Rebuilding my 1988 Softail and thought I'd remember the oil routes from the oil tank! Duh! I've had numerous offers of advice, but my oil tank has different outlets to those in the manuals I've seen. Looking forward from above, there are 2 outlets on the right hand bottom of the tank facing forward, the drain outlet at right rear, and another outlet inset next to it facing forward. You can't see inside the tank to see which is a breather, feed or return. Haynes manual doesn't cover it, I don't have a Clymer yet, and the parts fische doesn't show the route. Anyone know which is which! And then, which outlet on the fuel pump does the feed pipe connect to - left or right? I have an oil cooler, and which feed connects to the oil filter? There's an 'in' and 'out' option. Thanks in advance! (Hope your weather is better than ours in Scotland!)

 

Looking forward:

Oil supply from tank (nipple on rear of tank) to nipple on right side of pump.

Left nipple on pump to inlet on oil filter housing.

Oil out of filter housing will then go to the oil cooler.

Oil from oil cooler will return to tank through the right side nipple on tank.

Left side nipple on tank is breather to crankcase (the fitting on crankcase just above the oil pump).

If you are not sure which nipple is the oil filter inlet, remember that the oil flows into the filter from the outside, and leaves the filter through the center.

The weather in Connecticut sucks...

 

Dan89FLSTC, you are the Man! There is a God, and he lives in Connecticut! Even my local dealer got confused by the options, but there are a lot of options. On the weather front, you guys have predictable (bad) weather - here, if we get 2 inches of snow, the buses don't come out, and they close all the roads! In Scotland? Thanks again...

 

Hey Dan,
Your advice was bang-on, but I have a slight deviation from your map of the route. On my bike, where you said 'left nipple on pump to inlet on oil filter housing' mine goes to the oil cooler. Then, you said 'oil out of filter housing will then go to oil cooler', mine goes out of the oil cooler to the oil filter. On mine, the oil then goes from the oil filter ('out' spigot) back to the tank through the right side nipple on tank!

Does it matter, as the oil is being filtered after its gone through the oil cooler rather than before? At least, that's how I read it. Look forward to your comments.

 

Ideally you would want the oil to go through the oil filter first, since hot oil will go through the filter easier, Evo`s need all the help they can get on the scavenge circuit...

I don`t think you need an oil cooler on an Evo, I had one on my `89 Softail, but the oil never got very hot, so I took it off. I was living in South Florida at the time.

 

In this weather, we need oil warmers! I'll leave it on cos I did France last year - 33 degrees C most days, and plan to do Italy this year. Ta for the advice