Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Which Compensator is right for your driving style?

We have a choice of two different compensator, the original Harley Davidson shovelhead dampened direct drive design or the new updated rubber unit where the 4 round rubber isolators rotate around inside the compensator?

From my other post about removing the engine and transmission:
We did disassemble the entire Morgan designed drive system last night, clutch pack, flywheel and compensator. I have to say it was fun digging into what Morgan has designed. What we have found is that Morgan has designed a road race clutch package vs. a hot dog - drag racing usability clutch package.
How do you drive your Morgan, burning rubber and power shifting 2nd gear or moderate takeoffs with RPM matching shifting which is what the factory has installed. This brings us to the two different compensating units Morgan sells. The original Harley Davidson 1984 Shovelhead direct drive compensating sprocket which is in my 2012 unit or the new updated rubber rotating compensator that Morgan is now selling customers.
After looking at both compensating units, one will be better for the hot dogger kind of driver while the other would be better for the easy as you go driver not wanting to burning any tire rubber.

Now to new turf as HD has over the years made updates to the Shovelhead direct drive design that Morgan has not chose to use.

I'm the hot dog kind of driver and want that direct drive unit as compared to the updated version where you will be spinning the rubber parts around inside the new compensator.
It looks like we may modify the original HD compensator with the Harley updated design. More on this as we figure it out, can we make a better mouse trap.

the 1984 HD compensating sprocket diagram.
The bottom diagram above.

we are working on modifying this setup since it works better with my hot rod style of driving.

HD dampened direct drive unit out of my Morgan
What is inside this sealed HD unit is shown in the bottom diagram from a HD manual.
You can see that the two metal parts fit together making a hard direct drive which is made to expand and slip when there is too much torque.
The new updated new Morgan I think will have much more slip built into the 4 rubber rotating design to help keep the drivetrain under less stress.


[img:left]http://postimg.org/image/ol1qfkqz3[/img]

the new updated Morgan compensator with the revolving 4 rubber bits.
I would think that if you got on it hard, these rubber things will be rotating around inside the compensator instead of my tire burning out!
How long can these rubber bits last?
Probably is decided by how heavy your foot is on gas petal!

wearing out drive spindle too

This is drive spindle connects into the rubber isolation part

Shouldn't that be full of moly grease? Or did you clean it?

If you look at my other post, I detail taking the whole engine - trans apart
"Removing the engine trans to replace the clutch slave.

This the inside of the flywheel back plate, the wearing drive spindle inserts into the round rubber isolation part which as the female coupler attracted.

The only grease is the sealed HD compensator sprocket which is attached to the other side of the rubber insulation part.

Hope that helps

Interesting. My engine was sent back to S&S for a crankshaft replacement as the drive spindle was bent and worn and the H-D unit was the culprit. I'll take the new one thank you very much.

J, to be honest with you, none of the new Harley SE comps are holding up very well. That leads companies like Baker Transmissions in MI to design their own comp to sell against the HD units.

It's true that in the Harley style comp that if the Bellville washer spring packs do compress all the way, the two rotating ramps will NOT go past each other. So in the worst case it is direct drive.

As far as the Centa goes, I would go that route in a heartbeat. Bikes have been using rubber in the rear sprocket as a cush drive of sorts for years and Harley started with their cush drive in '08 as standard. It makes a huge difference on the Harleys in low speed parking lot riding. I've ridden both and prefer the rubber rear cush drive rear sprockets.

Centa has been making cush drives for decades and they use them in huge industrial power plants as well as huge diesel powered ships.

Even though it's possible IF the four rubber rods do go out, it would not be a metal to metal failure and only the rubber pieces would need to be replaced.

But from what I've researched, I don't see that happening any time soon. I've got 15k miles on my 1802cc 110" Harley and the rear cush drive rubbers are in as new condition when I had the rear wheel off for tire service.

You will get a "direct" drive with the Centa, albeit a slightly softer feel than with the Harley type.

I just feel that with the torque of the S&S 2L, you will never get a metal comp to last very long.

The Harley SE Rev 4 or 5 version, I've lost count, actually now has Torrington bearings in them and they use a new molded in oil deflector to direct the oil that's flinging around inside the primary case to drip back into the comp outer bearing. The constant flow of oil "seems" to be working better this time around. They also changed the ramp angles a bit.

My money would be to actually take the round rubber donut and stack about five of them in series so each would have its own twisting give motion and use them instead of either type of comp. I believe that if they're good enough for the larger series BMW sedans to use them as the differential to driveshaft coupling, it would be good enough for a 2L pulsating V-twin. Of course this is just my opinion.

I would think that at either end of the new comps in the M3W the splines should be locked and not allowed to "chuck" back and forth. I know the S&S flywheel side has a bolt through it into the crank, but I've not seen much in the parts catalog that connects the splined adapter to the stub transmission flywheel shaft. I see that there's a metal three forked hub that has a spline on the trans flywheel side but not sure how it's affixed to the trans flywheel stub shaft. I may be wrong and there is a substantial means of tightening the three fork adapter nice and tight. As far as the S&S side, on Harleys we torque the comp bolt down very tight and it's gets a dab of blue Loctite on its threads. You usually don't hear of any coming loose and when you do need to remove the comp bolt, it's a heck of a job to break them loose.

I'm very interested in your progress and love your updates.

I know I have no skin in the game here, but my money would be on the Centa versus any type of the metal type comp. Just because they're packed in grease, that doesn't mean the grease stays in contact to all of the wear surfaces. As some have said here that when their comp starts to rattle they shoot more grease into the comp through the hole in the bottom of the trans to motor housing. So that kind of leads me to believe that the metal comps need constant lube and grease is just not going to keep that constant contact thing going. Obviously you cannot have a fluid comp as that would be a very hard thing to pull off, but if you could, they may last longer.

So with all my rambling on and on and on... I've not been much help to you. I do wish you good luck and you're doing lots of people here a big favor showing them what they have inside their drivelines.

Have a great weekend.

I chose to install the new rubber type compensator today.
All the parts are new, bought it from Morgan West, San Diego dealer.
A manual for this new assembly would be useful !
Thank goodness we have both car and HD cycle mechanics in our car club,
Bench Racing Specialists
You do need a press to press out and in bearings and a shaft.

No greased HD compensating sprocket, no rubber insulator, no worn shaft that went into the rubber isolator, a more simple design with the four rotating rubber inserts..

All went well and it's all buttoned up waiting for the new clutch pack to be assembled.

I'll post picture with explanations soon.