Suicide Setup!

I finally managed to get the suicide clutch installed on the Fatboy! Here’s how things rolled out;

Thursday I got out of work a bit early so I shot home and pulled the Fatboy out of the garage. I knew I wouldn’t have enough time to do the full project that night, but I figured a smart move would be to install the stock risers back on. As much as I’d thought that I’d love the aftermarket ones, I wasn’t convinced that they weren’t part of the front end swagger problem. And since I’m installing something which will require letting go of the handlebar at times, it made sense to try and tighten the front end up a bit. (And it worked, too. A lot of the front end slop appears to be gone now.)

Here’s the ‘before’ pic; aftermarket risers and windshield.


Windshield removed, stock risers back on.


I had someplace to be, so that was about as far as I could get that night. I did fire her up though, and gave the battery some charging and go her fluids warmed up and flowing through the lines to make her happy.

Next morning, back out onto the driveway and drained the tranny fluid. Here’s a closeup of the plug - nice to have a magnetic tip on the end of it. Look at the little filings that aren’t floating around inside my tranny!


Next was to loosen the tension on the clutch cable to allow for removal from the hand lever.


Next was to remove the shift lever, starting with the lower snap ring on the clutch cable pin.


Here’s where I had a bit of trouble; things were going well when suddenly I heard the dreaded ‘ping’ sound of a snap ring flying off into some nether area, never to be found again. I wasn’t sure how this happened, until I happened to look closely at my snap ring pliers. Seems I’d snapped one of the pins off. Not much good now…


A quick trip down to Home Depot and I was back in business with a new, solid snap ring plier set.
Next was removal of the transmission release cover, to expose the clutch cable release mechanism assembly. Here you can see the outer ramp held in place with the large snap ring, and the cable coming into the ramp coupling.


The new snap ring pliers made short work of things, allowing removal of the ramp and ramp coupling. (Gotta make sure the 3 ball bearings on the inner ramp don’t get loose…no need to be chasing them around.)

Clutch cable is ready to be slid out!

The new cable was inserted and the assembly was reassembled.

Now it was time to remove the foot shifter assembly to make room for the clutch lever. Loosen the pinch bolts on the shifter pegs and they slide off. The front end of the shifter rod is attached via a bolt to the fulcrum lever, which is easily removed. After this, the whole foot assembly slides right out.

See those three bolts holding the kickstand bracket onto the frame? Well they have to be removed to allow the new clutch shifter plate to be inserted behind that bracket. And those bolts were torx/star headed bolts. Let’s see…hmm…I’m missing one size from my socket set. Care to take a guess as to what size I needed? Yep. Damn.


Another quick trip to Home Depot and I’m back in business. Bolts removed, backing plate inserted and bracket reattached. The new cable runs from the tranny cover, going inside the right fork tube, and outside the left. The cable ends in a heim joint which connects to the new foot lever.


Next was removal of the linkage rod itself. The front bolt was previously removed with the foot shifter assembly, the second bolt attaches to the shifter lever on the transmission. Frikkin' Blue Loctite makes things come off hard!

Next is attachment of the new hand shifter lever which bolts to the existing transmission shifter lever (the existing lever is only about three inches long and that would be kinda hard to reach).

Gotta remove the hex head bolt at the base - even has a retaining clip!

Removal of this bolt wasn’t easy - not a lot of working room. Luckily I had my handy dandy adjustable-allen wrench tool thingie available.

Perhaps the hardest part of the project was my helper always getting in the way. Brother Bill’s dog Sadie wanted to closely inspect every step of the process…

With the shifter lever bolted in, I put the skull shifter knob on and things were DONE!! That’s right; done!! (Ok, so I still need to glue the knob on so it’ll stay, but aside from that, it’s done!)

I cleaned up the tools, fired her up and prepared myself. I’d done some reading on-line about other guys that had installed this setup and they all said they’d stalled the bike on their first try. I was bound and determined that this wouldn’t happen to me. (Ahh, the best laid plans.) I did indeed stall it. But that was the only time! I got her moving and bee-bopped around my yard for a while, shifting as high as *gasp* second gear (hey what can I say - my yard isn’t that big) and back down. Finding neutral, down into first, up into second, back down, etc. In no way have I gotten the hang of things yet, that will require some riding out on the streets. I’m hoping to get the bike back onto the road this week and then the real learning process can begin.

Oh yeah; as you might have noticed from the first pics, I removed the front fender. I’m going to chop it a bit, as well as chop the rear fender somewhat. I took the passenger seat off and will be running just the rider’s seat. This bike will be an around-town bomber/bar hopper. (But there’ll be minimal bar hopping until I get the hang of this hand shifting thing.

So there you have it. The project itself wasn’t bad - not hard, just time consuming between not having all the tools I needed, and not having done this before. But I’m psyched! The suicide setup is complete!
Ride Hard, Slap Gears!