Polished aluminum looks way better than chrome anyway! The real fun is getting the half flaked clear coat they put on later engines. I think they tried to be like the Japanese, but it didn't look (work) good (for long) on the Japanese bikes either.
My pal that owns a shop that works on import bikes tells me Easy Off oven cleaner takes that clear coat off. Otherwise, I might use paint stripper, since it just a clear paint. I agree that polished aluminum looks better, and it sure looks better after 10 years. I had an honest plater that told me that chroming used rocker boxes was almost impossible to do and not have the chrome flake off in a few years. Thanks for the comment!
Extremly good videos you make Paul. I have exactly the same year model so I'm very pleased to see all tutorials. Its very clear explanations. Hope to see more of the different series. I would be more than happy to subscribe for paid plan. If all your follovers would join, most likely that would give you little bit more space to make more of this tutorials. Its so valuable complimentary to anny service manuals. If we can see more of this stuff...we will be able to do ourselfs more correct and save loads of money that in most cases we pay to a pretended mechanics who know nothing or have no interest...only charging for every minute while messing up your bike. Thank you very much Paul!
Thanks so much for you kind words. I especially appreciate the offer to contribute, that shows real dedication. I am an old guy, so I need time more than money. Right now I am working on the house, but when that is done, I will get back to the Sportster videos.
@@Open-Sport Good to hear that you will continue with the videos. Really thankful for it...as anybody who is following you. A question. Looking at the parts catalog...it says that there are different type tubes (for o-ring and cork seals). If referencing for the year 1982 it looks like o-rings should be used...and mine had o-rings already after taking apart. I assume cork seals will be not good idea to use it? I not sure whats the difference on the tubes but they must be different if they have separate part numbers. Thank you!
@@vmj7226 You are right, the pushrod tubes for cork seals are different, they have a projection to support the inside of the O-ring, as opposed to the squared-off end of the older pushrod tubes. The problem is that they took out the timed breather system on the oil pump drive in 1977. Instead, they put a reed valve in the breather on the gearcase cover. But that still does not work as well as the timed breather, so there is more crankcase pressure, that can make leaks past the cork seals. They couldn't fix the breathing, the 1977 case is completely different, so they just tried to fight the leaks where they happened. Even old timed breather bikes will leak at the pushrod seals once the piston rings go bad and allow a lot of blow-by. So the O-rings should probably work better. Some guys say to put them on 1977-1980 bikes with the old cork pushrod setup. As long as you have O-ring pushrods, use the O-rings, and things should be fine, as long as you make sure all the breather stuff is right-- I think 1982 runs a hose up to the airfilter, don't plug any of that off.
Thanks, a future video will show me changing over to aluminum trays in a new rack, stay tuned. The nice thing is having 11"x17" paper printed out on the bottom to show the gasket part number and shape. For that I have to buy a bigger printer or get down to Kinkos to use their printers.
Great video I have been waiting for Paul. I have a potential problem with my 1980 whereby one of the Rocker caps leaks oil. Upon inspection, the caps are too recessed on all 4 rocker arms so I suspect either the spacer is missing inside, or wrong size, or the rocker arms have not been pushed through enough before fastening the acorn nuts on opposite side. Either way I think i need to take the rocker heads off and inspect whats going on inside. What will you clean all the parts with before re-assembling? Many thanks. Jon.
My "homebrew" way to wash parts is just Palmolive dish soap in the sink and hot water. Maybe blow out the passages in the box and the rocker arm shaft and that little hole in the exhaust rocker with a spray of carb or brake cleaner. Almost more important is if you have compressed air, that will blow a lot of crap out of the passages once you get the oil thinned with soap or carb cleaner. You can blow with your mouth or a straw too, the poor-man's compressor. Otherwise, just use lots of hot water. Now me, I use one of those little motorized parts washer tubs you can buy on Amazon or Harbor Freight. You can see me use it in the bead-blast video: ruclips.net/video/ZcmgwY9aEAY/видео.html There are links in that description page to Amazon, but that particular parts washer is out of stock. I see they are up over 100 bucks now, and just as bad is the CRC solvent I bought at AutoZone was 120 bucks a couple years ago. Ouch. So there is no shame in going cheap and just scrubbing all the oil and stuff out with soap and water. The spray-can carb or brake cleaner will get off any film or oil in the passages. I pulled my rocker box parts just now, and yeah, that washer you think is missing is 0.090" thick, almost a tenth of an inch. So it would recess the caps, but so much else would be wrong too. The oil passages would not line up, and the rocker being off 90 thousandths too means the pushrod might be hitting the inside of the cover tube and that the valve is not being pressed by its tip. I am sorry I don't remember if you can get the front rocker box off without the head coming off, but you definitely have to pull the rear head with the rocker box attached to get that whole mess out of the bike. Here is the tragedy-- it might just be the O-ring on the leaking cap is bad, they do get crushed. Now that you can fix by just backing the cap off, getting the old O-ring out, and popping in a new one. The rocker boxes and heads stay on the bike. So it would be so nice to know if those washers are really missing, since then it is essential you pull the heads and fix this. One clue might be dropping the pushrod covers and look up at the clearance around the pushrod as it goes up into the rocker box. If it seems like the pushrods are too close to the rocker box on the inside, towards the head, yeah, you are right, the washers are missing. You might also see wear marks on the pushrods up high where they have been hitting the inside of the cover tubes. If the washers are missing, that means the wear pattern on the rocker where it presses the valve tip is also in the wrong place. So when you fix this, you will be moving the rocker to where part of its tip is virgin, and part is where it got worn from when it was in the wrong location, 0.090" to the left. So then you have to decide to just run it that way, if it is not too bad, or do something I never tried, use a belt sander or grinder to put the proper arc back in the rocker tip where it hits the valve. When you grind away, you are changing all the angles, and it is possible to grind away so much that you don't have enough pushrod adjustment. I see new aftermarket rocker arms are 93 bucks on eBay. I am a wino cheapskate, so the wear divots on the rocker arm tips would have to be pretty bad before I spent that kind of money. Running the rocker arm partly on the wear divot is not that much of a punk move. All it means is that you will have to adjust the valve clearance more often until things "wear in". Since wearing the new divot only opens up valve clearance, it means that the valve will loosen, not tighten up and burn, which is what happens as valves wear the seats in the head down. Heck, maybe the wear on the divot will be just enough to compensate for the seat wear, you will have to adjust less. You never know with Sportsters, that is why they have a soul.
@@Open-Sport Hi - many thanks for the response..ill try the old method of soap and water. Going back to the rocker arm situation, at this point I'm only guessing that could be the problem. However, the reason the its leaking oil at the cap is because the arm is too set back, its half exposed the oil hole so the o-ring gets eaten up into that hole when you tighten down the end cap! The other thing of note is, the washers on the acorn nut side are way too thick they should be very thin as per you mentioned in the video when dismantling. This is what made me think, whoever rebuilt this top end could have possibly used the spacers as washers! I hope not. I worked last night at removing whats required as per the manual, I'm just onto the oil lines of which I think the front is a little short too, then ill remove the push rods etc and hopefully get to the pesky rocker heads and find out whats going on. Thanks again, Jon
@@bigtimejc1 Hey Jon, I use Simple Green PRO HD and mix it 1:3. One gallon, mixing it three parts water to one part PRO HD makes three gallons of heavyduty. Or you can mix 1:5 and even 1:13. I use it in my parts tub and also in my Ultrasonic machine. The PRO HD does not harm aluminum and I can soak carb rebuilds overnight and there is no discoloration. Great stuff, S&S polished carbs come out beautiful. Another plus is there is no solvent smell! Hope that helps.
This is not a question for your current video. However when I removed the rear head, I backed out the rocker bolts as far as they would go, then held the rocker up as far as it could and held it in place with a bungee. This gave me enough room to get to the head bolts. Then removed it all. I'm working on a 1985 Sportster XLX 1000. I installed new Kibblewhite shouldered cast iron guides. The reamers are far less in price. This year has a bottom seat washer rather than a collar. The washer is only large enough for the inner spring - stock setup. With the new shoulder guide, the washer will no longer fit over it. The shoulder is to small by itself and the inner spring sits over it now. So the compressed valve spring height is way out. Any suggestions?
I think a 1985 is an Evo engine, and I have never done a valve job on one. I wonder if you could open the hole in the bottom keeper so it fits over the Kibblewhite guides, if that would fix things. You are smart to see the problem now, since if you button it up like this, you would likely get a coil bind the first time the cam tries to lift the valve. One thing I have had luck with is a phone call to the company. If you can get a hold of Kibblewhite on the phone, they might probably give you a setup that will work. I have always questioned why Sportsters use that bottom keeper on the springs, the one that presses against the guide. I mean, did guide pull up every day, so they had to put the spring force on the guide to keep it in? Another play is going to a good motor shop, or even the Harley dealer, and hopefully a kind service writer will go get a master mechanic that can tell you how to set it up. I knew some builders that were into flat-track bikes, and they knew a million ways to set springs and keepers and such. They would talk about all the different keepers and how to set them up. Sorry, I lost track of those guys. Good luck, it sounds like a cool setup.
@@Open-Sport Thanks for the reply. This is the last year of the shovelhead and it appears they threw shovel & Evo in a blender. The guides I pulled out the heads were two different lengths. The valves stems are different sizes as well. I cut the seats today, which of course will change the height of the valves. I can make lower collars to fit, but my biggest problem is, I can't find the compressed valve spring height. Not in any manuals I have or online. Of course the tip of the valve to the top of the guide info is in my manuals, but who cares about that, it has stock solid lifters, so that isn't a issue. Anyone out there know what the compressed valve spring height on a 1985 Sportster xlx 1000 is? I have truly enjoyed your videos, keep them coming. I just want to get this one together and sold! Thanks again.................Richard Bartlett................BartCycle's.
@@richardbartlett4075 Sorry I couldn't be more help, glad to see you are making progress. I think it is common to have different sizes of intake and exhaust valve stems, but I always saw the guides being the same OD. Good luck with this. All I can advise now is to think about the reason for the spring height spec is so that when the cam presses down, it does not coil bind the springs. So I am not sure of this, but I think you can multiply the cam lift by 1.25, the rocker arm ratio, and then be sure you still have that much motion available in the valve spring after it is installed. Duncan Keller had some rocker boxes with big holes cut in them so he could turn the motor and watch the valves operate. If you have a junk set of rocker boxes, you might carve them up, or maybe you can get away with just one, since one will fit on both heads, but you don't care that the oil line is wrong on the one head, I am pretty sure all the geometry is the same.
@@Rako_Studios Hello again. Wanted to catch up with you on the compressed valve spring height. I got the calculation from Tatro. It is a real pain in the ass. The bike however started right up. The trans gave me grief, started to not spring the shift lever back in place. I replaced quite a few gears and shift shaft before I fired it up. This bike was extremely abused and thats why I got it for $950. I rebuilt the top end, I have my own boring bar and valve grinder as well Neway seat cutters. I pulled the trans back out, and I did some more work on it. I actually also went back to the old shift shaft. Hopefully it will work. I saw it was missing a thrust washer that goes on the shift shaft before installing the side cover. Part# 35404-74. Its only 0.03", but I think it may help keep the shift shaft from moving around so much. Are you familiar with this thrust washer? Newer bikes started using a rubber type washer. I ride a 1993 883 Sportster, built to the hilt with 1200 cylinders and it has the rubber washer. I'm 66 and a Sportster fits me just fine now. LOL. Thank you for your help and if you ever get in need of that formula, I will attempt to send it to you. At my age, I need to retrain myself every time I don't do something for awhile.
I have a 77, a 79, an 80 and an 83, but that is an XR-1000. They all leak at the rocker box gaskets, while my 62, that does not have the top motor mount tie into the rocker box, does not leak at the rocker box gasket. One thing I might be bringing on myself with this is that I refuse to use silicone or sealer or permatex on the rocker box gaskets. I love these bikes, sorry if it came across like I was putting them down, I was just trying to pass along problems I have seen in my 35 years of riding them. Keep that dry 77 going good, glad you are enjoying it.
I did this in front of my fireplace in1974, I used a lot of original o-rings, drove for three more years🤩
Polished aluminum looks way better than chrome anyway! The real fun is getting the half flaked clear coat they put on later engines. I think they tried to be like the Japanese, but it didn't look (work) good (for long) on the Japanese bikes either.
My pal that owns a shop that works on import bikes tells me Easy Off oven cleaner takes that clear coat off. Otherwise, I might use paint stripper, since it just a clear paint. I agree that polished aluminum looks better, and it sure looks better after 10 years. I had an honest plater that told me that chroming used rocker boxes was almost impossible to do and not have the chrome flake off in a few years. Thanks for the comment!
Agree...chrome won't get you home
Loving this video series. Looking like my 69' xlch chop is due for some top end refresh and this is nice to get an idea of what's in store.
Glad to hear it,. I have been taking a break, but hope to churn out more videos soon.
Extremly good videos you make Paul. I have exactly the same year model so I'm very pleased to see all tutorials. Its very clear explanations. Hope to see more of the different series. I would be more than happy to subscribe for paid plan. If all your follovers would join, most likely that would give you little bit more space to make more of this tutorials. Its so valuable complimentary to anny service manuals. If we can see more of this stuff...we will be able to do ourselfs more correct and save loads of money that in most cases we pay to a pretended mechanics who know nothing or have no interest...only charging for every minute while messing up your bike. Thank you very much Paul!
Thanks so much for you kind words. I especially appreciate the offer to contribute, that shows real dedication. I am an old guy, so I need time more than money. Right now I am working on the house, but when that is done, I will get back to the Sportster videos.
@@Open-Sport Good to hear that you will continue with the videos. Really thankful for it...as anybody who is following you.
A question. Looking at the parts catalog...it says that there are different type tubes (for o-ring and cork seals). If referencing for the year 1982 it looks like o-rings should be used...and mine had o-rings already after taking apart. I assume cork seals will be not good idea to use it? I not sure whats the difference on the tubes but they must be different if they have separate part numbers. Thank you!
@@vmj7226 You are right, the pushrod tubes for cork seals are different, they have a projection to support the inside of the O-ring, as opposed to the squared-off end of the older pushrod tubes. The problem is that they took out the timed breather system on the oil pump drive in 1977. Instead, they put a reed valve in the breather on the gearcase cover. But that still does not work as well as the timed breather, so there is more crankcase pressure, that can make leaks past the cork seals. They couldn't fix the breathing, the 1977 case is completely different, so they just tried to fight the leaks where they happened. Even old timed breather bikes will leak at the pushrod seals once the piston rings go bad and allow a lot of blow-by. So the O-rings should probably work better. Some guys say to put them on 1977-1980 bikes with the old cork pushrod setup. As long as you have O-ring pushrods, use the O-rings, and things should be fine, as long as you make sure all the breather stuff is right-- I think 1982 runs a hose up to the airfilter, don't plug any of that off.
Nice gasket storage system.
Thanks, a future video will show me changing over to aluminum trays in a new rack, stay tuned. The nice thing is having 11"x17" paper printed out on the bottom to show the gasket part number and shape. For that I have to buy a bigger printer or get down to Kinkos to use their printers.
Great video I have been waiting for Paul. I have a potential problem with my 1980 whereby one of the Rocker caps leaks oil. Upon inspection, the caps are too recessed on all 4 rocker arms so I suspect either the spacer is missing inside, or wrong size, or the rocker arms have not been pushed through enough before fastening the acorn nuts on opposite side. Either way I think i need to take the rocker heads off and inspect whats going on inside. What will you clean all the parts with before re-assembling? Many thanks. Jon.
My "homebrew" way to wash parts is just Palmolive dish soap in the sink and hot water. Maybe blow out the passages in the box and the rocker arm shaft and that little hole in the exhaust rocker with a spray of carb or brake cleaner. Almost more important is if you have compressed air, that will blow a lot of crap out of the passages once you get the oil thinned with soap or carb cleaner. You can blow with your mouth or a straw too, the poor-man's compressor. Otherwise, just use lots of hot water. Now me, I use one of those little motorized parts washer tubs you can buy on Amazon or Harbor Freight. You can see me use it in the bead-blast video:
ruclips.net/video/ZcmgwY9aEAY/видео.html
There are links in that description page to Amazon, but that particular parts washer is out of stock. I see they are up over 100 bucks now, and just as bad is the CRC solvent I bought at AutoZone was 120 bucks a couple years ago. Ouch. So there is no shame in going cheap and just scrubbing all the oil and stuff out with soap and water. The spray-can carb or brake cleaner will get off any film or oil in the passages.
I pulled my rocker box parts just now, and yeah, that washer you think is missing is 0.090" thick, almost a tenth of an inch. So it would recess the caps, but so much else would be wrong too. The oil passages would not line up, and the rocker being off 90 thousandths too means the pushrod might be hitting the inside of the cover tube and that the valve is not being pressed by its tip. I am sorry I don't remember if you can get the front rocker box off without the head coming off, but you definitely have to pull the rear head with the rocker box attached to get that whole mess out of the bike.
Here is the tragedy-- it might just be the O-ring on the leaking cap is bad, they do get crushed. Now that you can fix by just backing the cap off, getting the old O-ring out, and popping in a new one. The rocker boxes and heads stay on the bike. So it would be so nice to know if those washers are really missing, since then it is essential you pull the heads and fix this. One clue might be dropping the pushrod covers and look up at the clearance around the pushrod as it goes up into the rocker box. If it seems like the pushrods are too close to the rocker box on the inside, towards the head, yeah, you are right, the washers are missing. You might also see wear marks on the pushrods up high where they have been hitting the inside of the cover tubes.
If the washers are missing, that means the wear pattern on the rocker where it presses the valve tip is also in the wrong place. So when you fix this, you will be moving the rocker to where part of its tip is virgin, and part is where it got worn from when it was in the wrong location, 0.090" to the left. So then you have to decide to just run it that way, if it is not too bad, or do something I never tried, use a belt sander or grinder to put the proper arc back in the rocker tip where it hits the valve. When you grind away, you are changing all the angles, and it is possible to grind away so much that you don't have enough pushrod adjustment. I see new aftermarket rocker arms are 93 bucks on eBay. I am a wino cheapskate, so the wear divots on the rocker arm tips would have to be pretty bad before I spent that kind of money.
Running the rocker arm partly on the wear divot is not that much of a punk move. All it means is that you will have to adjust the valve clearance more often until things "wear in". Since wearing the new divot only opens up valve clearance, it means that the valve will loosen, not tighten up and burn, which is what happens as valves wear the seats in the head down. Heck, maybe the wear on the divot will be just enough to compensate for the seat wear, you will have to adjust less. You never know with Sportsters, that is why they have a soul.
@@Open-Sport Hi - many thanks for the response..ill try the old method of soap and water. Going back to the rocker arm situation, at this point I'm only guessing that could be the problem. However, the reason the its leaking oil at the cap is because the arm is too set back, its half exposed the oil hole so the o-ring gets eaten up into that hole when you tighten down the end cap! The other thing of note is, the washers on the acorn nut side are way too thick they should be very thin as per you mentioned in the video when dismantling. This is what made me think, whoever rebuilt this top end could have possibly used the spacers as washers! I hope not. I worked last night at removing whats required as per the manual, I'm just onto the oil lines of which I think the front is a little short too, then ill remove the push rods etc and hopefully get to the pesky rocker heads and find out whats going on. Thanks again, Jon
@@bigtimejc1
Hey Jon, I use Simple Green PRO HD and mix it 1:3. One gallon, mixing it three parts water to one part PRO HD makes three gallons of heavyduty. Or you can mix 1:5 and even 1:13. I use it in my parts tub and also in my Ultrasonic machine. The PRO HD does not harm aluminum and I can soak carb rebuilds overnight and there is no discoloration. Great stuff, S&S polished carbs come out beautiful. Another plus is there is no solvent smell! Hope that helps.
Great videos! Thank you!
Glad you like them!
Why is anti-seeze like locktite..??
This is not a question for your current video. However when I removed the rear head, I backed out the rocker bolts as far as they would go, then held the rocker up as far as it could and held it in place with a bungee. This gave me enough room to get to the head bolts. Then removed it all. I'm working on a 1985 Sportster XLX 1000. I installed new Kibblewhite shouldered cast iron guides. The reamers are far less in price. This year has a bottom seat washer rather than a collar. The washer is only large enough for the inner spring - stock setup. With the new shoulder guide, the washer will no longer fit over it. The shoulder is to small by itself and the inner spring sits over it now. So the compressed valve spring height is way out. Any suggestions?
I think a 1985 is an Evo engine, and I have never done a valve job on one. I wonder if you could open the hole in the bottom keeper so it fits over the Kibblewhite guides, if that would fix things. You are smart to see the problem now, since if you button it up like this, you would likely get a coil bind the first time the cam tries to lift the valve. One thing I have had luck with is a phone call to the company. If you can get a hold of Kibblewhite on the phone, they might probably give you a setup that will work. I have always questioned why Sportsters use that bottom keeper on the springs, the one that presses against the guide. I mean, did guide pull up every day, so they had to put the spring force on the guide to keep it in? Another play is going to a good motor shop, or even the Harley dealer, and hopefully a kind service writer will go get a master mechanic that can tell you how to set it up. I knew some builders that were into flat-track bikes, and they knew a million ways to set springs and keepers and such. They would talk about all the different keepers and how to set them up. Sorry, I lost track of those guys. Good luck, it sounds like a cool setup.
@@Open-Sport Thanks for the reply. This is the last year of the shovelhead and it appears they threw shovel & Evo in a blender. The guides I pulled out the heads were two different lengths. The valves stems are different sizes as well. I cut the seats today, which of course will change the height of the valves. I can make lower collars to fit, but my biggest problem is, I can't find the compressed valve spring height. Not in any manuals I have or online. Of course the tip of the valve to the top of the guide info is in my manuals, but who cares about that, it has stock solid lifters, so that isn't a issue. Anyone out there know what the compressed valve spring height on a 1985 Sportster xlx 1000 is? I have truly enjoyed your videos, keep them coming. I just want to get this one together and sold! Thanks again.................Richard Bartlett................BartCycle's.
@@richardbartlett4075 Sorry I couldn't be more help, glad to see you are making progress. I think it is common to have different sizes of intake and exhaust valve stems, but I always saw the guides being the same OD. Good luck with this. All I can advise now is to think about the reason for the spring height spec is so that when the cam presses down, it does not coil bind the springs. So I am not sure of this, but I think you can multiply the cam lift by 1.25, the rocker arm ratio, and then be sure you still have that much motion available in the valve spring after it is installed. Duncan Keller had some rocker boxes with big holes cut in them so he could turn the motor and watch the valves operate. If you have a junk set of rocker boxes, you might carve them up, or maybe you can get away with just one, since one will fit on both heads, but you don't care that the oil line is wrong on the one head, I am pretty sure all the geometry is the same.
@@Rako_Studios Hello again. Wanted to catch up with you on the compressed valve spring height. I got the calculation from Tatro. It is a real pain in the ass. The bike however started right up. The trans gave me grief, started to not spring the shift lever back in place. I replaced quite a few gears and shift shaft before I fired it up. This bike was extremely abused and thats why I got it for $950. I rebuilt the top end, I have my own boring bar and valve grinder as well Neway seat cutters. I pulled the trans back out, and I did some more work on it. I actually also went back to the old shift shaft. Hopefully it will work. I saw it was missing a thrust washer that goes on the shift shaft before installing the side cover. Part# 35404-74. Its only 0.03", but I think it may help keep the shift shaft from moving around so much. Are you familiar with this thrust washer? Newer bikes started using a rubber type washer. I ride a 1993 883 Sportster, built to the hilt with 1200 cylinders and it has the rubber washer. I'm 66 and a Sportster fits me just fine now. LOL. Thank you for your help and if you ever get in need of that formula, I will attempt to send it to you. At my age, I need to retrain myself every time I don't do something for awhile.
👍😎👍
I like my 77 never leaks runs always. If you want subs quit putting down the bikes.
I have a 77, a 79, an 80 and an 83, but that is an XR-1000. They all leak at the rocker box gaskets, while my 62, that does not have the top motor mount tie into the rocker box, does not leak at the rocker box gasket. One thing I might be bringing on myself with this is that I refuse to use silicone or sealer or permatex on the rocker box gaskets. I love these bikes, sorry if it came across like I was putting them down, I was just trying to pass along problems I have seen in my 35 years of riding them. Keep that dry 77 going good, glad you are enjoying it.