I am helping a buddy with his bike 1997 road king all stock EFI 80 cu evo 10650 miles on it. lost oil pressure, we removed the cam cover to find a snap ring jammed in the oil pump drive gear.
will I have to split the case to fix this looks like the crank bearing came apart. any help would be cool.

 

I would pull it apart because you may have damage on the rollers and you also need to find out why the snap ring failed....is the groove OK for one thing.

Alternatively, you could try to squeeze it all back together and hope it holds until the winter but you'll always be worrying about it.

 

How does that crap happen? And less than 11K miles? Sheesh..........

 

Somebody, somewhere didn't do their job properly, maybe the groove was too shallow, maybe the snap ring got over-extended on fitting, maybe the bearing was made wrong.....it needs a proper investigation as I have never seen or heard of this before.

 

Thanks for the info I will pull the engine out and do a complete crank inspection. Looks like the snap ring on the inside must have come off too or the race could not come out. Just looking at my HD manual.

 

He got the bike last year and it had only 8500 miles. When we pulled it apart I had to drill out the rivets on the cam cover so nobody was in there before. The bike must have sat in the old owners shop for a lot of years with out running to have that low of miles on it. I will update as I know what happened.

 

You could try pushing the race back in and fitting a new snap ring, you'll soon know if its not OK. Depends on if you have the time and money.

 

It's hard to see in the pic but the oil pump gear mushroomed the end. it can only come out. the case will have to be split and a new bearing hope the crank is ok.

 

Or you could slide a new race in but a full strip down is the sensible answer.

 

What a Bitch of a deal you have been handed here !?
It sounds like some previous work was done wrong but you say there has been no one else in there ???
We are pullin for ya ., keep us posted .