This is my second Touring model, 2017 Road glide 45k miles. Previous to this bike I had a 2010 road king. Both bikes at around 35-40k miles began to suffer serious stability and drive belt issues. First problem that showed itself was the belt began to disintegrate, and the teeth on the rear pulley were coming apart. When the belt and pulley were replaced the belt started to come loose constantly. Now I have to adjust the rear axle every 200-300 miles. I find at high speeds the bike is incredibly unstable when cornering, or responding to bumps or cracks in the road and when I take my hands off the bars at 35-40MPH the front end goes into a tank slap style death wobble.
What I've been finding is that the holes in the swingarm that the axle slides through are bent/worn so severely that it is fits very loosely, resulting in the axle shifting while riding, throwing the alignment way off and causing the belt to become loose. My previous touring bike, being well out of warranty, got a new takeoff swingarm installed, along with a new axle. I only put about 20k more miles on that one before I sold it, but the problem didn't return in that time. My current bike has ESP for another couple of months, but I haven't gathered the courage to take it to the dealer, as I know they will blow it somehow. They replaced the belt and pulley, and when the belt started coming loose I brought it back to them. What they told me? The axle needed more anti-seize...
Besides my two bikes I have only seen this one other time, and that was a 2016 Ultra with 16k.
Question is, WTF Harley and who else has seen this?
all stock suspension, wheels, e.t.c.
I will admit, all three of the bikes i've seen this on were/are ridden very hard.
Here is a pic of my current swingarm (2017) the axle hole is oval and should follow the seam on the swingarm. Mine is not only dropping downward, but is misshapen badly.
HD is in a sorry state....all things now are inherently designed to fail after X amount of usage,sign of our greedy 2% this is why I ride and maintain a carbuerated 1998 Evo.
Driving for adrenaline is always expensive. While it would undoubtedly take more time in fine tuning, I have often thought that the jack screw arrangement on the soft tails would be a better system than the cam arrangement on the touring frames. Do you have a torque wrench and tighten the axle nut to spec?
I'm not sure I understand how that can wear where the axle passes through. Once bolted up tight, nothing should be moving there. Or are you saying it's just bent? I guess I could see that as a possibility.
I've never heard of this problem before,and Harley belts are well-known to go 100k even 150k miles without problems. Funny you should have this happen on 2 bikes...Hints toward human error to me.
What I've been finding is that the holes in the swingarm that the axle slides through are bent/worn so severely that it is fits very loosely, resulting in the axle shifting while riding, throwing the alignment way off and causing the belt to become loose.
Has this issue been on this forum before? can't say I've ran across it
would like to see more photos of this to clearly show issue.
Are pieces of the axle assembly being installed incorrectly (or not at all) causing this issue?
08-21-2019 | 03:16 AM
2009 & up rear axle, swing arm, alignment woes
