This might have been covered but isn't the trans on the M8 vented, or not vented well enough. The only way you should be able to get migration is with pressure in the trans or vacuum in the primary. I'm curious because I was thinking of upgrading.

 

this.

 

There have been failures reported on HDF of transmissions on M8's. Were those failures due to the migration, who knows, as it wasn't checked. This is just like saying sumping doesn't happen! There are how many stage III and IV kits out there that people are not riding hard enough to cause sumping but that doesn't make it not so, you of all people should know that by now.

 

The question.....


The answer.....

 

Have we heard any reports of the extremely noisy transmission about to eat itself alive?

 

That was just how I found out something was wrong as my transmission got noisier. I first thought the dealer did not check the fluid on new purchase, but after refilling it the fluid when low again and again! At the time I had no idea about the fluid transfer to the primary, just knew there were no external leaks. After transmission went through close to three quarts of fluid with no smell or leaks on the ground bike felt like it was struggling to gain RPM's. After we drained 3+ quarts of fluid from the primary on the 1000 mile service and found metal on the drain plug in the transmission things went back to normal and I kept an eye on the fluid level in the transmission and primary afterwards. That's how we got to where we are today.

 

This is unbelievable... and not in a positive way. Glad some one posted this on the Softail forum... I was so tempted with the new Fat Boy 114... Now, I am in no hurry to replace my bike...subscribed to keep tabs on how HD addresses the issue.

 

I agree, what I'm trying to say is that I don't think we're going to hear about catastrophic failures from the trans going dry because riders will here it and stop before it gets to that point.

This problem seams to be accelerated on the dyno, so I'm sure those of us that tune then are seeing the worse cases. Regardless, it shouldn't be happening period, on the dyno or on the street.

 

2 M8's that went dry enough to make noise. 4 or 5 others that would have but I'm now in the habit of checking them during the tune. Last thing i want is a problem with a,customers bike on my watch. I also had a DD7 come in that the customer forgot to put fluid in when he installed the trans. It made noise as well.

 

How do you check during the tune, aren't you supposed to check it cold?