Blog Archive

Transmission is open, what a mess...

Popped the flange out with the home-made puller. Brass was definitely a good choice for the screw part because I had to hit it pretty good with a hammer to break it free. Once the flange was out of the way it was abundantly clear where all the aluminum shavings came from. Warning, if the sight of tortured motorcycle parts makes you squeamish you may want to look away.


On the up side, all the gears look good. Wear patterns are proper, no chipped teeth, nothing out of the ordinary. On the other hand, here is the primary culprit for both my noise and the output-flange slop.


The rest of the bearing is still in the case. That's going to be a fun one to get out. Also, some of the bearing dug into the thrust washer in the case. Looks like it didn't get through, so the case should be fine, but I'll need a new one of those too.

As I said before, this was a sidecar bike for possibly a good number of miles. I suspect the weight of the sidecar, coupled with the extra torque of the VW motor, caused this. Definitely time for a new input shaft, and unfortunately the mangled collar in this picture is another conversion-specific custom part. Gotta figure out how to fix that one.