First let me say, I don't type well and I leave words out of sentences due to a brain and nervous system issue so I apologize if those things occur. Also this is lengthy and a complaint has been filed with the NHTSA because the scope of this has grown beyond my own trike. A vendor on this site has been involved on the other site and he can chime in if he feels the need. He has made some valuable contributions over there to show that part of this is normal but myself and others believe that there is something going on in Rushmore based trike swing arms. Someone suggested that I do a search here to try and locate information but I wanted to through this out there. The time I've been spending on this is bad for my health but I made a commitment to see the issue through to the members over there until I had someone with some authority give this issue more visibility.
I am not an expert on Tri-Glide issues this is simply a desire to make this situation more visible.
I am also leaving names and places out of this because this issue impacts my own trike and getting it fixed may be a challenge plus name slinging and finger pointing in these kinds of situations don't help at all
I started a thread on another forum about an issue I am having with my 2014 Tri-Glide. If I don't keep constant pressure on the grip the trike will dart off the road. The problem got progressively worse to the point that I had to park it. I needed to do a 10k service on it anyway so it wasn't a big deal and I would investigate further then. So I worked through the maintenance it was at the point that I needed to check and possible set the belt deflection. Doing that process also includes aligning the rear axle fore and aft. Then the next step is a lateral alignment set the position of the belt on the sprocket. So I noticed the belt was too tight and pushed up against the left shoulder of the sprocket. The belt is as tight as a metal band saw blade.
I have been working on high performance cars and bikes for 41 years and many of wrenches, ratchets, sockets, and screw drivers are 41 years old. There are several supercharged cars running around the area where I live that were built in my garage so I felt confident I could adjust this stuff.
I have service manuals for my trike as well so I went at it aligned each side of the axle with 1/16" of each other and the belt deflection was between 3/8" and 7/16" as specified in the trike supplemental. Every time I tightened down the pinch bolts something would move and the belt would end up to tight. After several tries I got help from a friend that was former HD tech at several dealerships in my area until he went independent. We gave it several shot together and something still move in spite of the fact the last two attempts include ratchet straps to hold the axle in place. Over the period of time that we tried to do this I also enlisted the help of my local dealership and they asked us to tightened down the pinch bolts in two different ways and we did and some thing continue to move enough to over tighten the belt. I've spent a huge amount of money at my local Harley dealer and they know about my health and that I can't afford to bring this thing in so they were ok with making another suggestion and it really was a way to get information about where the rear axles were sitting in relation to the pivot shaft in the swing arm. So they told me what to do and asked another friend that does machine work and carpentry work to help. So, were asked to use a string with a carpenters plum on it and drop it down from the center of the rear axle on each side and then use a straight edge and a sharpie to drap a line across the two points. so that got down and I pulled the caps off of the pivot shaft which are just below the bottom bolt of the passenger boards.
I went over to the left side of the trike, pull the cover off, and all of this feathery rubbery stuff and metal shavings hit the floor. We knew we were down with trying anything esle at that point. I went online to another forum and asked for some help. I wanted people to pop the same covers I did over the ends of the pivot shaft and send me some pictures via email. It didn't take long for the pictures to start coming and the people who were sending them were finding the same thing on their trikes I think I have 8 or so emails but only six contain pictures but there are more pictures in the thread on the other forum and a wealth of knowledge too especially from the vendor who participates on this site as well. I've spoken to him about this stuff as well as other times about other products he sells and riding trikes in general. The last time we talked we had a discussion about a shop near him and that I would be down that way in about six weeks for a visit.
There is a lot of information and opinions flying around about this and some people are being told my HD dealers that it is normal and others are being told it's not. I had my on interest in this regarding where I got my trike and how it was inspected so my first move was my that has his on motorcycle business, then to a dealer where he buys his parts and my own local dealership gave me assistance but will not render an opinion on the situation.
So these are the opinions/observations that I have and those involved please feel free to smack if I misinterpreted your explanations
My friend says the issue has been seen before but occurs on bikes and trikes with significantly more miles on them.
The dealership he uses for businesses purposes said the same thing and they find it odd and the debris that is in there should not be there.
The last person is the vendor I spoke of. I don't want to misrepresent him so I will say that he supplied a picture on the other forum that clears up one of my concern which the offset position of the end of the pivot shaft.
So my take on this is that the offset position of the end of the pivot shat is normal. The debris in them is not. Some thing is wrong inside the swing arm or the metal shavings and the rubber debris wouldn't be there.
Anyway, that's whats going on. I am comfortable thanks to the persons contributions above that the pivot shaft should be offset but I am not comfortable about the rubbery stuff and metal shavings in there.
I have some pictures below. The debris from my trike appears to be less than others but it was not. We had two big fans blowing down each side of the garage when the covers were taken the debris when with it but seeing what we had nudged me over to the other forum to get pictures. the first few pictures sent to me show metal debris and rubber debris found when the swing arm was removed.
I am having trouble getting my own pictures posted and I'm not sure why but I think it's because of the super high resolution camera I was using but I re-sized them several times and they will not upload.
If someone knows of a post in regards to this issue or looks at theirs and it has all the crude behind the cover like mine does feel free to email me pictures to wlibert@hotmail.com or post them here.
This is my compliant number filed with NHSTA 11000009. You can file your own at https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/. I was told my complaint number can be referenced and I have no issue with that but I haven't run through the process on that site, I called mine in.
There are no guarantees that the complaints will generate an investigation but I was told the more complaints the better the chance.