darkith, I think you hit the nail on the head. My problem was exactly what you said, a combo of badly cast gears and badly stamped gearbox.

buntingtosser, thanks for the info, never thought of just switching motors. Are the motors on the new steel gearboxes the same as the ones on the metal gearboxes??

rclaw, I got my S&S HL Tiger the first week of 09 and it came with, I believe, the RX-14.

Are there any improvements or advantages to having the RX18 over the RX14?