A little history. The motorcycle is a 2004 Electra-glide with some performance upgrades, one of which was a Screamin Eagle 6-speed installation. At the time of the failure there were only 33,000 calm miles on the trans.
The day of the failure I was riding with a buddy and the bike gave no hints of a problem. The only thing I noticed was when I glanced at my speedo there were a couple times the needle would fall and then come back. I just attributed it to an electronic glitch, nothing to worry about right.
We broke off on our separate routes home and I pulled off the freeway to get gas. As I was pulling into the gas station the bike started to make a hellacious screeching noise. I didn’t have a clue what the fuck it was. I put it in neutral and it still made the noise, so my first thought was a problem in the primary.
I shut the bike off, pulled off the derby cover and chain inspection cover and didn’t see anything that was obviously wrong. I started the bike back up and the noise was gone, so I put the two covers back on, got my gas and took off figuring I’d deal with the noise later.
I’m getting back on the freeway, going through the gears and everything seemed fine until I shifted into 5th gear, nothing. I thought I’d missed the gear, so I down shifted into 4th, back into 5th, nothing, shifted into 6th and nothing. I went back down into 4th and rode the bike home, that was a long 80 miles. Read more.
