Under the Harley-Davidson Trike
Bob LaRosaDescription
Bob LaRosa and the crew bring us under the secure and safe Harley-Davidson Trike. Bob points out the exhaust, auxiliary drive motor (reverse), cables, drive sprocket, belt, shocks, swing arm assembly, rear axle adjusters, and parking brake. With the trike in the air it’s a good time to do any cleaning and inspection of the drive belt.
Hi, I'm Bob LaRosa. Welcome to Fix My Hog. We've actually jacked up the rear of the trike. Secured it in place with jack stands both sides under the ends of the axle tubes. It's not often you're underneath the trike in this fashion but if you are, it's a good time to do a little cleaning. Make sure all the clamps that retain mufflers, exhaust pipes. You can look straight up. You can see the auxiliary drive motor. This is the motor that engages into the ring gear and gives you the reverse function. Make sure all the connections on this motor are always clean and tight. Make sure the ground cable is clean and tight. Make sure all the cables, any connections are free of being in any way contacted by any mechanical movement. You could see the base of the shocks. You can also see the large swing arm assembly that holds the entire rear end and differential assembly in place. The adjusters for the rear axle or drive axle are right here. You can see the inner workings of the parking brake. Both sides are the same. The caliper, the rotor, obviously the rim and tire. Here is the drive sprocket with the drive belt. Next to it is the big ring gear that gives you reverse operation. Again, it's not often you're under here but if you do get the opportunity to safely jack the trike up, secured in place, it's a good time to cover a lot of ground. Do a lot of heavy cleaning. Do a lot of heavy service work or regular inspections. You can see both the parking brake cables as they enter into the parking brake mechanism The rear drive belt, it is one of the most critical components under here. You need to make sure it's running through in the pulley and you need to make sure that it is adjusted correctly. And typically you would be adjusting the belt to the tightest spot. On a trike, you're going to do both adjustment at the loosest spot. The reason for that is you don't want the belt ever running too loose so that it jumps cogs. Once it starts to jump cogs, chances are you'll destroy the cog on the belt and you'll need to replace the belt. And on this, it looks like it'd be quite the job. Whether you did it yourself or you paid to do it. It's going to be very time consuming and quite costly.
Many trike owners i know complain their reverse has a lot of problems engaging even when new. Is this a factory defect or does the connection have problems often?
Where can I get a manual to change fluids and do maintenance on my 2007 Road King Champion trike conversion
I'm getting to the third reverse motor on my trike, my ext. warranty has run out, I need some help, I tried taping the selinoid on the motor and it wanted to work, then nothing, can just the selinoid be replaced? Where to get it , the Harley shop only wants to replace, couple K.