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Last week my tranny said enough, on Sunday, on my way back from Leesburug, after riding about 100 miles, the tranny decided not to work, no warning, no oil leak, no weird noise, no nothing, we all where at a street light 7 miles north of Avon Pk on US 27, when the light turned green, as soon as I gave gas, a high pitch noise and no go from there
Thanks God, U-Haul had truck close by and after some phone calls and time, the trike was loaded on the truck and I made it back home (Ft Lauderdale),
One of the guys I ride with has an auto mechanic shop, Monday morning the bike was at his shop, unfortunately, I can't download the pictures, Bill has some of them, maybe he can post some, but what went wrong is the shaft that goes from the tranny to the rear end, I think it's called the Joystick, the point is, that in a record time, my trike was back to "service" on Friday!!, this amazing friend took the tranny down, rebuild it and put it back on 5 days!!, I drove about 70 miles since and so far no problems, so if any of you guys in the area need a mechanic that you can trust, just let me know, and BTW, the price was very reasonable
On the other hand, I'm concern about what happened and the quality of the bikes, unless it was tramped, the trike shows 7k miles, I don't beat the hell out, no burns out, not wheelies, no show off, no punching the throttle, yes, I ride at 80-90 miles/hr with out my wife and 65-70 with her, still nothing that should harm the bike, but in the short time I have had the trike, several things have gone wrong, broken frame, fuel pump, alternator, drained battery, gas spills, vapor lock etc, I know they are great machines or at least a great concept, but there is quality issues with them, for the price you pay for them, the factory needs to work on several aspects to bring up the quality
Anyhow, not trying to stir things up, the point is to let you guys know, that there is one guy here in Ft Lauderdale that can work on your bikes and won't cost you exorbitant prices and he works fast and attention to details
Have a great week and ride safe

Make sure that the alignment is 110%...I broke 2 of those shafts last summer on my 502 trike...so far the 3rd is holding up but we double and triple checked the alignment last time.

I also have a drag race hardened shaft on the shelf ready to go should this one break on me.

You said "rebuilt the tranny"..was it also destroyed or did just the shaft break??

Seems there are some "bugs" in these that need to be worked out by the owners / dealers initially and then away you go...

Ronald -

Glad to see you got your problem fixed. I have heard of this happening before, I wouldn't have expected that to fail with so little miles combined with not riding it hard. Pulling hole shots and burnouts every other light I would expect something to break ... What broke, the shaft, the tail piece, u joint??? Pictures would be great, hopefully Bill will post them in this thread.

I'm also curious about same thing Barry asked, was just the shaft and u joints replaced or was trans rebuilt?

Don

V-MAN wrote:Ronald -

Glad to see you got your problem fixed. I have heard of this happening before, I wouldn't have expected that to fail with so little miles combined with not riding it hard. Pulling hole shots and burnouts every other light I would expect something to break ... What broke, the shaft, the tail piece, u joint??? Pictures would be great, hopefully Bill will post them in this thread.

I'm also curious about same thing Barry asked, was just the shaft and u joints replaced or was trans rebuilt?

Don

Don..

I am almost assuming tranny because when the shafts broke on my trike there was no high pitch noises...just clunks, vibrations, pieces in the rear view mirror, oil on the road...alll the kinds of things that you really DON"T want to see...especially 2nd time around.

If his shaft broke AND the tranny broke then there could be more things goofy...

Ronald, glad you back on the road so soon - nice job! Here are the pics:

It was just the shaft, as a fact, if you see the pictures that Bill so gentile posted, there is one with all the pieces of the tranny laid on a table, and they look nice in very good shape, but to get to that shaft, the tranny had to be open, and if open, better to replace all at once, so yes, it was rebuilt, u-joint and everything else also replaced
The "area" where the shaft meets the coupling, is kind of short, not much gear space is working, so the guy did extended it a little and goes in a little deeper so more area is working, also, shaft or joystick should be made of stronger steel, but is a soft and not really hard material.
Rebuild that tranny is not really a big deal, Chevy TH350, very common and plenty of spares, it takes longer to split the bike in half to have access to it and re-connect the electrical once the trike is back together, but so far, very happy with results, not with what happened, but at least, since it did happen, at least was someone there that could take care of it

If it was the tranny output shaft then yes...split and fix tranny..if it was just the shaft from the rearend to the tranny then splitting was not necessary..

BE ABSOLUTELY double positive that the Tranny is installed perfectly square. I have read countless stories where the driveshafts break and leave people stranded because they are off just a tiny bit.
Canuck has the procedure to check. It IS critical for the trikes

Thanks for your advice guys, Canuck, what is the procedure to make sure it is align ?

Ronald wrote:Thanks for your advice guys, Canuck, what is the procedure to make sure it is align ?

Sorry I missed this...one of our mechanics crashed yesterday morning on our breakfast run which screwed the whole day.

Anyways..there is a very simple alignment tool Boss Hoss has..I could post a picture...the procedure is also very simple as in sliding the tool through the pivoting knuckles of the back of the trike and making sure they align with the U-joint...hope I explained this right. This sets the rearend alignment side to side which is what will destroy those short tranny yokes.

From the pictures it looks like your short yoke never broke...it just lost all the splines on the inside of the shaft and in turn screwed up the splines on the tranny output shaft...is this correct ....and then you took out the tranny to replace the tranny output shaft?? as I said you do not need to remove the tranny to replace that short drive shaft