That's what I have learned to do. I get a little forward lunge but that's the clutch plates disengaging.

 

Its a Harley! If you want quiet and smoothe get a Wing.

 

so to throw a wrench into the works, mobil1 says not to use gl5 gear oil in a tranny that has 'yellow metal' ie. brass, etc. our tranny fits right in there. not a lot, but some.

mobil1 is gl5, amsoil is gl5, just about every gear oil i've looked at is gl5. so what to do?

mobil1 vtwin 20/50 is not gl5 (since it isn't gear oil...) but is rated for our trannies and is close in viscosity. i think i will use that.

i don't know how quickly (or long) it will take for the gl5 to do any damage, but i'd rather not chance it.

 

When I drained the Amsoil and put Redline in I noticed an immediate improvement.

 

I'm curious about that. Where did that "yellow metal" info come from? I'd be very interested to read it since I've been using GL5 not only in my bikes but most of my heavy equipment. All of them have "yellow metal" and none of them have had any issues or problems.

 

I use redline and I like the results but only had hd dino and amsoil
to compare to.

 

Will putting the heavier gear oils in the tranny affect the HD warranty?
It still puzzles me why they would spec.the lighter stuff to begin with

 

They would have a difficult time proving a 75W140 synthetic gear lube caused tranny failure.

Local Indy carries the Redline but swears by Bel-Ray syn gear lube so I bought and installed that. Maybe he just needed to "move" it but works great. Still have clunk but not as loud, both bikes shift super smooth and it nearly eliminated her 07 RKC 5th gear whine.

 

The clunk is caused by the input shaft is spinning when the gear is selected- clutch is not fully disengaged.
If your primary oil level is too high it can/ will cause the clutch to drag causing the clunk. Improperly adjusted clutch will can cause the clunk. Heres another thing you can try, especially when cold, after the engine is started and the clutch lever is in, wait a couple of seconds before you drop the shifter, give the clutch plates a moment to seperate. It works if everthing else is correct.

Note: Starting the bike in gear with the cluch in works but adds load the the starter motor.

 

I just switched from Amsoil to Redline today. Wow, what a big difference. I have been using Amsoil in all my things for 20+ years, and you never could have told me that there was something better - I was proved wrong in this application.

I put Redline V-Twin Primary Chaincase Oil in the Primary, and Redline ShockProof Heavy in the Transmission. The bike shifts smoother (like butter), can find Neutral every time.

There is still the clunk going from Neutral to 1st, if you don't wait about 5-10 seconds after pulling in the clutch lever. But if you do wait, there is no clunk at all - I wasn't even sure I had it in 1st gear the first time I did this!