Went to harley dealer this morning and bought new lifters and gaskets. First time I've done this job, but it went pretty smooth. Got the front cylinder done today, will tackle the rear tomorrow. Got one question though: After I got everything tightened down and the push rods adjusted, I remembered my bike now has SE-4 cam and 10 to 1 compression pistons. I'm assuming the stock harley lifters are ok to use on this set-up?????????? One other thing: I tried holding the new lifters in place with a paper clip as the shop manual says, but couldn't quite get it to grab. My wife suggested maybe a couple of small extendable magnets, (like you get at autozone) might hold them while I slipped the lifter block in place. Sure enough, they held the lifters up while I eased the lifter block into place. Went in right the first time.

 

Your lifters will work fine.

 

Got it back together yesterday and fired it up. It tapped a little for the first 30 seconds, then smoothed out. I guess everything had to get pumped back up, even though I did soak the new lifters in oil before installing. Went for a 100 mile ride and she ran great. I did a compression check when I got home just to see if everything was opening and closing properly, and both cylinders were at 200 lbs each, within 1 lb of each other. Spark plugs light brown. That 200 lbs is from the high compression pistons. They really did make a difference in the acceleration on this old bike.

 

Sounds as if you did a perfect build! Well done. It would be interesting to see what the dyno numbers are.

 

With 200 lbs compression make sure you get your gas from stations that have have seperate hoses for different grades of gas. If you don't you can get a gallon of so of the last gas pumped, which is usually regular. This reduces the octane rating and can cause problems. Oh be sure to run a VOES with that, set it at 7 hg, this will help reduce your chances to ping. Hope this helps.

 

Nice work, I will have to do this soon as my lifter blocks are seeping oil (and everything else too).