My bike didn't feel right the last couple rides, so I decided to take a look at the plugs. Felt as if I had a steady rocking towards one side of the motor.
What I found kinda concerns me.
The front plug smelled like fuel / oil mixture, and appeared slightly wet. The rear plug was dry.
How did this happen?
Should I be alarmed?

Could this simply be a plug that went bad?

My bike is a 2005 RKC with 5k miles. The plugs have 3500 local miles.
I have a PCIII, with TD, V&H Monster Ovals, SE air, stage 1

Here's a picture of the plug pulled from the FRONT:




Here's a picture of the plug pulled from the REAR:


For what it's worth, I just replaced the plugs with HD gold plugs, and the bike is idling perfect.

 

Front plug looks like its running a bit rich. Rear plug looks pretty good.

 

Anthony:

Had the same issues with previous bike which was an '05 RK. Also noticed abnormal oil consumption.

There was an issue with early model '05s that had faulty valve stem seals. Don't have the Bulletin handy, but do a search.

Dealer updated with new style seals, and fixed the problem.

HTHs.

 

Anthony the key is the year 2005 known for valve guide seals going bad my road glide had to have new seals at around 14000 miles had to change plugs about every 4 to 5 thousand miles until finally gave up and had the seals redone at the dealer under warranty for around 450.00 bucks front plug was always the worst

 

Looks like my front plug would look when my valve seals went bad on my 05, the 05's were the first year with the valves with the smaller stem and had a lot of valve seal problems about counting your's 99.9999% of the 05's. Keep check on your oil level till you get it fixed though.

 

Good post, Anthony. Great pics.

 

I've had NO oil consumption whatsoever. Level is still normal, never once having to add.

If I don't fix this ASAP, are there any further concerns?

Should I be afraid of getting stuck in the middle of nowhere because of this?

My bike is due for 5K service, should I address this NOW? Or could it wait until more funds are liquid?

 

Valve guide seals. My 05 had the problem on the rear cylinder. The problem can be on either cylinder or both cylinders. I read the plugs and had build up on the rear cylinder, replaced seals on the rear cylinder only, no more oil consumption and no more fouled plugs. That was 10,000 miles ago. Runs great.

 

So you're saying that this is easily repaired?


Question:

Could that be caused by running too rich? (yeh, I'm in denial)
I did richen up quite a bit when I changed mufflers, abd had a decel pop.

 

Those are absolutely the best plug pictures I've ever seen. Man I wish all those reference pictures looked so good.

Does look like oil on the first one, oil cakes like that and shows the wetness on the threads. Looks like the mixture is right as the electrode area is almost clean from the oil. Most rich set-ups show a more sooty look less cake like.

Any blue puff or smell at start-up? Usually you get a leak down the valve stem after shut down that collects and burns off at start-up. Also, at 1K miles per year your probably dropping the oil once a year and never notice the loss. Put 5K in a year and you'll see it. No biggie as far as a catastrophic failure, its a nuisance issue as far as I know.