Replacing Rocker Box Gaskets on a 00' Sportster?
Club Member
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 16,320
Likes: 306
From: Boynton Beach, FloriDuh
It looks to me like there is a bit of confusion here due to people misidentifying, or not clearly identifying, the parts involved.
Starting from the bottom up you have the Cylinder, then the Cylinder Head (often referred to as the rocker box), then the Inner rocker cover, and then the Outer rocker cover.
Accurate part descriptions usually produces better answers.
Starting from the bottom up you have the Cylinder, then the Cylinder Head (often referred to as the rocker box), then the Inner rocker cover, and then the Outer rocker cover.
Accurate part descriptions usually produces better answers.
Tourer
Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 341
Likes: 1
Just remove the bolts that hold the rocker box assy on. Make sure you rotate the crankshaft until both valve are closed before removing the bolts. Do one head at a time then move to the second head and make sure the valves are closed too.
Just make sure the pushrods are seated in the rocker arms before tighting the 5/16 bolts down first.
5/16" bolts are torque to 15-18 ft-lbs
1/4" bolts are torque to 10-13 ft-lbs
Piece of cake
Tourer
Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 341
Likes: 1
It looks to me like there is a bit of confusion here due to people misidentifying, or not clearly identifying, the parts involved.
Starting from the bottom up you have the Cylinder, then the Cylinder Head (often referred to as the rocker box), then the Inner rocker cover, and then the Outer rocker cover.
Accurate part descriptions usually produces better answers.
Starting from the bottom up you have the Cylinder, then the Cylinder Head (often referred to as the rocker box), then the Inner rocker cover, and then the Outer rocker cover.
Accurate part descriptions usually produces better answers.
Last edited by RacingJake; Jul 17, 2009 at 10:30 AM.
Club Member
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 16,320
Likes: 306
From: Boynton Beach, FloriDuh
Do not touch the head bolts.
Just remove the bolts that hold the rocker box assy on. Make sure you rotate the crankshaft until both valve are closed before removing the bolts. Do one head at a time then move to the second head and make sure the valves are closed too.
Just make sure the pushrods are seated in the rocker arms before tighting the 5/16 bolts down first.
5/16" bolts are torque to 15-18 ft-lbs
1/4" bolts are torque to 10-13 ft-lbs
Piece of cake
Just remove the bolts that hold the rocker box assy on. Make sure you rotate the crankshaft until both valve are closed before removing the bolts. Do one head at a time then move to the second head and make sure the valves are closed too.
Just make sure the pushrods are seated in the rocker arms before tighting the 5/16 bolts down first.
5/16" bolts are torque to 15-18 ft-lbs
1/4" bolts are torque to 10-13 ft-lbs
Piece of cake
Road Captain
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 656
Likes: 2
From:
to make sure both valves are closed, you want to take your sparkplugs out to releive all compression on the pistons......Then work the bike into 5th gear by rocking it back and forth while shifting, then you can roll the bike in gear and watch the rocker arms, and basically just roll the bike till you find the point where both valves are at their highest point together,, and vise versa if you look at the pushrod side of the rocker arms they'll be at their lowest point. Even when doing this there will ussually be some slight pressure on the rocker arms due to the hydrolic tappets, so any time i'll loosen the bolts on the lower rocker box i'll do so evenly over all the bolts maybe a half turn at a time, so any spring pressure doesn't **** rocker box at a funny angle. And like I said earlier, once you have yout bolts out, your gonna wanna wiggle the rocker around a little so you can pull the pushrods out, or it'll be pretty tricky to pull the rocker box out if you leave the pushrods in. By the way, even if you don't get your valves at just the right possition, you can still take the rocker off, but you'll just have to be extra carefull as you loosen the bolts up as there'll be some pressure on the rockers so you'll want to loosen all the bolts evenly so the rocker doesn't tilt.
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6th Gear
Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 13
Likes: 0
From: Central NJ
Drum thanks a ton...just before I go ahead and yank all this **** off....Just making sure that the only bolts I have to mess with are the ones circled in red in the following pictures correct?
