can any one tell me if a front pulley off a 05 will fit a 97 ? tryn to help a friend out he trashed the pulley on his 97 and I have found one off a 05 for cheap,,,,thanks for the help

 

The ’05 late model transmission drive pulley should fit an earlier ’97 model but there will be some clearance issues. The transmission shaft splines will fit perfectly on the pulley as this is not the clearance problem. This is good. The problem is that on the early year pulley there is a lip on the inside edge of the pulley that helps keep the drive belt from riding off the edge of the pulley and this lip is on the inside closest to the engine but on the later year pulley the lip is on the outside edge of the pulley on the side away from the engine. What happens is that this lip WILL make some contact with the drive pulley cover when it is replaced. The other issue is that on the older Sportster, there is a spacer that goes on the transmission shaft first before you put on the pulley and the combination of the LENGTH of the spacer and the WIDTH of the inner edge of the pulley will place the operating surface of the pulley that holds the drive belt in a certain position. When you put on the newer pulley and the newer spacer the operating surface will be in a different position. Not good. To fix the alignment problem (and what I did) I took both the old spacer and the old pulley and the new spacer and the new pulley down to my local machine shop and I showed them what I wanted to have done. They measured the difference between the two spacers and the difference between the two pulleys and they used a lathe to shaved off some material on the new pulley to help move the operating surface into the same alignment as on the old pulley with the old spacer. (THANK YOU VELLIOS AUTOMOTIVE MACHINE SHOP) Even though the alignment of the operating surface of the new pulley with the new spacer was now the same as the old pulley with the old spacer, the lip on the outer edge of the new pulley was still making some contact with the inside of the drive pulley cover when I tried to put it back on. I just used my Dremel and a grinding stone to remove some of the material in the inside of the transmission drive pulley cover so it didn’t make any more contact. When you put the cover back on and move the rear wheel a little bit in a forward and backward motion with the transmission in gear, wear marks will show up on the inside of the transmission drive pulley cover so you will know just where to remove the material. It is NOT a big deal to do this and you can do it with some sand paper or with a file. It’s just aluminum. Just take off a little bit at a time until nothing on the pulley rubs against anything on the inside of the pulley cover. Harley will tell you that it won’t fit at all, but it will and I have done it to my bike. I put on a HD 30 tooth transmission drive pulley for a ’07 XL883 on a ’99 XL883. Hey man, good luck with the project and ride safe out there!