I just got finished doing my heads on my 1980 Flt , can anyone tell me why there wasn't any valve seals on the guides ? the bike has only 23K on her , and has never been apart , I went ahead and put seals in it ,I was just curious on why there wasn't any there , was it just a mess up with AMF ? it only puffed alittle when i shifted gears , so i thought valve seals . any help on it would be great Thanks

 

They didn't come from the factory with seals. Good idea to add 'em during a rebuild.

 

I have a indy buddy that is an old Iron guru. He won't put them on the on the exhaust guides on any of his builds. He claims in extreme heat the valves stems can gall. He says he likes a little extra lubrication. He did a top end job on my Ironhead at 11k milesfourteen years ago. I had a wrist pin keeper come out a while back and had him tear the engine down again. The bike has 52k on it now. The valves and guides were still within spec and didn't need replaced. Maybe he is on to something....Yeah, mine puffs a little at idle and when shifting gears.

 

in twenty some years, iv never had a valve guide seal at all..never had a problem because of it.