Kiwi Biker forums - Blogs - Horse on a Hog by Horse https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/blog.php/14469-Horse-on-a-Hog Kiwi Biker - New Zealand motorcycle community en Sat, 02 May 2026 12:03:24 GMT vBulletin 20 https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/images/BP-Brown/misc/rss.jpg Kiwi Biker forums - Blogs - Horse on a Hog by Horse https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/blog.php/14469-Horse-on-a-Hog Help needed - Primary Locking Tool https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/643-Help-needed-Primary-Locking-Tool Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:24:49 GMT Time for me to beg - I need a hand to make a primary locking tool, to lock the primary drive so I can undo the compensator sprocket and clutch basket. There's an official HD tool for doing this, and it's relatively cheap ($50ish), but there's a 5 week wait for delivery. :cry:

Fortunately, as well as the official HD service manual, I've been using this step-by-step guide at harleyhog.co.uk and he's got a design for a simple metal bracket that will achieve the same purpose. So I need someone with a few tools and hopefully a spare bit of 1/4" steel who can give me a hand making one.

See the attachment for the layout of the needed bracket - it's fairly simple. Mine's an FLT, so it's the shorter version. Offers of help (or just moral support) welcomed in the comments below. :)
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]]> Horse https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/643-Help-needed-Primary-Locking-Tool Exhausting https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/640-Exhausting Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:15:36 GMT I had grand plans to get lots done on the bike over the weekend, despite still waiting for the belt. And then work intervened.

Managed to fit in a small twiddle tonight, which makes me feel vaguely accomplished. Had a go at fitting the new Jiffy Stand spring, but the new spring doesn't have much stretch, and it was starting to look actually tricky. I've got to take the left side floorboard off anyway when I pull the primary apart, so I'll leave it to then as at that point I should be able to loosen the jiffy stand bracket and move things enough to easily fit the spring.

Was more successful removing the left side exhaust. It seems to be possible to replace the belt without pulling the exhaust off, but in my mechanical noobishness I wanted to do it by the book, and it was actually fairly straightforward. Pull the heat shields off (one of the worm screws was a bit tricky to get at but perseverance and a small spanner did the trick) and then undo the TORCA clamp and the bracket mount and it all just came apart.

And in the process I discovered that the small bracket holding the crossover pipe was broken. That'll be another part to order, I wonder how long it's been like that?

The manual seemed to suggest that getting the crossover pipe off the rear header would be a mission but a touch of CRC and some elbow english and it was off in a flash.

And that was it for the evening - can't really blame anyone else, I spent too long inside chatting with my friends. :) But this Saturday should be more productive! ]]> Horse https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/640-Exhausting Parts https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/610-Parts Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:35:09 GMT Just back from ANZA, sorting out the status of the belt order (next week....) and sorting out the other parts I'm going to need for the replacement. The good news is most of it is stuff they keep in stock. The bad news is that there are 2 special HD "tools" I need, and it turns out they come from a place in Australia who are a bit slow in turnaround. Hopefully this won't prove to be a major holdup. ]]> Horse https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/610-Parts Jacked up! https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/603-Jacked-up! Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:14:18 GMT Still waiting on parts, but I popped out to my mate's place this evening and had a bit of a tinker with the bike. I wanted to get familiar with the lift and putting the bike up and down, and see if I could re-attach the spring for the jiffy stand (that's the official HD nomenclature for what yer average motorcycle enthusiast would call a "side stand").

The lift is working nicely, once you get it positioned correctly under the bike, and it's fairly easy to move the bike around while it's on the lift. Which is handy when you're borrowing space in someone else's garage and want to be able to poke it in the corner out of the way when you're finished for the night.

Next step was to take the saddlebags off, which I hadn't tried before with this bike. Discovery: it's trivial, just undo the wire-lock things and lift them off.

When the belt broke on the Chateau-Plateau ride, we'd pulled the spring off the jiffy stand getting the bike on the back of the trailer. So I thought my first real maintenance effort would be to replace it (as moving the bike around with a dangling stand was starting to be annoying). But at this task, I failed. It looks like the force that disconnected the spring also bent one end, and wouldn't stay hooked to the stand - looks like I'll have to add a new spring to the parts order.

Once I'd given up on that spring (and washed my hands - I may have washed the bike on Saturday but clearly the underside isn't going to give up its grease and road grime so easily) I decided to have a look at the bike's alignment. I've been convinced that the bike is crabbing, and both when the belt was replaced in October and 3 weeks ago at the last service I asked the shop to check the rear wheel alignment. Yet the bike has felt unchanged afterwards - still feeling to me like it's not straight. It's also been suggested to me that the rear wheel being out of alignment could put unbalanced stresses on the belt and contribute to it breaking.

So I followed the manual and checked the alignment the way Harley says I should check it. And surprise, surprise - the rear axle is out of alignment by about 10mm on the RH side, so it's twisted slightly clockwise. Which is the way I thought it was out. And it shouldn't be because of the lack of belt tension, as the belt pulley is on the LH side of the wheel, so under tension if anything it's going to try to pull the rear wheel more clockwise.

As well as ensuring the rear wheel is aligned to the swingarm and engine/transmission, the Harley touring bikes also have a separate alignment procedure for getting the whole engine/swingarm/wheel assembly in line with the frame. I didn't look at that tonight as that's a bit more involved, but I will check that once I've got the belt back on. I've spent a bit of time reading the unofficial US HD forums, and it's fairly standard advice from their membership to new owners: buy the factory service manual.

I'm starting to see the wisdom of that.
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]]> Horse https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/603-Jacked-up! <![CDATA[It's Broked As!]]> https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/597-It-s-Broked-As! Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:56:15 GMT As detailed here, my bike suffered a broken drive belt on the Chateau to Plateau ride - its second broken belt in 3 months. It wasn't my happiest day.

My original thoughts were to just park it in the garage for about 6 weeks and ignore it. The full belt replacement (which I'm familiar with from the first one in October) is about a $1000 repair, and I don't really have that much spare cash at the moment, especially after paying for a service and new rear tyre in January ($600 and change all up).

After some consideration, I realised that if I was going to be parking the bike for the best part of 2 months, I might as well have a go at replacing the belt myself. Drive belt replacement on a Harley isn't trivial (as demonstrated by this handy how-to at harleyhog.co.uk but I figured given the time available it was worth an attempt.

So first steps have been taken towards that goal. A genuine HD service manual was ordered, and has arrived. Even better, I enquired about any warranty on the broken belt, and it looks like Harley are going to replace it, so that's a $300 part I'm not going to be paying for.

As for tools, I've got a reasonably good socket set and some spanners, but there are some things I'm going to have to borrow or buy. The good news is I've had offers of lending from some of the local KBers, which will be a big help. I've also purchased a cheap bike lift off Tardme, and that manages to lift all 370kg of the Ultra up off the ground

At present I'm still waiting to hear the final word on the belt warranty, until I've got that there's not much I can do in earnest. So I went out to my mate's place (he's lent me the use of some space some in his large garage for the duration) over the holiday weekend and gave the bike a decent wash. It had been well-covered in bugs before the Chateau-Plateau ride, and then sitting on the trailer over the Forgotten Highway gave it a nice coating of dust. It'll be much nicer to work on now.

BTW I should say a big thank you to Cook's Honda in Stratford, where the bike sat for a week while I arranged to get it back to Palmy. The owner of Cook's is a member of the Lions club that organised the Chateau-Plateau ride, and they were able to open up on the Sunday to store the bike in their shed, and were happy for it to sit there for the week, without drama. Top marks! I'd originally arranged to get BikeTranz to bring it back, but it was going to be over a week before they had a truck going in the right direction so I eventually went up with my brother and his Commodore and a trailer on the following Saturday.

Oh, and while I'm working on the bike I'm also going to be replacing the front brake pads, and sort out the problems with the worn splines on the heel shifter. Should keep me occupied for a few weeks.
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]]> Horse https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/597-It-s-Broked-As! A fresh start https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/593-A-fresh-start Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:30:42 GMT Been a while since I've used this, but the forum updates seem to have improved things, and now I've got a new bike I think I'll keep it up to date - particularly with the upcoming attempt at fixing the drive belt myself. More to come... ]]> Horse https://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/593-A-fresh-start