First off bike is a 2011 Road King Classic with about 25K miles on it. Bought it about 6 months ago with about 20K miles on it from Fort Worth Harley. Haven't had it long enough to change the primary fluid yet.

Have gotten lots of advice off Reddit on this, but as always more opinions and advice is helpful so I can figure this out and fix it.

I was moving my bike from a parking spot at the bar the other night to another in front and all of a sudden the clutch wouldn't disengage at all. Shifted gears without the handle in and could hear the transmission changing gears. It sounded to me like the clutch went to me and my auto mechanic buddy who was with me.

Got it towed home and pulled the derby cover to notice the oil was low (see pic), so decided I will have to change the fluids. I pulled the plug and there are quite a few metal shavings on the plug, more than I have ever seen on a plug before (see other pic).

So just curious if anybody can let me know what they think this is before I pull the primary cover on it. I will be going into the dealership today to see if they can do anything since it appears their service department obviously didn't check the primary fluid.

 

Very common for a service tech to put in 1 qt and call it good. Probably thousands of bikes out there been serviced like that for thousands of miles with no damage. My plug looks like yours every now and then. The starter grinds metal off every time you hit the button.

 

No matter what it is it's time to take the primary cover off. The splines on the center of the clutch hub are probably gone.

 

That's what my drain plug looked like when my inner primary bearing failed. Not saying that's your problem, just saying.

 

Doesn't look unusual to me either. What have you found wrong with the clutch?

 

Just worried because I have never had a bike with this much shredded metal on it.

Clutch won't disengage at all, the clutch hub splines were a problem someone did mention. He said that there should be all sorts of bigger chunks of metal down in the primary itself when I pop the cover.

 

If that proves to be the case, then the metal on your plug is explained. You have a lot more to uncover, so no need to get worried just yet!

 

The level looks fine. The debris on the plug looks to be from the compensator.

 

The oil does not look low to me. It should just touch the edge of the pressure plate.

When you pull in the clutch lever, look down and ensure the pressure plate is being pulled inward (disengaged). Does that happen?

Take the metal on the plug and wipe it across a piece of paper. Does it all turn to gray paste or are there actual metal shards in it? Paste is ok.

 

Adjust the clutch and see if that fixes it.