I was riding up to redwoodand after a stop as I was getting on the freeway a sound came from the primary that sounded like when you used to put playing cards in the spokes of your bicycle.  I pulled over and it would faster as I rev'd the engine - then the noise went away.  The next morning highrisk, harleyman and I pulled the primary cover (my apologies to the Garberville Inn for the mess in the parking lot) and found the piece of metal shown below in the bottom of the primary case.

The piece is about 1" long, 1/2" wide, 1/8" thick, and very hard steel.  We inspected everything we could see in the primary - without pulling the clutch or gears and could find nowhere it could have come from.  As you know there ain't much inside the primary case except the main gears, chain, clutch and auto chain adjuster... and no of those appeared to have anything missing.

The bike is a 2007 Road King (FLHR), and as far as I know the primary cover has not been off since new... only the derby cover.

See if you can identify this piece????

That's not pieces out of your clutch hub is it? Something like this happened to me last year only I didn't find the metal piece until I pulled the stator and realized that the metal piece was from the clutch hub when I was pulling an emergency stop from 60 to 0 just because cagers are retarded when it comes to rubbernecking on the Olympia area I-5! in Washington State (apply both brakes shift down a gear to drag clutch to slow the bike down and save me and the wife from eating the back of a minivan)!
Turns out that a few metal pieces were in the oil bath, only they didn't get picked up and kicked around til I was going through Busby Montana on my way to Sturgis 2010... I heard a quick rattling and then my battery and check engine light comes on! I knew it wasn't good! Nothing I could do there so I made it to Sturgis and got the primary completely torn down and wow, metal shards are a killer!:(

Looks like bloody sabotage to me mate..You bloody sure Laura was cool about you goin to Redwood run without her mate..Hmmm old uncle Boof thinks maybe bloody not...CHEERS BOOF

LOL yeah it is awfully big to be from the clutch hub (but I would pull the hub and check anyway) no key way chucks in the newer cruise drive tranny models.

Yeah, got the cover back off today then ran out of time. I'll pull the clutch and gears tomorrow and see if I can find anything that looks out or order.

Boof, if Laura picked up a wrech she would probably just knock me upside the head with it... she loves the bike too much to mess with it.

If I had to guess, and only a guess, it's part of the chain tensioner. As in you wore off the pad and it grabbed the whole plate and yarded it off. but just a guess.

I know what it is! its your ticket to getting you a new Roadglide Ultra, I mean after all you would not want to strand you and Laura out on the open road somewhere. It's the only right thing to do Ron.

Well that's not good; I don't think Lucky wants anyone named Sum Ting Wong anywhere NEAR his Harley!

LOL YUP!!!!

I FOUND IT!!!!!

Never would have guessed this one... it was a piece of the outer housing on the rotor!!!

As you can see it did a number on the inside of the primary case too!

The only thing is the piece I found is about 1 1/2" and the missing piece is about 4"???  Guessing it either turned to shavings, which I found a lot of, or fell out when I first opened the primary on the road and I didn't see it.

Yep, guess I'm just Lucky (I say that a lot don't I)

Of course the rotors hardly ever go bad so no one has one. Now I got to leave it sitting apart until next week... and the weather is beautiful!

Glad to hear you figured it out !!!

The weather has been decent up this ways, n bummed cause I may have to tear down my carb if I cant figure out why she is running the way she is..tore her down last week to check all my vacuum lines they looked good,I am leaning towards something with the throttle slow circuit,when I am just trying to dog her along with barely any throttle she wants to stunble almost stall out..give her a twist hard tho n she goes ok..havent done any real engine or exhaust mods,so I am thinkin fuel feed or throttle circuit

I thought about it and was concerned about maybe some of the metal chaffing the wires, but after a real good inspection it looks to be ok.

Still waiting for my part and the poor ol' RoadKng is sitting there in pieces.

Nice work getting to the bottom of that one.  I never would have guessed that either.  Hard to imagine how that could have grenaded like that.  Good luck getting her back up and in the wind.

jb

Wow, that is a strange one. Glad you found it. Hope you get back on the road soon!!!

Almost all back together. Taking a dinner break and then just put on the floor boards add some fluid and off for the test ride.