I am having the cam chain tensioner upgrade, and base o rings replaced, as they are seeping. My bike is a 2003, that I bought with 2k miles, in 2011. Since then I have put on 28k miles.

I see talk on here that garage queens leak. I have also seen people say you can cause gasket leaks by not warming up your bike. I let my bike warm up while I put my helmet and gloves on and shut the garage door, so probably 2 minutes. Longer if it is under 45.

Is there anything I can do after this top end repair to prevent leaks?

 

Bump.

 

Drain all the oil out?
Seriously, I've found James and Cometic gaskets to be better in some cases than the stock ones. I think H-D even started using James at some point.

 

Had no problem with oil leaking from standing for long periods. I did have a leak when new. I just re torqued the bolts. This doesn't work all the time. I was lucky.

 

really nothing you can do preventively just ride it. warming up is more for getting piston to cyl, clearance better, won't do a lot for helping leaking, but is highly recommended. Cometic gaskets are much better than the harley ones, but can still leak. these motors grow a lot getting up to temps, and that causes the gaskets to eventually fail.

 

It was explained to me that those “weeps” were caused by dissimilar metals expanding (due to heat) at different rates. If you let the motor warm up (Cylinders warm to the touch) then you should be OK. But if you’re like most people that is not always an option due to early mornings or late nights, Cool temps and neighbors. So you can try not to put a lot of load on the motor when you first start up and take off until the motor warms up. (don’t lug it as that is even worst)
Using top grade gaskets as suggest helps.

 

Dang, if you are replacing the cylinder base gaskets and going into the cam chest it would be a great time to throw in some nice cams and bump the compression up a tad!

 

My understanding is, that if I upgrade the cams, then I need to add a tuner. I have been happy with my Stage One/Dealer ECM flash, and want to keep things simple.

 

If you do cams you will need to do a tuner & dyno run, but you will be VERY happy with the results. Did it this summer, & the difference is unbelieveable! All the ECM flash does is raise the rev limit.

 

Glad you are happy with the Stage 1 flash but for me it was still running very lean and had bad decel pop all the time - was embarressing

Not too complicated to add a tuner like the Power Vision, Cometic .030" head gaskets to bump the compression up, and a nice set of cams. A dyno tune would be best but Fuel Moto could load a map on that Power Vision that will be close and then do a couple Autotunes to improve it a bit more. Probably increase your cost about $800.