It happens only in 5th for me......I can always tell when in fifth as when I release the throttle it sounds a bit like a Stuka dive bomber.....now I have heard that older HD's have the 5th gear issue but an 11??


Ideas?

 

1st and 5th gear are staight cut gears all the others are heilical cut,,, straight cut gears have a tendency to whine 2012 bikes all the gears are heilical cut no more whine,,, i guess it took that many years of customers bitchen before they made the change

 

...+1...also...as an example..if you think about how reverse sounds in a car as you backup more than just 1-2 miles an hour..if you give it some gas, you here a really loud type of "whine"...that's cause the reverse gear in a car is "straight-cut"...it's done for extra strength, but the side effect is the whine, which is actually, metal-to-metal contact...hope that helps..

 

08's and 09's all do it in 5th gear. I got use to it on the FLHX Street Glide I had. I did start using a gear saver oil which is much thicker and it reduced the whine a lot. I also run it in my 2010 Ultra but it never had any gear noise as they have correct the problem by making all the gears the same.

 

so the story is strength, hard shifts and whine vs quiet, easy shifts and less strong.

if you look at the 09, 10, 11 model year technical forums ( google for the .pdfs), you'll see that the gear cut was changed back and forth on 5th and 6th

I don't think the 12's are any different than the 11's



mike

 

Put some Red Line shockproof in your tranny, and problem solved.

 

two thumbs up on the redline shock proof,,,it worked for me,,,very little wine,,,so I will stick with the stronger straight cut gears,,,

 

They went with the helical cut 5th gear in the 2010 model. Your bike should not have the whine in 5th gear.

 

I had a Yamaha that had all straight cut gears, and at certain MPH's the wine was just deafening from the transmission. The only fix is to change speed or gears.

 

I agree with Dave, my 2010 Ultra has gear whine in first, perfectly quiet in fifth and all the rest. I have heard of this problem from a Shriner I met on the road. He sked if I had a problem with it. He told me the moco was aware of it & there was a TSB for it, said many of his friends had the same issue. Have you taken the bike to the dealer & complained?