Having never owned a Harley I'm not familiar with what the trannies should sound like. Are they supposed to have a loud metalic clunk when you shift them?Sometimes it's really loud especially when downshifting, makes you think you've just busted a gear off.

I already knowfrom reading here that5th gear is noisy, soundslike a hammer rapping on the crankcase but lessens as you get up to speed.Thats raises another issue. The manual tells you not to go into 6th geartill 55 butgoing by the engine sound I find myself shifting into at around 45?Anyone else find that to be true.

 

Very norm .

 

The trans is noisey. You can also take care of the shifting hard too. I changed my oil to gear saver from bel rey. I have read that shock proof from redline fixes that also. redline is about $20. Gear saver is about $7. Do a search for oil and also for hard shifting.

 

Thanks, I feel much better now that I know it's normal. Least ITHINK I do.

 

Mine gets quieter the more I turn up the volume on my ipod

DeanO

 

IPOD?????

That's what new pipes are for.

 

Ipod is so I don't have to listen to the sh*t the woman on the back is talkin'!! Exhaust helps!

DeanO

 

Just when you thought you knew what oil to use.
https://www.hdforums.com/m_90568/tm.htm

 

Changed all three holes at 2700 miles on my '07 Fat Boy from the Syn 3 stuff as follows:
Mobil 1 for V-Twins 20/50 for the Engine (3 quarts) and Primary (1 quart).
Mobil 1 75/90 for the Transmission oil (1 quart).

Immediate improvement on shifting and finding neutral. Also,a little lessof the clunk sound. The Fat Boy seems to be shifting like it should.

I've used Mobil 1 synthetic oils on all the bikes I've had in the past 6 years, 7 all total. Two of them were Harleys, including Revolution motor on '06 Street Rod. I see no reason to change to another brand of oil at this time. Mobil 1 works, and is readily available.

 

Go with the manual on this. While a 96" Hog engine has the low end torque to do it, its not very good for the engine or drivetrain. The fireing pulses of a V-Twin at that low an RPM will hammer the hell out of everything from the crank backover time.
Its my "personal" opinion that itssafer to keep a little bit of RPMs in hand for two reasons.
Frist is that if you have to suddenly slow down just letting loose of the throttle will get the engine to start compression brakeing before you can even grab the lever.
And second if you suddenly need to scoot outin front of an idiot who's crowding you out you'll already be into at least the lower portion of the power band. So a quick twist of the wrist will get you anearly instant responsefrom the bike without having to waste time dropping a gear or two first.
With the engine turning over at a very slow rate it doesn't give you much if anycompression brakeing andsudden large applications of power will have the engine hammering so bad you'll think the engine is trying to jump out of the frame.
The first time I did it, it nearly scared the crap out of me. I was used to inline 4 bangers where there is little or no torque in the lower RPM's so large amounts of throttle just produced a kind of mushy feeling before it started to wind up. A big twin Harley engine 'wants' to go now, and will try, but those two big assedlong stroke pistonswill raise holy hell while its doing it.

So my advice is to save 6th gear for whenyour on a big road or just cruising along at 60/65mph or better. If you use it at slower speeds keep your foot on the shifter and a couple of fingers on the clutch lever, just in case. And in no case stay in or shift up into 6th below about 50/55.

Ride safe.