a rag and inspect the rag for metal
parts. Look at your gear teeth and make sure there's no wear. There really
shouldn't be. Harley tranny gears are hard to break. If you have a lathe
you can throw you shifter fork shaft on it to ensure that it's true. A bent
shifter fork shaft can be an exciting proposition, but you probably don't
have anything to worry about unless you discover a toasted bearing. The
wobbling of the gearset on a bad bearing can bend the forks and the shaft.

Now that you have your entire transmission gutted, you can get to the little
$2 part that needs replacing. There are 2 springs. Replace them both. You
may have to press the shifter pawl off the arm to get the little spring on.
The shifter pawl assembly is like oragami; there's nineteen different ways
to fold it, but only one of them makes a bird. Don't look at the picture in
the manual, look at the picture in the parts catalog. The parts catalog is
your friend. If you get a spring on backwards, everything will seem to go
together fine, but the shifter pawl will want to grab the wrong way.

Clean all your gasket surfaces and put everything back in the way it came
out. The shifter forks can seem a little tricky, but they only go in one
way. If you feel you have to force it, you're doing it wrong. They either
drop and slide right in or you have your gearset misaligned. Slide the
gears back and forth until the fork drops into place.

As long as you're torn this far down, you may want to check your seals for
seepage. If there's any at all, go ahead and replace them. Make sure that
the little membrane on the main tranny seal that seats agains the shaft is
not damaged or folded or it will leak.

If you've never done a tranny before, give yourself 2 days. Realistically,
if you have all the parts you'll need in advance, you can knock it out in
about 5 or 6 hours. The important thing is to go slow and not get
frustrated. I'm sure an actual mechanic can do it faster.

[ed]

Thank you so much, guys. Feeling a little better now. Perhaps the anticioated winter stripdown aa
fter eight years (re - paint, seat re - cover, frame touch - up, forks re - paint, seriously polish the casings etc.) shall just start early and by November the bike will look brill again. It's funny how your bike becomes so personal, especially after a good few thousand miles. It's just how it is!

Thanks again for the advice

Ed

[ed]

Yes, it was a cheapo spring what broke, mister. The expensive part is getting someone to do it for me, as I would not risk doing that myself and really messing it all up. Service and cycle parts yes, but not delving in the deep dark interior places where only the dwarves of mechanical excellence fearlessly go.

Thanks again. I wonder if the MoCo had spent two cents more on the spring when sourcing it ................ ?

Ed