The other night, I put on a new derby cover and everything went smooth. Followed the manual and tightened it up to 84 inch pounds.

After I installed it, I was like damn, I was also going to change the oil, but got to excited and forgot to when I had the derby cover off.


So, I decided to go ahead and change the oil regardless and pull the primary chain inspection cover off to fill it because I didn't want to take the derby cover off again.


So, I drained the oil, put the drain plug back in, and added a quart through the primary chain inspection hole.


I was going to do a new gasket and O-rings, but just went ahead and put the old gasket on temporarily and tightened it up to 84 inch pounds like the manual says.


I got to reading on some forums today and the factory manual is wrong and the primary chain inspection cover should only be 40-60 inch lbs.


It looked like a lot of guys were stripping them out following the factory specs.


So my dilemma is...should I leave it alone and not ever touch it again since I believe the threads did not strip...


or should I take it off and apply new gaskets and O-rings and tighten it back to the correct 40-60 inch pound and pray I didn't screw it up?

 

If it's not leaking leave it alone, add it to your winter work list so if there is a problem when you take it off you don't loose valuable summer riding time taking care of it.

 

I'd leave it. You would know if you stripped the threads as you would probably start to feel it go loose. Just remember next time not so much. When I did mine I didnt use a torque wrench just tightened till it felt tight and its fine.

 

It's not so much about stripping the threads, as it is more likely that folks were stripping the hardware head (torx)

 

Tighten it back to the correct torques and that's it. We all know how slightly over torqued hardware goes the next time we try to loosen it.

 

the head on the primary chain inspection cover screws are 5/32 allen heads. they aren't going to strip.


what is stripping/disintegrating is the aluminum primary cover.


from the ones ive looked at on a google search, it looks like pieces are breaking off. im almost tempted to take it off and make sure nothing is broken and fell down into the engine.


Harley should be held responsible for putting false information in their service manuals, but I guess they wont stand behind it if you strip them out and refuse to update their service manual to the correct torque specs.

 

Into the engine, or primary? Sorry I forgot those screws were Allen's, as I haven't had that inspection cover for many years now....

 

broken pieces of aluminum falling down into the primary.

 

What a cry baby.

You would have to prove to the courts that you both knew how and used a calibrated quality torque wrench. Yes.....torque wrenches can be calibrated.

Now quit your whining and fix the damn thing.

 

Cry baby? Seriously, lol.