I broke exhaust stud on front cylinder and had to remove the head on my 04 Low Rider with 50k miles. Im not sure if this is normal wear for a piston or not and was hoping someone more knowledgeable would chime in and offer advise. Im still having a helluva time getting the rear exhaust stud nut off and might end up snapping that one as well, I hope not but its not looking to good.
So with that said, is this a good time to do new pistons? If so what else would I need to have done, like cylinders sleeved etc.

I really dont have any budget for this so I cant get too crazy if it needs freshening up. Appreciate any advise on this. Thanks for your time and patience.

 

That oil chit is from the breather assembly.......routes the crankcase atmosphere to the intake......oil mist gets sucked in.....EPA crap.........I think you'll be fine with the way they are........you can try to clean it up but I just went through what you're going through with broken studs and left it as is as I don't want to try to clean it and end up getting crap down between pistons and cylinders.

 

Looks normal to me.

 

there doesn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary going on. how is your oil consumption? if not bad, and there are no out of place noises or performance issues you should be ok putting it back together again. did you check the compression before you took it apart? if so was it in spec and both cylinders within 5%? those would be the determining factors for me.
m

 

Did not check compression before take apart. There's no leaks and no burning oil from what i can tell over the last few thousand miles I've had her. She actually ran very strong.
im gonna pull cylinders to see if there any scoring and ill post back with an update.

 

looks normal,but that dosnt mean I wouldn't pull the cylinder,tq plate & check cylinders.ide think about going .005 over & a fresh bore.dont forget new valve seals too