So im trying to help my father in law get to the bottom of his issues with a custom bike he has , it has a S&S twin cam style engine on it , I cant say if its a 96 or what it is , hes kind of clueless. he bought it already built and didn't get all the information on it. he bought this thing years before I ever met his daughter, anyways.... Its having issues staying running , runs for 15 mins , dies, sits for a few minutes, fires back up and on your way. he lets it sit to long and when he fires it up from time to time after running for a minute or 2 itll blow a but load of oil out of what looks like a blow by tube of sorts coming from the crank case , it has a softail style oil tank under the seat , im kind of leaning towards some sort of a check valve or something , something has to keep the oil from running down hill and totally engulfing the crankcase with oil right ? im still learning my way inside and out of V twins , after all , I do work on semi trucks.


Honestly the bike is crap , if I woudve been around when he was thinking of buying it I would have done my best to keep him from buying it. it has an open belt primary , something is funky with the transmission also , it can be running at idle in neutral and all of a sudden out of no where slam into gear and take off on you , when its running in 1st gear its impossible to get out of gear into neutral , have to shut it off to get it in neutral. the thing is a mess and im doing my best to help him out with it , but with me being a novice in motorcycles and him barely knowing how to do brakes on a car its just kind of irritating , he cant tell me anything about it !!! anyone got any ideas as far as the oil issue goes ? thanks!

 

Buy a big insurance policy on his *** if he doesn't get that bike into a shop!
Does that help?

 

Next time it dies, try taking the gas cap off and see if it starts right back up without waiting 15 mins...could be a clogged fuel tank vent line.
My girlfriend just bought her first bike, rebel 250, that was super low miles and had just sat...it would do the same thing, run 5 minutes then eventually die if you're going too fast. The vent hose was clogged, I drained and cleaned out the tank, it had nasty black sludge in it. Put brand new gas in it and now it runs like a beast!

I would do a full fresh fluid change in all 3 holes and make sure not to overfill the engine oil...that could be causing a ton of blowby.

The tranny issues I would say change the fluids and adjust the clutch and give it a try.
Maybe the shifter needs lubed?

I'm definitely no expert, just a home garage mechanic but that is where I would start my troubleshooting. Rule out the simple stuff first.

 

The engine running and then dying could be any of several things. If it has circuit breakers and an electrical fault then the CB will heat up, trip out, stop the bike, cool down then work again, hence you can restart the bike until next time. It could also be a faulty pick-up in the ignition system, which is mounted inside the timing cone.

I'm surprised by the oiling problem, as I wouldn't expect a genuine S&S engine to suffer. However it sounds as if the ball valve in the engine is allowing oil to leak past it and into the crankcase. On starting the engine the oil is ejected out of the breather.

The problem getting out of first is a classic clutch adjustment problem, in other words it is in need of adjustment. Go to the Tech Primary section where you will find a Sticky about doing that.

Having said all that, OldEnuf2NoBtr has the right idea - get the darned bike to a shop and tell your father-in-law to raid his piggy bank! Get the darned thing sorted.