Tranny and Engine Seal Tool Tech

This is nuts. Only 16 states have passed laws against talking on cell phones or texting while driving. USA Today said, “Fortunately, the U.S. Senate is now considering legislation that would deny federal highway funds to states that don't outlaw texting behind the wheel. Sorry, but the ban would be unenforceable.”

Good god. I'm trying to concentrate on a tech here. We fought and won against the government blackmailing states 20 years ago, but they still pull the same extortion shit.

Jeremiah flew over to the Bikernet headquarters crying about his leaking motorcycle, and all the women who constantly hound him. Both his transmission main shaft oil seal and his engine sprocket shaft seals were leaking. First, I looked into the cause. “Wear and age are the main factors,” said Bob Bennett from Bennett's Performance in Long Beach. I've over-filled a couple of 4-speed transmissions and blew out perfectly good seals.

“Seals can wear into the race or visa-versa,” Bob said. “Also, if you over-filled your engine oil tank regularly or set up your breather gear timing improperly, it will build pressure in the engine lower-end.” We're still not sure what happened to Jeremiah, besides he's a maniac when it comes to ripping up the streets of San Pedro.

“Seals should be changed every 40-50,000 miles,” Bob pointed out.

The only way to replace Seals properly, effectively and without taking a week, is to own a few JIMS tools, many of which are distributed by Biker's Choice and available through your local shop. If you don't have access to a shop, try K&G Cycles for an online shop. You can order JIMS tools directly through them.

As you will see, throughout this tech, there's serious benefits to having the proper tools at hand, and there's drawbacks when you don't have a JIMS tool drawer in your tool box.

There's that valve collar used to pull down and hold the spring plate so we could remove the pressure plate nuts.

First Jeremiah pulled his clutch and we immediately needed a special tool. I've used a valve spring collar for years to remove the clutch spring pressure plate.

Then I needed my old arm welded to an old clutch plate, to hold the clutch hub solid, to remove the left handed hub nut. It contains the clutch pushrod seal. Then the hub, the clutch basket and the plates could be removed.

The early model clutch hubs ran on a tapered shaft, and we needed a puller to pop it loose. I dug up something from my puller drawer, but JIMS makes a special unit for big twins, or step up and buy the puller tool that will yank virtually any H-D clutch hub from Sportsters to any late model clutch.

Here's a shot of Jeremiah's super-custom inner primary. He cut this from a stock job, sliced and diced, then mounted his regulator to the inside, to hide the bastard. It's not the strongest unit in the world, but holds the engine and trans in alignment. In a sense it's a special tool for belt drive intallation.

Here's the left-handed-thread sprocket nut, with the locking tab bent against the face. Make sure to carefully straighten it before removal.

I did have the long JIMS tranny sprocket socket, that's absolutely invaluable for removing these thin unruly bastards. Don't forget to smash straight the lip on the lock washer before you drive yourself crazy.

The impact and the engine mainshaft nut removed.

With an impact gun we removed the tranny sprocket nut, and the engine mainshaft nut. Off came the belt drive system. Then we needed to pull off the alternator rotor. This is one of those jobs that can drive a sane man to drink. Some slip right off. As you can see we ran a couple of long 5/16-inch Allens into the supplied holes and used them as handles. It worked fine, but these can be maddening and JIMS makes a tool to remove the rotor in a New York jiffy.

This worked, but the proper JIMS tool would do a slicker job.

Here's one of JIMS rotor puller tools, but unfortunately the wrong year.

We recently scored the JIMS tool for this job of removing the transmission mainshaft seal. It calls for driving two screws into the metal surface of the seal, attaching the JIMS part and using the JIMS puller to pull the seal free.

Here's some considerations: First, you don't want metal particles in your transmission. It's best to punch a slight guide hole into the soft seal casing. Then carefully drive the sheet metal screw into the case with the JIMS designed tool. Each JIMS tool is designed to handle the job efficiently without damage to the transmission case. I've seen mauled cases, after a mechanic carved out the seal, damaging the case edges and sometime the seal surface. Whatta drag.

We indicated, punched and drilled tiny starter holes to allow the supplied sheet metal screws to gain entrance. We were very careful not to drill too deep, less that 1/8-inch.

With the JIMS guiding bracket screwed in place we were ready to get started, pulling this bastard from its home. You can see that no damage will come to the main shaft or the trans case.

As you can see the JIMS tool will pull the seal absolutely straight out of the trans case. No messin' around. The keys are those little sheet rock screws. They must be perfectly fastened. JIMS takes care of the rest.

Looked like the last mechanic applied red Locktite to the seal to insure it wouldn't move around. That should not be necessary.

K&G is a retail mail order shop, and they carry the entire line of JIMS tools.

There's a small key, that must be installed to prevent the collar from spinning. It's essential to install this in place before installing the seal. Don't forget. Here's what the manual says about this little bastard: Install main drive gear spacer key, registering longer section of the key in any splineway on the main drive gear and shorter section of key in slot in outter edge of main drive gear spacer.

We put a dab of oil on the seal to make sure we didn't damage the seal against any dry surfaces. We were getting ready to install the news H-D mainshaft seal.

With the tranny mainshaft seal against the case we installed the first portion of the JIMS tool on the mainshaft. These are also left-handed threads. Jeremiah was constantly interrupted by one of the three women in his life. He has kids by two of them, so the calls kept coming. Be very aware!

We slid the same removal tool over the guiding shaft to press the seal in perfectly square to the case.

This final JIMS guide insures that the seal resides in the perfect depth in the case. You could see that the last one was scored some.

The tool is set up to drive the seal home perfectly and not too deep into the case. Then we moved onto the engine seal, but we didn't have the proper tools. We reached for Plan B.

Although it wasn't the correct tool, the transmission seal puller helped us pull the engine seal without a problem. We just needed longer screws.

We dug through the socket tool drawer until we found a 1 ¾-inch deep socket and tapped the seal into place. I missed not having a JIMS tool that would guide the seal perfectly into place and the proper depth beyond the case edge. That did it, and we wrapped up the project for the afternoon.

JIMS tools we needed:

Motor Sprocket Shaft Seal Install Tool: 39361-69

Sprocket Shaft Bearing Nut Wrench: 97235-55B

Compensating Sprocket Shaft Nut Wrench: 94557-55A

Clutch Lock plate: 2245
Use to lock clutch shell to clutch hub, for removing or installing clutch hub nut, 1941-1984

Clutch Spring Compressor Tool: 38515-90

Clutch Hub Puller: 1004A

Just received the '40s clutch rocker friction plate I needed for the 5-Ball Factory Racer. I can get back to work on it, now that Jeremiah cut a dusty trail.