My buudy brought his Road King by cause the shifter was hard to move.  Found that the sleeve goung through the primary where the rod from the shift arms go through is completely eaten away and oblong in shape.  Looks like he may have got some grit in there.

Can that sleeve simply be punched out and a new one pressed in, or should we just head down to the motorcycle salvage and see if we can pick up a new primary case?

Wow, never heard that one. I have seen Harley touring models with over 1/4 million miles and never heard of that sleeve wearing. Must have gotten something real tough in there.

Now the bad news... That sleeve is not replaceable. And since I just bought a new inner primary case after mine cracked when the stator rotor flew apart, I can tell you they cost $365 new! But the good news is they are real easy to replace, just over an hour with the right tools!!!

Maybe it is replaceable. Try gettin with a Harley shop run by someone thats about 60-65 years old. They had to manufacture their own parts and might be able to give you some insight as to anything else that can be done. Again, I cant diagnos a problem I can't see. Something caused it to happen and until you find out what you may find it happening again and again and again, that is if it is that rare. How many miles did you put on it? Some people only ride 3-5K miles a year and think their bikes are great because years go by b4 the hours or miles of use engineered into them arrives. Its real hard to say since Harleys been using a few metric parts since 1971 and who knows what tolerances happened in your case. All thats important now is to find out whats going on.