When I washed it last week I noted a little oil residue on the rear rim but I had ridden nearly 1,000 miles since the last wash and changed the oil so I didn't give it much thought. On my way to work today I hit the rear brake and NOTHING! Nice solid pedal but no friction so I checked it out in the parking lot. I've got a leak somewhere around the countershaft sprocket (I guess now they call it a trans pulley) I've got a lot of residue on my belt extending to the rear lifter cover on the rear cylinder. There are oil lines routing around there from the tank so I if I'm lucky it will be a leak from one of them regardless it will take a pretty good teardown and a new belt.

Any suggestions beyond a good visual inspection on how to trace the source of the leak without putting the bike back together?

Is there any common weak point in this area? If it is the countershaft seal it's going to the dealer and I won't waste my time tearing it down.

I've had this bike for a year now and it's been a constant stream of annoying little problems. Worse than my old Ironhead was and it was an AMF!

 

It's not difficult to remove the belt on a Sportie. I've had to replace 2 belts, it takes about 2 hours. Oil should not damage the belt but your break pads a trash. Wash the oil from the belt with a good dish detergent like Sunlight. You can use Break cleaner remove the oil from the other parts. It's not difficult to replace the output shaft seal, you don't have to do a tear down to do it. Took a Red Seal tech. less than an hour to do mine , I watched him it was easy. A good service manual helps a lot. I've got 54,000 miles on my 06 Sportie, I've saved my self a fortune by having a manual.

 

Wraith, thanks for the reply! I had the belt off when I changed the trans pulley last summer my big concern with the belt being exposed to oil is it's age. I bought the bike last spring with 9800mi on it now I've got almost 21k on it and I know drive belts don't like oil, I learned that the hard way when I put a primary belt on my Ironhead back in the day.

I'm surprised you don't have to crack the cases for to replace that seal. Do they go very often in these? On the chain drives the only time I ever heard of one leaking is if someone ran the chain too tight for extended periods of time. Something that did happen since the chain got tighter as the shocks were compressed....I've got the manual, the problem is having the time to research and dig into it. This is the 3rd reasonably major problem I've had in 10k mi I'm hoping I get the bugs worked out pretty soon!

 

Probably a random failure. Mine failed at 10,000kms (6,000 miles). If your belt was to tight, it could have cause it. Its a simple seal. It can be removed with a pick or thin screw driver. Be careful when you install the new seal, lubricate the shaft and use a deep socket to seat the the seal. In general Sporties are a problem free machine, some like mine came with factory installed gremlins.

 

I've been a member for sometime. But this is my first time posting so bear with me. I'm not sure how this whole thread/post thing works. So let me just throw my question out there. Quick little backstory, drained my transmission the other day got maybe 10 ounces out of it! Proceeded to fill it up but as fast as I put it in it was pouring out the primary side. First thought it was a shifter shaft seal. Tore her down and pulled the seal. Looks really good to me so I thought maybe I should fill it up again to make sure that's where the leak was coming from. Good thing I did because the leak was actually coming from behind the drive pulley. But it's not the main seal it's the counter shaft seal. Now it gets interesting, pulled the drive pulley off and there was no seal at all. I proceeded to look online for a replacement and in my Clymer manual but can't find anything on schematic that shows that seal. Called my local HD dealer. He too was very confused and showed nothing in his system. I'm fairly certain it would be called a counter shaft bearing seal or Or plug? I searched for hours online and found some for other models but not for my 01 road king FLHRI. Need some answers ASAP this is my daily rider and only form of transportation. Thank you.