My '05 Ultra is nearing 20,000 miles and it seems like the shifterhas excess play now - the service manual is useless on this topic - says it is set at the factory.All the linkage in itselfis tightfront to back.

Yet, in gear, the entire shifter linkage will move back and forth (or my pegs up and down) about 3/4" because that is what the pieceon the tranny shaft does. But that piece it is bolted on there solidly. Being loose like thiscauses a rattling sound too.

How do you tighten that up for less "slop"???Will adjusting the rod "distance" between front and back make any difference - my engineering brain (or what's left of it) says that'll do $hit.

Is this just normal wear and tear or an internal tranny issue???

How much "slop" does everyone have???

THANKS.

 

Sounds like its worn out at the ball joints. You could tighten it up as a temp fix by adj the slack out. Personally I'd change it for a quality aftmkt pc with heim joints. I changed mine at 10K , shifter and related linkage now has no slop and I have pc of mind. Do a search and you'll find alot of others that have had them break.

 

Good question , so I went out a measured mine a minute ago.
In neutral , my shifter (at the shift peg) has exactly 3/4" of slop.( from bottom to top)
It doesn't seem any worse than it ever was and I have about 7000 miles on it now.
I have to believe it's normal . as my trans feels just fine as it always has.
One thing I did at about 1000 miles , was to remove the shifter shaft , drill and tap the primary cover , and add a grease fitting like the older bikes.
I then used Valvoline Syn Tech grease for the shifter shaft and steering head bearings.
Afterwards my shifter felt better and smoother , and gave me another lube point for servicing.
Seemed to me at the time that the primary case and shifter shaft would gall and wear funny eventually , making shifting worse as time went on.
Mick

 

No,it will only move the shift lever up or down.

Just checked the travel on mine.The lever measuring from the rubber moves almost1" to get into 1st gear.15500miles and has always been this way.Never thought it was sloppy.
Even have a custom shift rodI madewith heim joints.

 

Cool - thanks for the info guys.Being a dumb a$$, what is a heim joint???

Ball joints are fine - the setup in and of itself is tight but the play comes from the armconnected to the tranny shaft.Hearing from you guys, it appears to be normal.

When you examine this OEM linkage design,doesn't it look flimsy/cheap at best??? I've had bicycles with better parts Typical.

On my 350 mile trip today, I "played" with the linkage as I was cruzin' in 5th gear on the hiway. Put my foot up and under and pushed up - all of a sudden, a certain frequency of noise stopped and it was music to my ears. Pull the foot out from under, and there was that high pitched rattle again. Repeated it over and over. Now it is project time. Found the root cause of some noise finally and by accident.

That linkage is a noise maker for sure. All I want to do is firmup the linkage (get rid of the slop) so it doesn't rattle in gear. Looks like a trip to the stealer to get some ideas / new parts???

THANKS.

 

Heim joints and rod ends are the same thing.Different than ball joints,Heim joints/rod endsjoints are stronger and in some cases replace ball joints.A lot of four wheelers use these on their steering and suspension.
Take a look at the custom shift rods for sale here and other sites and you will see they all have Heim joints/rod ends.The stock ball joints are prone to breakage,the custom shift rods are much better than the stock set up.
Why do you have two shift levers on top of each other?

 

Leave 1/4" of thread engaged on each end. That gets rid of excess play and makes for much sharper shifts.

 

Huh?

 

first,,, why do you have 2 front shift levers on????
second,,, are you talkin about the shaft your shift lever is bolted to that goes
through the primary case, thats where mine rattled, to tighten it up,
I removed shift lever, cut a small slice of rubber hose that would slide over
shift shaft, and made like a shim between shift lever and Primy case
pushed shift lever back on, tightend, no more rattle.

 

ditto - huh??? The slop comes from thewhere the rear shifterarm bolts onto the shaft coming out of the tranny. Changing the rod length just changes where your toe/heel shifter will end up.

I took the heel shifter and flipped it 180 and put new rubber on 'em. Personal preference. Seems to shift more postive.