Areg, I hope that your HD compensator lasts a long time more for you.

But it all comes down to lubrication and materials.

The comp that's used on your M3W does not last when used in a flooded oil environment of the Harley primary system, and a smaller motor with a lot less load. So I truly believe that it's really not if, but when yours is going to give way.

Here is a link that I posted some time ago with pictures of a M3W comp with around 5k miles on it.

CLICK HERE FOR THE LINK

Even with the grease fitting on the main chamber of the compensator housing, you're NEVER going to get grease all the way through the very tightly packed sprocket to the rear where the splined crank hub slides into the compensator.

As I stated in the posting, when this wears it directly releases tension on the Bellville washer pack on the outboard end of the package. The spring pack cannot stand to lose any compression or it allows the two triple ramps to rotate further and further until the whole thing basically comes loose and rattles like crazy.

When they get noisy and you refill, or pack them with grease through the zerk fitting, all you're really doing is packing the two triple ramps creating some friction with the grease and just slowing things back down, but for them to rattle, there's already signs of wear that you cannot get back with just refilling with grease.

I do wish you good luck limping along with what you have, but as they say, the hand writing is on the wall. Start saving your pennies for the Centa conversion, probably sometime soon.

With all of the issues over the short so far life of the new M3W, I've given lots of thought to the compensator issues.

There are lots of items available, but none of the manufacturers will commit to its use in this application.

Here is what I've found that "might" be an alternative. The picture shows it as a three sided coupling, but the Love Joy LF22 is actually a four point flexible coupling. Unlike the original BMW/Mercedes rear driveshaft "flex" coupling, the Love Joy coupling has a max angle wind-up of 7.5 degrees in each direction. This would be very similar to the HD compensator. I'm thinking that from what I've seen on the Centa comp, the Centa may have a bit more wind-up, hence why Phil has been experimenting with his more limited squish inserts.

CLICK HERE FOR THE LOVE JOY LF22 SPEC SHEET

I believe that just one of these inside the bell housing with the appropriate mating adapters would be usable.

If you did the axial attachments into a plate splined and mounted onto the S&S flywheel and then extended the flywheel stub shaft all the way to be the radial mounting on the center of the Love Joy, I believe that may be a good solution. But it would take some basic engineering to get things right. It should fit inside the existing bell housing size wise.

The replacement Love Joy LF22 goes for around $200. So if needed, a replacement would not be overly expensive.

But I guess at this time there are WAY more Centa comps running great without the rubber rods breaking apart. So the Centa may be a good "enough" solution.

Just some food for thought.


Dan