Not necessarily poor, but cheap anyway.

Bike:
2001 Electra Glide
About 54k miles
No engine modification except for Andrews cams, jets, airbox and a multitude of mufflers

Owner:
Original owner
Some mechanical ability (I would rate myself as a medium) although never have tackled a top-end rebuild

My bike was burning oil last summer/fall so I was contemplating doing some engine work. Just so happened one of my neighbors had a set of TC-88 jugs and pistons that were take-offs when the previous owner bought the bike and immediately had new barrels and 95 cubic inch pistons installed at the Harley shop. Bought the set for cheap and proceeded to take my top-end off.

Critical sources:
> Shop manual
> http://www.harleyhog.co.uk/1550/bbonline4a.htm
> This site
> Friends advice

The site from the UK was particularly helpful. There is another thread for changing cam chain tensioners I had used earlier. I can’t give these guys enough compliments. It won’t make you a qualified Harley mechanic but certainly helps with certain projects.

Anyway, took everything apart making sure all parts were ‘bagged and tagged’. The first photo shows my old barrels and pistons on the left and my heads after they came back from the machine shop (more on that later) and a new barrel/piston on the right. Picture quality isn't the best since the file size has to be reduced.

I couldn’t believe how much carbon had built up on the piston domes and combustion chambers. Must have been a sixteenth inch of baked on carbon.

Oddly enough the old barrels and piston side walls were perfectly fine. Really clean cross hatch and no scoring which lead me to believe the heads were leaking oil into the combustion chamber. Since I bought the new barrels/pistons, I decided to install them. Plus I wanted the ‘old school’ black barrel and aluminum engine look.

I took my heads to a local machine shop (Baisley Hi Performance) that does a lot of Harley work and other motor rebuilds. They did an excellent job with valve grind, new guides, cleaning up ports and chambers, milling the bottoms, etc. The old guides had become very brittle and were letting oil into the chamber. The cost was worth every dollar and really made a performance improvement. The second photo is a picture of one of the heads.

Keep in mind the heads and valves looked like the domes of the pistons when I took them off.

The third photo is a picture of the new barrels/pistons back on my bike.

I also painted the motor with Harley aluminum bead paint. Stuff seems OK as long as you keep abrasive liquids away from it like Brake Clean or gasoline. S100 or Simple Green keeps it clean. So far everything looks clean and fresh after several outings.

Other random recommendations.
> Keep everything clean, especially between mechanical parts. I cleaned all parts with Brake Clean and took a wire brush to all bolt threads. I also squirted Brake Clean in all bolt holes and cleaned with Q-tips. May have gone overboard on the bolt holes, but I wanted to make sure I got accurate torque readings.
Torque everything to shop manual specifications
> I used CYCO top end gasket set. Metal gaskets worked great but make sure you watch the following clip before you install the head gasket so it is done properly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haQ17x3J0KA
> I turned the rear wheel by hand after assembly and listened for any weird sounds, then hit the starter without spark plugs. Next step was installing the spark plugs and hit the starter which was kind of intense but the motor fired right up. Let it run for awhile and didn’t see any leaks so took it for a spin.
> Luckily averted a major catastrophe with a push rod locking nut. Read my earlier post https://www.hdforums.com/forum/engin...tastrophe.html I’ve removed/installed them before with no issues, but this time one of them went south. After everything got put back together and readjusting the remaining pushrods, everything turned out great.
> Take your time and pay attention. This wasn’t a project where I drank beer while wrenching.

The fourth photo is a picture of my bike finished. I have about 250 miles on the odometer since the top-end rebuild and it runs exceptionally smooth. I have the same displacement as before (88 cubic inches) and the horse power feels about the same, but the smoothness and acceleration is noticeably better than before which I attribute to the heads. It is just a treat to ride and puts a smile on my face knowing I did the work myself.

The bike is an Electra Glide standard (fifth photo) where I have morphed a lot of parts from e-bay and other sources. Part of this project is redoing the front fender so I have a goofy back-up fender until my regular front fender is done.

 

Nice work and write up I have very similar sitation. thinking about tackling this, that gives me insperation!

 

nice job, i have an 01 flhtci and getting parts and working on this year is always a bit of a challenge

 

Bill C, did you have to pull down the youtube link? nice detail on your write up.

 

Nice job

 

i think your back up fender looks good.

 

Great job, looks great! So does she feel nice and tight again? I bet its real smooth, so did you just have your heads rebuilt or did you have some extra work done to them?

 

Thanks. Motor feels like it is new (no kidding). Just went with my original heads and Baisley's rebuilt as described plus shimmed the valve springs for my cam.