Bought a new Dyna SuperGlide in '07. Picked it up from the dealer and took it for a 50 mile ride the long way home. Went to downshift while going through a local park and the shifter was gone. Rode around the park a 2nd time and found it. Luckily I had a Leatherman on me and was able to tighten it enough to get home. Called the dealer and told him about it. He gave me a $50 gift card and a new shifter when I came in the next day.

 

Happened on my '13 RK and '14 Ultra. HD replaces the shifter both times.

 

Yep, them thar new-fangled splined shafts is pretty technical and hard to understand, so it'll probably take the MOCO's brain-dead "engineers" a few more years (or decades) to get 'em sorted out!

Jest hang in there and keep on a-buyin' them Rushmore bikes, though, the MOCO's on the case!!

For the record, I checked mine the day I bought the bike and the shift levers were very slightly loose on the shaft. I removed the pinch bolts, which were fairly tight, and reinstalled them with some blue loctite and tightened them till they felt like they were about to strip. No looseness since. The inner lever that the rod bolts to was tight at that time and has stayed tight on the shaft (so far).

Also, I noticed that the pinch bolts have to be completely removed for the shift levers to actually come all the way off.

 

Visited my local dealer yesterday and inspected several Rushmore bikes. Went over them very carefully. Nope, couldn't find an AMF sticker anywhere.

 

Just got back from a 600 mile weekend with my buddies. One guy rented a 2105 SGS and while we 15 miles from the nearest town he looks over at me with freaked out look. I look down and his shifter has come apart. After stopping I jammed it together enough so he could get under way...at the next station found a plumber who had the necessary allen wrenches. Turns out the bolt had lock tight on it and took a bunch of pressure to break free and back it out. I put i all together but for the life of me I could not see how it could have come apart with the bolt still in place. I was on my wife's 15 RGS and no issues so far with that...needless to say I am riding with tools from now on.

 

we rented a 14 sg this past memorial weekend down in tenn. and had the same problem, i was able to limp it to a autoparts store and buy a allen set and tighten the **** out of it and was able to finish our 2 day ride.

 

Just wanted to pipe in with a data point for anyone having this problem. I dropped my '15 Ultra off for the 10K service yesterday and when I went to pick it up, I read on the ticket that the tech had noticed the shifter was "excessively loose" and the dealer replaced the shaft and shift lever under warranty.

I've been riding steadily (around 1200 miles/month) and haven't noticed any problems. I also checked the tightness of everything about 3 weeks ago when I saw this thread.

Maybe the MoCo is starting to recognize that there is a potential problem here and my technician was getting ahead of the game?

 

You take a bike with the shifter gone to the average dealer and they'll say:

"This is the first time we've seen that happen. What did you do to it?"

 

Yup, mine fell off also. I took off the heel shifter (never liked em) and threw on blue Loctite. Rode to Sturgis and back. Still holding up.

 

Replaced the shaft on mine after it came apart with a aftermarket shaft drilled so I could grease the shaft. I put antisieze on mine so I could crank down on it and have had no problems since.