Thanks guys, I now know what year to begin the search with
Steve

 

ditto that.

 

Cruise control parts for 02 to I think 07 will be nearly impossible to find so if you get a bike in that age range and it goes bad you'll likely be SOL.

 

@Rustyg500 Do you have picks of the Road King? I'd love to see a bike that's been around the globe nearly 12 times.

 

Don't be afraid of a carb....

I live in San Diego and took annual trips to Yosemite over a 9 year span... Each time I had a carb bike, and each time I went into Yosemite through Tioga pass (10K feet).

My bikes never skipped a beat... Several trips were on a shovelhead with both OEM carb and then an SUII carb (w/ a bunch of engine mods). I also made several trips on an EVO engine with CV40 carb... They all performed flawlessly... The key was to tune them well.... Spend the time to get the right jets, needle, and mixture screw set-up for your mods, and then let the carb do it's stuff... carbs worked well for many, many years... if tuned correctly...

But when going to EFI, the touring models got the Delphi EFI system in 2002... the softails had it first in 2001...

If you get a Road king with EFI, that is 2002 or newer, you will have the better EFI system on your bike...

 

2002 is the cherry year for touring bikes...Delphi injection and still had the good cranks with the Timken bearings. Fix the tensioner and ride the crap out of it. If you go to look at something prior to an 07 make sure the tensioners have been dealt with...at least better shoes. Unless you can do your own work the fix can cost you a 1000 to 1500 or more depending on what fix you pick. Do it yourself and you could be in for less than 200 tops with the cheapest fix. Happy hunting and let us know when you find something.

 

1996 was the first year for FI for the Road King. I owned one. I eventually had to have it entirely rewired and converted to carb. It was a nightmare. Follow the advice of others above for the 'good' years.

 

Great advice! Just watched a vid with Cam Bearing replacement and figuring not that complicated.

Curious about the comment about Crankshaft, did the bean counters screw those up as well? and when/if that was ever corrected.

again thanks in advance
Steve

 

Yes, as usual...

1999 to 2002, the Twin Cam had hot forged cranks, and a lefty Timken bearing... it was a very solid bottom end. They had good crank run out numbers and were good, strong platforms to build on..

2003 to 2004, the Twin Cam lost the lefty Timken bearing and went to a roller bearing, but they had cold forged cranks. They usually had good crank run-out, but not as strong of a bottom end to build on, as the earlier ones with the lefty bearing.

2005 to the end of the Twin Cam run in 2016, all had the lefty roller bearing and cast cranks... this also began the increased crank run out from the factory... These bottom ends are the weakest for a high HP build.

I'm not sure if the crank issues were affected by the increase in the stroke of the 96" engine's 4.375" stroke, over the 88" engine's 4.000" stroke, but the Twin Cam run out increased through the years.

The MoCo in it's wisdom, allowed it to keep getting worse, and just kept moving the goal posts... Instead of engineering a fix to the crank issues, they just kept increasing the "allowable maximum run out" spec... They did this to avoid the need to rework an engines bottom end, if the run out damaged an oil pump or something similar, during the warranty period.... A been counter move if ever I saw one...

I think the final adjustment to the max crank run out was to allow around 0.012" in around 2012ish... To put that in perspective, S&S says any run out over 0.003" will ruin their gear drive cams. If you have your bottom end built by Dark Horse Crankworks, it will be delivered with a crank run out of less than 0.001"... S&S crate engines, with their very good 3 piece flywheel, will also be in that 0.001" crank run out area.

My 2001 Twin Cam, with the lefty bearing had a run out of 0.002" and my 2003 Twin Cam with the roller bearing but cold forged crank had a run out of 0.0024". I have heard of Twin Cams 2007+ who had run out, within the warranty period, of 0.007" and the MoCo called it good.

While the sky is not falling, those max allowable crank run out numbers are laughable to someone wanting a well built engine.. In OEM form, the chain drive cams are fairly forgiving of larger run out issues, but it could lead to oil pump problems.

In most cases, it will not cause serious issues with an OEM, Stage I or even a mild big bore build... but it is certainly an achilles heel. If it takes out an oil pump, that would lead to more serious consequences.....

A lot of the runout problems, especially in bikes where the run out increases over time/mileage, has to do with the way the flywheel/crank is built. That can lead to the crank "scissoring" in high HP builds or lesser builds that are "lugged" a lot... but luckily that is rare on smaller builds, and that is another discussion for another day..

Bottom line, if you want to do a big HP mod to a later year twin cam engine (2003+), you'd better plan on having the bottom end "beefed up"...

 

I may be wrong but I seem to remember when I was wrenching in a Dealership in about 1992 that fuel injection was the new thing then.