Is this normal?

[Jagster]

Does the Rocket 3's have the same cush system as the older III's, that could explain the slack.

I can't answer that one without doing a bit of research.

 

[Alexxxman]

Lifted up my M109 to check and found pretty similar results.
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[Jagster]

You don't even need to lift up the bike to test this. All you have to do is put the bike into first gear and rock it back and forth.
All bikes have free play in the transmission, and not all bikes have cush-drive systems on them.

I would be more worried if there was zero play in the drive train, though granted, too much play could be problematic.

The only way to really gauge if there is anything valid to be taken up with the dealer, is if some folks measured the amount of forward & rearward movement (i.e. the total distance moved) in first gear when rocking the bike back & forth on a level surface.
I would expect they would all be pretty close to each other, but highly unlikely to be exactly the same.

 

[stingray]

Seems like that check gets everything from bevel box gear lash, spline lash, u-joints and the trans output backlash. Not sure it means anything but certainly clunks when doing hard decel. Maybe engine braking is not good with this kind of arrangement.