Submitted story: Homemade fix

I've been using my '89 sportster as a daily commuter for about 2 1/2 years, and while it's had some problems, it's never left me anywhere. I thought this had changed the other night, the starter had been making some strange noises when the bike was cold, but it had always started.

But when I tried to leave work, it wouldn't crank the motor. It made a noise that indicated that something was turning, but not the motor. Eventually I was able to push start it, and ended up taking the 55 to work for the rest of the week. Last weekend I pulled the primary cover.

When I hit the starter button, the ring gear turned, but not the rest of the clutch basket. It wasn't obvious from the manual how the ring gear was attached, so I pulled the clutch as an assembly. The manual gives instructions that involve disassembling the clutch (using a special tool to compress the clutch spring), but not removing it as a unit. First I removed a snap ring and the clutch adjuster bolt and bearing.

Behind it was another snap ring, this was all that held the clutch on the transmission shaft, but I also needed to pull front primary sprocket. It's held on by a nut that is torqued to 165 ft/lbs, so I used an air wrench to remove it (for all I know this is a terrible thing to do, maybe it wrecks the bearings or crank or something, but it's what I did).

When I got the clutch off, it looked like the ring gear was just pressed on. I used an aluminum drift and hammer and gently tapped it off. It was fairly tight, but it was obvious that it had spun ruining both surfaces. Now I could have bought a new primary sprocket and ring gear, but left to my own devices I just rig stuff up. So I decided to just tack weld the gear on.

I spotted it in 4 places with the mig welder, then cleaned up the welds and any weld beads. The blue tape is covering up the alternator magnets, weld beads and grinding dust would stick to them like crazy. So far this fix has worked fine, but who knows, maybe the welds will cause the ring gear to crack and come apart, wrecking then entire motor and trans.