Hey all,
I've gotten plenty of good advice and ideas here, so thought it was my turn to share.
I'm still dealing with the occasional cut out and won't start electrical issue, but I think I'm narrowing it down to the plug at the ECM. Taking that apart today.
But two weeks ago I began to notice oil puddles under the bike (damn Harleys) and after some investigation came to the conclusion that I was the latest victim of the dreaded rear rocker box gasket failure. Yikes! And I have a trip planned in mid September with a friend. Double Yikes!
So do I continue to dump my expensive synthetic oil all over the ground and wipe up the mess, or take the plunge and try to replace it. After much grumbling and staring at the bike from a variety of angles, I chose the latter.
First word of advice, if you ever want to try this, get a service manual. You should have one anyway if you tinker at all, but it saved me so much time and guesswork on this project. It was worth every penny.
I don't plan to detail the process here, but I want you to know it isn't as bad as it sounds. Everything went just as the manual described, and I don't even possess a service stand or any other fancy bike service equipment.
Do use a good rear stand though, and the manual suggests securing the front wheel in a locking chock or something similar. I didn't and it would have helped.
It also suggests removing the muffler and belt idler pulley. Both will hit parts of the swingarm as the engine pivots downward if you pivot if far enough. I have a shortened/modified muffler so I didn't think it would be a problem, and it wasn't. And the geometry of Mr. Buell's belt system is perfect, so the whole assembly appears to pivot just fine without removing the pulley, as long as you don't drop it down too far.
I simply lowered the engine until the front of the muffler was resting on a 2X4 padded with a piece of stiff foam. Worked great and allowed plenty of access to change gaskets on both cylinders, as well as the spark plugs and wires. Might as well do those too when they are so easy to get to, right?
I buttoned everything up and went for my shakedown ride yesterday, all seems to be well in UlyLand.
Thanks again to all for the guidance this last year here; I hope my little story will inspire others to tackle this intimidating but really not too bad project.
I've gotten plenty of good advice and ideas here, so thought it was my turn to share.
I'm still dealing with the occasional cut out and won't start electrical issue, but I think I'm narrowing it down to the plug at the ECM. Taking that apart today.
But two weeks ago I began to notice oil puddles under the bike (damn Harleys) and after some investigation came to the conclusion that I was the latest victim of the dreaded rear rocker box gasket failure. Yikes! And I have a trip planned in mid September with a friend. Double Yikes!
So do I continue to dump my expensive synthetic oil all over the ground and wipe up the mess, or take the plunge and try to replace it. After much grumbling and staring at the bike from a variety of angles, I chose the latter.
First word of advice, if you ever want to try this, get a service manual. You should have one anyway if you tinker at all, but it saved me so much time and guesswork on this project. It was worth every penny.
I don't plan to detail the process here, but I want you to know it isn't as bad as it sounds. Everything went just as the manual described, and I don't even possess a service stand or any other fancy bike service equipment.
Do use a good rear stand though, and the manual suggests securing the front wheel in a locking chock or something similar. I didn't and it would have helped.
It also suggests removing the muffler and belt idler pulley. Both will hit parts of the swingarm as the engine pivots downward if you pivot if far enough. I have a shortened/modified muffler so I didn't think it would be a problem, and it wasn't. And the geometry of Mr. Buell's belt system is perfect, so the whole assembly appears to pivot just fine without removing the pulley, as long as you don't drop it down too far.
I simply lowered the engine until the front of the muffler was resting on a 2X4 padded with a piece of stiff foam. Worked great and allowed plenty of access to change gaskets on both cylinders, as well as the spark plugs and wires. Might as well do those too when they are so easy to get to, right?
I buttoned everything up and went for my shakedown ride yesterday, all seems to be well in UlyLand.
Thanks again to all for the guidance this last year here; I hope my little story will inspire others to tackle this intimidating but really not too bad project.
