1200S: service time, part 7

With the gear cluster safely on the bench, we can now proceed with inspection and disassembly.

In every photo I've seen, whether it's someone else documenting their transmission maintenance, or even the Clymer manual, the cotter pins are installed like this:

But I actually found them like this:

which looks much more intentional, much more secure and I'm almost certain this is how it was done at the factory in 2001, so the new ones will be going back in exactly like this.

With the help of the transmission power flow diagram from the factory manual, I checked operation of all gears going up and down the sequence, and only really found engagement of second gear to be less than optimal. Everything else meshes and couples fully.

The fork pins come out using a little bit of compressed air over each opening, the pressure differential effectively pulls the pins out, no dark magic required.

The detent arm pivots on a bolt that, cleverly, also does double duty as the mounting point for the two lockplates that secure the shift drum to the trap door. Notice also the three fork pins and respective cotter pins at the top-right of the image. The cotter pins must always be replaced.

Once removed, the shift drum can slide out and be set aside, then each fork can be lifted out.

It's over to the mainshaft and countershaft, removal of all the components is pretty straightforward and consists of removing a series of retaining snap rings; easy and fast, provided you have the right tool:

I only reached the damaged gears on the countershaft (1st and 3rd), there is no need to remove anything else.

Here's the deal, I was expecting, and to some degree hoping, to find something clearly and badly damaged in here. And while there are plenty of indications of wear on various parts (circled in red in the photos above), none of it seems to be enough to cause such a big problem. So yes, the ramps on the countershaft's first gear are a little bit beat up, definitely, as are the corresponding dogs on third gear, and I found a few very little burrs on practically all the dogs throughout the gearbox. The forks show very minor signs of wear but truly nothing concerning. Although it doesn't really make sense to me, I must accept that it would all add up to cause first gear to "pop out".

At least part of the issue in all of this seems to come from the fact that H-D does not make shims in different thicknesses for the gears, relying instead on a one-size-fits-all spacer that obviously can't always be right. Checking the transmission on the bench, I can see how the forks might be unable to push gears all the way, making full engagement difficult. Obviously this just invites incorrect wear issues, and a less than sympathetic rider will quickly cause damage as was the case here.

Another thing to check are the tracks in the shift drum itself, as these guide the forks and can severely impact proper function of the whole transmission if damaged. I checked all three pins in their respective tracks to see if they could run smoothly and they do precisely that. 

TO BE CONTINUED...