I have been riding bigtwins for the last 25 years, done all my own wrenching tuning, bla,bla bla. Now for the first time in my life, a 2002 sportster is showing up in my garage and its got issues! The only history the young lady (owner) has its now a 1200 and is running extremely hot to the point sounding like the lifters are collapsing. We got stuck in a traffic jam for about 20 minutes a few nights ago ( temps were about 65 degrees) and I thought her motor was going to grenade! My guess is the carb is too lean on the pilot and or idle mixture. Can anybody give me a ballpark jet size for this motor. I understand more info is needed (cam, compression, ect.) but that isnt going to happen right now. Im thinking Im going to go one up on the pilot and check the idle mixture and change the oil to a straight 60wt which by the way hasent been changed in 2 years. She also stated the choke has to be on for a while when first started which is a red flag to me Any suggestions?

 

You could try a #45 pilot jet, that's one size up from the stock #42 stock.
As for the "choke", that depends on how long "a while" really is. It takes a few minutes, depending on the air temperature, before my bike is ready for the enrichner to be fully pushed in (off).

 

Ya, I think the first thing Im going to do is pull the plugs and see if they are snow white,(which I'm assuming at this point they are) then the carb and see what size pilot is in there and go up one size on that. Doing a little research on the net I found out that sportys take only 2.5 qts of oil, that not much especially if its running hot. I think a straight 60wt oil is only going to help this puppy! Just a thought, are sportys known for intake manifold leaks???? Thanks for the info

 

Not what I was expecting to see. Still got to pull the carb and check jetting sizes and needle position, may drop needle one notch. Do most of you sporty guys run oil coolers?

 

I'd venture to say that most of us don't... as evidenced by the rarity of threads on oil coolers on this forum. It's just one more potential point of failure, so why bother when those bikes run fine without.

 

Well, I got that sporty running pretty darn good. So far, no clatyclack noises from the valvetrain. Problems I found were: oil tank filled all the way to the top, very loose exhaust bolts (which may have been most of the noise when hot) and loose rear shock bolt. Now from the info I have gathered (remember, no shop manual) 2.5 qts of oil put it at the bottom line on the dipstick which I'm led to believe is the cold checkmark. Is this correct? The young lady is very happy with it so far which makes me happy!

 

Not really. Oil levels should only be checked/adjusted when the motor is hot/warm. The lower "Add" mark is one quart below the Full mark. The oil level should be kept mid way between the marks. Filling to the Full mark usually results in oil puking from the breathers.

 

Per my manual for my 2002 bigtwin, the cold oil level check is in the middle between the 2 arrows on the dipstick. Not saying I dont believe you charley but the sporty manual has to have a cold check point on the dipstick. I have no problem checking a hot oil level but Im not comfortable asking this young lady to perform this check. I would like to know exact wording out of the manual if anybody has this info handy. As I mentioned earlier, I put in 2.5 qts and think Im in the safe area. As a matter of fact, Im riding with her tomorrow and will do a hot check to see where it is at. Thanks

 

You can get an owners manual here.
https://www.harley-davidson.com/cont...rs-manual.html

According to my manual (2011) there is a cold level check. Its pulling the dipstick and making sure it at least touches the dipstick. If it does, get the engine to operating temp then check to see if its between the 2 marks.

It says you can only accurately check the oil when hot, on level ground, on the side stand. The reason for that is that oil will make its way back from the tank to the sump. The amount of oil that does this is different for all bikes.

So basically the cold level check is to make sure you have "some" oil.

 

Thanks, I will have an opertunity this evening to do a hot check