since buying my 2008 fxst my rear brake has draged, ive been to many harley dealers to rectafy the problem but to no avail.. on the way home from the shop the rear disc blued id traveled about 100ks, each time pulling up at lights i noticed the rear brake dragging i pulled up  rang the shop they told me this is expected and your foot is probly resting on the brake as your not used to forward controls... (bullshit i thought).. never could work out why the inside pad was chewing out in under 4-5000 ks.. only that i did notice the rer calliper couldnt slide over far enough to realease the brake.

so anyway ive now done 40,000 ks on my bike and while getting a rear tyre replaced on the bike at magnums miro asked me how many k'sive done and i shoild replace the rear wheel bearings as thereve been reports of bearing failure at about that many k's... So we put new bearings in and when we went to fit the rear wheel the disc fouled on the inside of the disc brake caliper mount.. so we pulled the bearings back out to investigate and found the hub can move 5mm left and right on the bearings. this was causeing the rear brake to foul on the calliper and mount ,, so we had to make a 5mm SPACER TO STOP THE HUB FROM FLOATING LAFT AN RIGHT.. now the wheel sits where it should and the disc sits central in the calliper mount.. now the brakes dont drag and the wheels spins true in the brake calliper.. im asuming that all models are like this plz check your bike as the rear wheel can float causing majour failure.. as the right brearing is the cause of failure and spining in the hub on alot of bikes im assuming this is the heat build up from the disc transfering to the hub causing the grease to melt and as there is no lubricant the bearing fails around the 35000 k mark.. i hope this helps ppl

Thanks for the heads up Fella...this may help others who spend 1000's rectifiying other things when the problem lies within...mate i hope there was still some warrantee left on it...if so contact HD Australia...you may claim the expenses back

Crasher

Hey crasher i contacted Todd from harley australia.. top bloke. He has emailed harley in the sates about this this morning so as its sunday there at the moment they should get it first thing tomorow , there monday.. he told me he will get back to me as soon as they reply to him..  when i find out what the go is ill post the reply on here.. my bike is actually out of warrenty now as its over the 2 year mark..

But what alot of ppl should no and dont reliase is a little thing called statutory warrenty.. this is somthing that all manufactueres have buy law to sell a product wether it be a toaster a bently or a harley.. basically the indavidual components that make up your bike as a hole have a basic lifetime existence.. and should work for with in its lifetime (each part should last for x anount of time before wear and tear under normal operating condtions) if that individual part fails due to normal wear and tear the manufacture is libal to replace the part.. every manufacrure doesnt want the genral public to no of this,,  so i hope all forum readers now no of this.. this is above and beyond the normal warrenty issued..

Hey baddean & crasher, read your post with interest & am having similar problems with my 08 heritage.

After a fairly long ride I returned home & noticed that the rear disc seemed to be a blue colour so, stupidly, i felt the disc & nearly burnt my hand off. Not only was the thing blue hot I found traces of brake pad stuck to the disc as well. I checked the front disc for heat & found it was cold in comparison. Anyway I contacted the dealer who told me me to bring it down so they  could look at it.

Got it down there & they could not explain how this happened & asked if I had been riding with my foor on the brake....dah!!. Anyway, they changed the disc, the pads & rebuilt the caliper all under warranty. Got the bike back went for a hundred k ride got back & checked work. What the!!!!, disc heated up again, but no where near like it was.......just very very hot. Took it back again, deals said dont know why, greased slider & got it back again.

Now the problem is I am a worry wort & not totally happy that my $32k ride has this issue.Although it is not stopping me from going anywhere I just dont trust it. The bike is out of warranty now, (about 8 months), but has only 9000k's on it.

Do you think I have a case to HD Aust to have repairs effected as you guys suggested.

Cheers

Thanks Steamer

Hi folks i left out one very important thing,, the 5 mm spacer goes on the drive side on the inside of the hub,, it picks up on theouter race of the inside edge of the bearing and the inside edge of the hub like i said on the drive side.. this stops the wheel from moving left and right over the bearings.. ive actually posted this story in heavy duty magazine of this month.. they contacted me back via email and said alot of ppl have contacted them over this isue asking for advice.. harley still havent gotten back to me it seams they dont want to no about the isue

I spoke to to the fellas at local H D shop about this problem they said the spacers on the rear wheel are similar in size but if reversed they can cause this problem, What they said.

Ok i dont think youve understood what i am saying ,, im am not talking about the axle spacers they will only go on one way simple as that,, the problem is the hub can move left and right over the wheel bearings.. the bearings sit where there supposed to sit they cannot move as the axle spacers hold the bearings true and central where they are supposed to be.. the problem lays with the machining of the hub itself.. the hub on the internel drive side where the outer od of the bearing sits in the hub ,, there is a 5 mm gap on the inside edge between the bearing and where the bearing should botom out on the resess of the inside of the hub.. this alows the hub to slide left and right over the bearings when the wheel is done up tight because of the gap between the inside of the bearing inside the wheel hub it alows the hub to slide left and right over the outer bearing face.. do use all understand.. i wish i could draw a diagram to explain this.. II = bearing inside edge l = inside of hub - = 5 mm gap ----- = inside of wheel spacer II equals outside bearing so we have II-l----lII wheel hub can move over the bearing od because the inside edge of bearing on drive side does not seat agains inside edge of the hub ..

Sounds like a serious issue. can't belive they (HD) haven't sorted it.

Any update on this situation? Anyone else have this problem? I have, looking for a solution to it.

A solution??? well not from harley theres not, no one has got back to me (lyablity id say) the only solution is make the spacer put it in to stop the wheel hub from drifting over the beerings and making the disc rub up hard on the outer pad, oh and no harley deal will acknowledge my rooted disc so ill have to replace it, also found out through other ppl contacting me with this problem it is also the same for solid wheels all models, so ppl make the spacer put it in and that fix's that problem.. also im pissed of, im on my 4th front wheel and now harley have refused to replace it as well, the problem is the crome coming of the front hub, also note that my second wheel, the crome came of the rim as well. looks like someone has touched it during the croming process as it looks like a finger mark where the crome has lifted of on the rim. as a matter of intrest on my cuz n's 09 night train on his inverted front end the same thing.also my fork legs replaced due to the smae thing.. and just recently i put a set of diamond black grips on, and yep the black poweder coat came of WTF are you doing HD??? what a fucking shit box product, ive had 50 year old jap dirt bikes that dont suffer these issues.. oh and when i asked about the hub, FRAZERS wollongong first question was what do you wash ya bike with??? i looked at him like are you kidding mate?? yeah i use sulfuric acid for fuck sake.. wouldnt you think if i was useing something that toxic its removing the crome of the rim it would be removing paint crome and god no's what else from the bike to?? i mean are these ppl for real. we have problems with our LEGENED and they treat us like fuckwits.. just hand over ya cash and climb back in ya hole..

are you seriouse, i no you are, and yes you are correct in what you say but come on, ppl make spacers for mag wheels rear swing arms chop the frame ie rake etc etc. come on, really a engineers report for a wheeel bearing spacer. listen mate i contacted fair trading frasers sy's harley australia harley in the states, EVERY BODY has stuck there head in the sand, there all going LA LA LA LA LA with there hands over there ears no one wants to no..

as for the vid, you cant see the wheel moving as this requiers a bit of force on the wheel. if you actually read what i wrote it says, due to the goood grace of god the pressed in bearing in the wheel is the only thing stoping it from moving ie: the friction of the out surface of the bearing face against the inside surface of the hub..


anyway as they say im ok jack ive fixed my problem and screw you harley davidson and your so called warrenty, last new bike i ever buy from anyone, since i was a little kid i built all my own shit, bikes, cars, everything so it gets built right, even though i luv my bike ill be striping it one day and building it into a better mouse trap. the only reason i bought it was i had a few builds on at the time and was like no screw it ill buy and just ride it for a change as i want it now.. so ive learnt my lesson. screw you all you money theveing lo life shop owners im building my own from now on..

 They changed rear wheel bearings from  08  (solid)from 3/4"  to  25mm I noted that the latter was 5mm narrower

IF  the same wheel was used it would leave a 5mm gap behind bearing,don't know about spoked

my 12/08 fat boy with only 13000 k on it shit its rearl wheel bearing on the weekend solid wheel model HD not interested in fixing as out of waranty but have said WE have a new bearing it's better than the old one but no it's not a recall item, took it elsewere and got it fixed for way less with the new style bearing