Front pulley nut

[-deuced-]

Was helping out in a shop the other day and had to remove the primary from a freshly built dyna to investigate a grinding noise coming from behind the clutch. The shop did not do the build. We removed the inner primary case. The pulley nut, the lock plate and the heads of the allen bolts were sitting in the bottom of the pulley. The threads of the allen bolts were still in the pulley. They were sheared off flush. The threads in the pulley nut were damaged as were the threads on the end of the main shaft. At first I thought the nut hadn't been done up tight enough on assembly and maybe the owner was burn out king, but there was no sign of that. Now I'm wondering if maybe the nut had been forced on 'right handedly' and things broke on initial start up. The hex recesses in the allen bolt heads were full of aluminium and you could see where they had shot into the inner primary case. The inside of the inner primary was damaged from where the pulley had walked into it and I don't think it would've been too much longer before it ate right through the case. What do you think caused the nut to come off?

[Trip]

Sounds like a completely locked up tranny to me(from here)...are the pulley bolts the right Hardness ?? was the pulley nut Lock plate secured??? ....hard to figure!!

[JOS]

Sounds like two seperate things, both due to a bad mechanic. The trans pulley nut was probably not torqued (either over or under) and loctited correctly and eventually worked itself loose. The rocking trans pulley and retainer plate snapped the heads off the allen screws and then the trans pulley started pounding into the back side of the primary.

The threads being buggered up on the end of the mainshaft would probably be more of the same. I really doubt someone could put a left handed thread nut on "right handed", but I guess anything is possible (murphy's law). The threads on the mainshft could have trashed from the start and the mech put the nut on anyway and just made it worse or they massively overtightened (air gun) the nut and it started jumping threads.

[les]

Make sure to check the spline teeth on the inner diameter of the pulley.  I did a Road Glide repair that was simpliar but at least the lock plate held the pulley nut from coming off.  But the pulley had to be replaced due to messed up spline teeth.

[Caper]

Sounds like two seperate things, both due to a bad mechanic. The trans pulley nut was probably not torqued (either over or under) and loctited correctly and eventually worked itself loose. The rocking trans pulley and retainer plate snapped the heads off the allen screws and then the trans pulley started pounding into the back side of the primary.

The threads being buggered up on the end of the mainshaft would probably be more of the same. I really doubt someone could put a left handed thread nut on "right handed", but I guess anything is possible (murphy's law). The threads on the mainshft could have trashed from the start and the mech put the nut on anyway and just made it worse or they massively overtightened (air gun) the nut and it started jumping threads.

JOS, I think you're right, an over torqued nut stripped the threads.(Air guns are for removing not installing). Look at the threads on the shaft, if they're stripped at the end good chance that's what happened, if chewed up all the way could have been cross threaded and forced on with a freakin air gun

[tomp]

...this might have been caused by the inner main/5th gear bearing walking inside the gear. When this occurs, the bearing can walk inward far enough to where it is resting on the countersunk part of the shaft and then the main/5th gear starts to wobble. My bike did this and caused the nut to break off with the threaded part of the shaft still attached to the nut. The bearing eventually comes apart and hardened roller bearings go flying through the other tranny gears and damages them too.