I’ve been riding motorcycles since about 1972. But, believe it or not, I’ve never had one where the clutch went out. I’ve had cars with clutches that went bad, but never a cycle.
Heres whats happening;
1998 Harley Low Rider. High miles. Never been rebuilt, no tranny work in the past that I know of. When shifting from 1st to 2nd gear the bike is lunging about 3 seconds after the shift is completed. Does not do this with any other gear. Bike is otherwise purring [running great].
Yesterday I warmed it up for about 7 minutes. the engine ran fine during warm up. But when I tried to ride it kept conking out when I released the clutch to shift from neutral into 1st gear. The thing would not stay running when I shifted into gear, but ran just fine when I put it into neutral.
Today I warmed it up for 5 minutes and rode it around the neighborhood for about 5 miles. No problems except the lunging shifting out of 1st into 2nd.
I’m not sure what the symptoms you describe could be- maybe somebody who knows more about Harleys can chime in.
On bikes I’ve had with a worn clutch (BMW single dry-plate type), a way to check the clutch is: get on a long, level road going about 30-40 MPH and shift into the highest gear. Get going smoothly along at low RPM and then open the throttle all the way. If the clutch is worn, the motor will rev up and you’ll feel the clutch slipping until it and the tranny “syncs up”.
It sounds lie a clutch, part of your desciption sounds like the clutch is not releasing and the lunging sounds like it is not engaging. Might be how I am reading it. Check the freeplay in your clutch cable or rod. You need to have just a little free play. If the clutch is not disengaging you may have too much free play. If the free play checks out ok then I would have someone who knows Harleys check it out.
Have you changed the transmission oil lately? Letting it stay in there too long and/or using the wrong kind can lead to some erratic clutch behavior like you’re describing.
I have an old Yamaha that did that. The clutch cable housing had gunk in it so as I let off the clutch it very slowly engaged. It would surge when shifting gears and it would like to stall on launch because I couldn’t work the slip zone how I wanted.
I don’t know about the lunging, but does it have a jiffy stand sensor that might be going bad and cutting the engine when you try to shift from neutral to first?
This particular bike get’s stored at a dealership over the winter. The package includes full maintenance so that wouldn’t be the case.
No, I had it bypassed years ago.
But this is a really good guess, Folly. I had a Honda once where that sensor went bad. Drove me nuts plus at that time I was completely ignorant that there even was such a thing. When the dealer told me my bike was dying because of the kick stand I got pissed and thought they were fucking with me. No joke!
Not to be snarky, as you may have good reason to trust them perfectly, but it seems to me that this would be an easy item for them to miss (either accidentally or deliberately), so I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand as being a possibility. Unless we’re talking years of not changing the oil would be the relevant time period, rather than 12 months or so.
I worked at a dealership in the olden (AMF) days and sometimes help at a couple now. If they are really and truly doing good maintenance as part of a winter storage package they could be about the only one. In other words find a good independent shop and get a second opinion.
That sounds clutch. Cables - maybe but more likely the plates themselves. Some of the old EVO-Is had an issue where if parked for long periods of time the oil would soak into the metal and slightly unbalance the plates. You almost had to walk it going into first to prevent a stall (like if you were bump-starting an old chain drive). It could also cause some funky exeleration issues like you describe before this.
The lower the gear, the more important clutch function becomes. It is not unusual that with a bad clutch shifting to 5th or 4th will be fine while 2nd is an issue and 1st totally sucks.
Nah. It’s a dealer and every spring they give me a checklist with everything they did. I have a couple of bikes but this one has a ton of chrome on it and I don’t want it sitting in my garage over winter so I take the storage package at the dealership for it.
I bought it semi-new (it was a demonstrator with 400 miles on it) and on the sheet under safety devices it says there is no kick stand sensor. I assumed that meant it was bypassed but maybe it just never had one.
I’ve been riding and wrenching since the late '60’s (but never worked on H-Ds).
You need to give a better description of what’s happening to get a better answer.
Do you mean the whole bike is lunging or the motor is lunging as varying RPMs?
If it’s a problem just when going from 1st to 2nd, it’s not the clutch.
You don’t release the clutch to shift; you grab the clutch, shift the tranny and then release the clutch.
The clutch is ‘used most’ when starting out from a stop. A gradual engagement is what allows a smooth start. In fact, I usually don’t use the clutch when changing gears on any of my bikes. And I’ve never had a tranny failure.
I highly suspect they change your tranny fluid as part of storage service. I’d bet they just check the fluid level, unless they explicitly say otherwise.
About 3 seconds after shifting into 2nd the engine does this “lunge” type thing.
One way to describe it is say you were riding at a steady speed and out of the blue you squeezed the clutch in and popped it out quickly. It’s as if the bike is momentarily going into neutral for just a second. Never had a bike do this before.
And it conking out when shifting into 1st is also a mystery. I haven’t ridden yet today. I’ll report back about what it does. But I’m staying close to home just in case!
