Taking her apart to this point was a piece of cake!

Please evaluate this view of the valve. It looks toasted to me.



It looks like she's been running quite rich to me.



Sure hope I can get her back together...........

 

The plugs are dark because you idled it for so long as per your other thread, to diagnose your mixture you need to do a plug chop. The bottom one looks a little wet, could just be the picture...?

Ds

 

Whats a "plug chop?"

 

It takes a snapshot of the mixture at certain speeds.

For instance, want to see how your highspeed jet is working? Take a ride and get the bike going 70 mph for 5 miles and just hit the kill switch while the throttle is held where it was. Pull over to the side of the road, take out the plugs and have a look. You can do the same for the slow speed side but carb'd Harleys will almost always show a rich condition at idle...

Many folks say you should start with new plugs each time but I find if you clean them well you can determine where you are at reusing them.

Google it up on you tube or something for a better explaination, good way to see how your carb is set up.

Ds

 

How many miles on those plugs. Mine are still squared off and look good at 10K. Might be nice to edit your first post for a little history on miles and type of maintenance to make it a little more detail orientated and why your are tearing it down.. Thanks

 

I bought her with 47K, now she has 52k+. I don't know how many miles the plugs have. I planned on changing them.

I'm tearing her down to fix the leaky base gaskets.

 

I just completed this same job. Most of the work is in removing the tank, rockers, carb, exhaust, etc. The easy part was the head and jug. I also had to repair a cylinder stud that was pulling out of the case. Easy fix too with the Timesert Kit. If you don't already have adjustable pushrods, you might want to install a set of the screamin' eagle ez install ones. They make working on these engines a lot easier. Good luck.

 

Thanks, she already has the SE rods. Did you have the cylinder honed and install new rings?

Anything with the valves?

 

It was bored .005, new rings, JE high comp pistons, just to wake it up a little. It had 116,000 miles on it at the time, still had good compression and ran fine. Like you, I just started out replacing a leaking base gasket. I went ahead and did all the other stuff while it was apart, including new lifters. If your bike only has 50,000 miles on it, it probably doesn't need anything but the base gaskets replaced. You might put a new set of lifters in it while it's apart, if you don't know how many miles are on the current ones. They're pretty easy to replace. I think the adjustment on the SE pushrods is 2.5 turns, after they're seated, if they're the same thread pitch as mine.

 

Should I drain the engine oil before I remove the cylinders? Or will all of the oil stay in the bottom of the engine?