This happened to me last fall, right after the 05s came out. remember when you ride a used bike, there ain't no tellin' what someone else did before the divorce. Ya gotta treat 'em right and get 'em over the hurt, just like any other gal!

My sweet Black Cherry Pie Sloptail turned 18, or close enough now that the '05 bikes are out. We went out celebrating and she partied a little too hard, I guess. Noticed an oil leak on the right side of the oil tank and saddle bag. Nope, it ain't coming from the breather to the carb 'cause that's long gone. She drips her breather oil on the ground like any self-respecting bike!
The oil appeared to be coming from somewhere on the rear head. Checked the pushrod tubes, rocker cover gaskets, and no joy anywhere there. Time to pull the gas tanks and have a look at the top of the rear head. No apparent leaks from anything I could see, so it's "off with her rocker boxes!" Nothing coming from the rocker boxes.... Uh-oh, this ain't gonna be good!
Looked like the oil was seeping around the right front head bolt on the rear head. Not good at all, I sed, as visions of a cylinder stud stripping the threads outta the crankcase muscled their way into my thoughts. Put a torque wrench on the culprit and gently turned, but there was no resistance at all! This really and truly ain't good. Bit the bullet and got the head off and found the stud was intact in the cases, but missing a few threads at the top. Looked inside the head bolt and found 'em there.
Pulled the bad stud and installed a new one with no trouble. Time for a run to the nearest HD shop for a new head bolt and top end gasket set. Gottta do it on THE MAMA's Suzuki 'cause she has the car at her MSF course. Oh, the shame of it all!!!! (Oh well, at least I'm riding.)
Gotta get it done before Monday 'cause THE MAMA will be legal to ride her Savage solo, and she probably won't let me take it to work. Seems all the kids at the two campuses she nurses at want to see her ride it to work.
After talking to the guys at the not-so-local HD shop the mystery of why the threads stripped is solved. Seems there are early style and late style Evo head bolts. The early style use thick hardened washers, and the late style has the washer built into the bolt head. Mine had late style bolts with the early style washers underneath. That caused too few threads to grab and led to the one stripping out. So now I've gotta pull all the head bolts and ditch the washers underneath 'em. Sometimes buying a used bike sucks. Oh well, if I can’t ride, I’m glad I can wrench.

 

PocoCj, are you going to do a polish while you have the head bolts off? I don't know about you but I can't do a simple repair without doing some sort of improvement. Give the old girl some love, and get some extra ponies at the same time.

 

Y'know, I thought about polishing the heads and exhaust tracts, but was trying to get everything back together to go on a ride. Didn't happen this time, but when the top end needs rebuilt sometime in the future I'll polish 'em up.

 

After 18 years she probably needs a rebuild soon.

 

Well I have a oil leak story from yesturday's ride. I went to the HD dealer to get some chrome spacer's and longer bolt's for my wife's new rear foot peg's and while I was riding I sort of pulled the hammer back and let her breath,you know 70 to 80 mph,well when I arrived I looked down and there was oil all over the side of the oil tank,I wiped it off and could see nothing to cause it. My salesman said I had to much oil in but I told him I had only installed 3 qts. and it was on the mark which his reply was shoot for the middle of the mark to the low side of the mark,well not satisifed with this answer I went to the service desk and they checked the oil and it was perfect but while doing this we noticed that the temp gauge,which was a cheap no name was fitting very very loose,we got a HD temp gauge and it was real tight,Problem solved. So I guess the moral of this story is cheaper ain't alway's better.[sm=exactly.gif]

 

Skip, why don't you just chrome everything out?

 

Actually when I pulled her down and looked everything over I was very pleasantly surprised. The hone marks were still visible completely around the cylinder walls. Only the faintest scuff marks visible on the fore and aft walls. Rod side shake well within spec. Valves looked good, too. Pretty good for 100k+miles.