Hi All,

in the process of swaping out leaking rockerbax gaskets but I can't seem to wiggle the rear head out of the frame. Any help would be helpful.

Thanks

 

Make sure the piston is all the way down , if its at the top head will hang on it and yah it's that close

 

"Make sure the piston is all the way down , if its at the top head will hang on it and yah it's that close"<-------What he said!

I had a '80 model that the top of the cylinder was just a c-hair too tall to get the head out of the frame. Finally just pulled the motor. It was the root cause of the rear head blowing the head gasket. Once it was shaved, no more blown gaskets.

 

78's into 1980 I found the factory had problems with the head gasket surface having a taper on some instead being flat & parallel and some deck heights where screwy like yours . Drove me nuts with a few bikes till I saw a pattern and wised up , that rear head doesn't have a lotta room anyway and all it takes is a fat frame weld or rough rockerbox not polished down enough and your day goes to **** and a motor pull . Been there a few times .

 

thanks guys, I'll try that in the am when I get out of work, when I reassemble the rocker boxes should I use lock tight and permatex?

Thanks,

 

Get the metal wafer gaskets man DO NOT use the old paper style if you can avoid it . The new ones are install dry and forget them . Even on the old paper gaskets any sealer is a bad idea it weakens the gasket and you get deformation after you torque and run the motor a few times , recheck the nuts you'll find them loose again .

I was going through the old style about every 2 or 3 years haven't changed another since I went the new ones . A dab of blue loctite on the box studs , torque & let sit overnight and your good to go .

 

thanks for the help the rear piston was up so after a little movment the head came right off. I will start to put her back together the end of the week I will let you know how it goes.

 

OK, things are starting to go back together, getting ready to bolt the heads back on should I use loctite on the bolts?

 

NOT the headbolts just torque those down to 65ft pounds and do it in a criss cross pattern starting with 25 then 45 then 65 ft lbs and go round twice on the 65 . The rocker box nuts torque to 12 to 15 ft lbs also in the cross pattern , just a touch of blue loctite maybe no red .

 

Last night I ran into this very issue same year Shovel (mine is an 4-speed FXE kick & electric, rotary top btw), also an 80 incher with S&S jugs, rods & wheels in original stock frame & HD cases with matching serial numbers; and did some googling and found this thread...

I found a work around that did not require the engine removal that I thought it would after reading this last night...

On mine, I found that if I removed the first 3 rocker box nuts, front to back on the primary side... that gave me the c***-hair more room to get the rear one off without removing the engine...

big sigh of relief...

Maybe obvious to some, not so obvious to others, hoping it will save somebody a engine removal in the future just to change a fricking gasket.

FWIW The HD OEM Manual is the ONLY manual worth a nickel for this bike and it is greatly lacking in need to know info, makes way too many assumptions that whomever is working on the bike is a former or current HD factory employee... IMHO