I joined the Arlen Ness air filter cast backing plate breakage club today.

See my last post regarding why you have to crank down the breather bolts to get an oil free seal.

If you torque the bolts to the specs AN want you to use, your have oil running down from the heads.

Also, the "drip free" ridges on the backing plate are useless and the oil still runs down the plate and into the filter and then drips down in time onto your cam cover.

I fixed mine with the copper tubing mod and now it looks like I have to do it again on another backing plate.

Lets see if Ness will step up and at least give me a discount on a new backing plate and maybe take my advice and replace the o-rings with some thicker ones.

 

I use the SE one and I can't imagine it breaking. It's pretty heavy duty...

I have the the original "silver" one that came with my SE Stage I kit if you're interested. I didn't like the "silver" finish and bought the wrinkle black version to replace it.

 

Howed ya break it?

 

To get the plate tight enough so it doesn't leak between the heads and the breather bolts, you have to crank them down pretty tight. I guess after doing this many times, the die-cast finally weakened and POP......

 

The reason the breather bolts don't seal against the heads is because the o-rings that come with it are completely recessed into the mounting brackets and do not touch the heads at all. If I have to get another POS backing plate, I'm going to find some o-rings that will compress between the breather bolts and the heads which should stop the oil seepage from the heads.

Why must we pay top dollar for MC products and then have to modify them to make them work correctly??????????????????

 

I got mine from fuel Moto cnc one piece almost same as ness big sucker. I bet you could order their back plate. Maybe.

 

Now that's a backing plate!!!!!

If it will work with my AN filter element, I'll probably go that route and not have to worry about it cracking or adding copper tubing to make it not drip.

 

the nickname Ness"s mess has been around for a long time---------cool stuff but it seems to have issues if used hard

 

Nope.

http://www.fuelmotousa.com/harley_filter.htm

 

Ya, mine weeps a bit. Thats a good idea about the thicker O-ring. Ill have to check into it.