Well the other day upon leaving an intersection on my 15 road glide I went to shift into second gear and the heel shifter just falls to the floorboard and the bike goes into neutral. I manage to shift it back into 1st and limp into a parking lot. After taking the "shift pedal assembly" apart I found the problem: the splined shaft that runs from the shift pedal to the shift arm was partially stripped on the shift arm side. Called a buddy of mine who happens to be the asst service manager at the local dealer and got him to order a new one. He told me they've actually changed out quite a few of them and seems to be somewhat common. So just a heads up if no one else has heard this, take this apart and look at it one day when you have time to kill takes all of 5 minutes. And if it is common knowledge ignore the second half of this post and chalk it up to another guy stuck with a "common" problem on a new bike.

 

Yuhp, a year ago at Bikes Blues and BBQ after we we left pig trail Harley the shift splines on my 13 stripped out. got it into second and limped her back the 6 blocks to the service line. Looks like they didn't fix it with the Rushmor updates. I hope your buddy warrantied that for you.

 

Was on a ride with a few guys about 3 months ago - stopped by a Harley dealership and my buddy said he lost his gears.

Same thing - thankfully the dealership had the part in stock

 

Yes it's all taken care of warranty wise just waiting on the part to come in. Thankfully I was able to turn the shafts over and take the bike home where it waits. I do not like driving my truck with all this beautiful weather

 

Pretty common problem unfortunately. I had the same thing happen to me on the way home from Sturgis this year....stuck in BFE WY. I ended up tighting it down as best I could and limp 500 miles back home to Denver. Warrantied without question and the tech said that they've seen it more with the Rushmores. I now check mine for play about every 3rd ride or so.

 

Anybody got a pic pointing to where the failure usually occurs?

 

Yep mine took a **** at Americade this year. Back side that holds the linkage. Replace shaft and the shift lever

 

Lots of threads/posts regarding this issue. Whenever this has been brought up in the past, I've always wanted to ask those who it has happen to how "forceful" they are when shifting. I've ridden with and have seen first-hand how some of my fellow riders literally stomp on the heel/toe shifter, especially when stopped and wanting to make sure they're in first gear. I know a heel/toe shifter falling off shouldn't happen regardless of how much force is used when shifting, but I'm curious nonetheless.

 

I think the design could/should be improved. I check mine quite often and it has never been loose, in fact i have put a my torque wrench on it and it is good "n" tight.

When i got my bide the heel shift was too high so they adjusted it and i said please make sure it is torqued so no issues. He said we have only had a few issues and we think (naturally) that is from how the heel shift is basically stomped on.

I don't know how many bags fell off before MOCO issued the pin recall, but if this was a common problem i think they would or should do something about it.

 

I had mine fail on my 2014 SGS on my way back to Minnesota from Colorado, Budke Harley in North Platte, NE took care of me in about 20 minutes. Service Manager there said the same thing, they replace like 2-3 a week. He said however it was still a part number from 1982, so it sounds like the MoCo hasn't update that sucker in years, probably just went from steel to pot metal to increase those sales margins even more.