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Oil coming out of air filter

Twice now I have eliminated oil in the a/c by a realigning of the oil pump. Hard to believe the small amount those pumps can move could cause such a mess!:small3d012:

Classic, some day if you feel up to it, do a little write up on pump alignment, how to do it, why it keeps the oil from foaming, how to know if your pump needs to be aligned, special tools, etc,etc.

It will help people like myself who don't have any idea of How,When,Where or Why.
 
I am having the same problem Oil blowing by the air filter. I tought I used to much K&N filter oil after cleaning the filter. Did this the same time I changed the oil. It seems to blow by less and less oil as I put on the miles. Will have to look at where the oil level is at in the bag. Perhaps I put too much oil in wanting to be right on the full mark.
 
Classic, some day if you feel up to it, do a little write up on pump alignment, how to do it, why it keeps the oil from foaming, how to know if your pump needs to be aligned, special tools, etc,etc.

It will help people like myself who don't have any idea of How,When,Where or Why.

Back in '05 had a dealer speedshop install gear driven cams in my injected 2000 Ultra. Afterwards had some whine coming from cam area and figured it was the gear drive, so did not worry about it. A few months later I was getting some oil down the side of the bike on long rides. Did a bunch of reading here and decided to go in and rebuild the breathers in the rocker boxes. I enlarged the drain hole and replaced the wear items. This did nothing to solve the problem. So thinking the rest of the engine was sound, it had to be something with the oil pump and decided to upgrade to the newer high capacity oil pump and see what happens. Installed new pump and oil problem was gone. But so was the whine! At that point I then did not know if old pump had gone bad or was just in need of alignment. Either way it was fixed and I was happy. Fast forward to '09. One day had some time on my hands and started thinking, which usually is going to cost me money! Sure enough it did! I had the S/E aircleaner assy. on the bike, but the Ness Big Sucker backplate looked like it would do a better job of getting any oil that might come from the breathers, into the throttle body, and no more oil down the side of the bike if the problem ever occurred again. After the money was spent and the Big Sucker installed is when my light bulb finally came on! If new backplate does the intended job and the problem returns, HOW WOULD I KNOW I have a problem?:small3d012: Here is how. A couple of months ago I began to smell hot oil somewhere. Looked all over and found no signs of leakage anywheres. Finally pulled the aircleaner and sure enough, had some oil pooled in the a/c. and seemed to be coming from the front breather tube. The new backplate was doing a better job as intended, so only indication of a problem was the smell of hot oil. Decided to go straight for an oil pump alignment. Did that and a/c is now dry once again and no smell of hot oil!
As for the how to of alignment, I just followed the shop man. Remove the right side floorboard, lower fairing and heatshields. Loosened the front header pipe and moved it out as far as possible. This gave me enough room to get at all cam cover bolts. Removed cam cover, and in my case, gear on rear camshaft as it was covering one of the 4 mounting bolts for the oil pump. Per the book, I loosened each of the 4 bolts a 1/4 turn. Jacked up the rear of the bike and put it in 5th gear with spark plugs removed. I would then begin to snug up the 4 mounting bolts a very little at a time as I would turn the rear wheel. Really very easy to do. Once all 4 were very well snug, I put the torque wrench on and torqued according to the man. Reinstalled everything else and problem solved!:D
So now the question I have is this. What makes a well installed pump go out of alignment? Is it just normal wear that causes this, or maybe miss a gear on a hard run resulting in a sudden over rev, ( not that that has ever happened to me! ), or something else?
 
I went through my 03 service manual and could not find anything about an oil pump alignment. I found wear limits, and how to disassemble/reassemble, but, nothing on alignment. Pehaps I wasn't looking in the right place?
 
had a lot of dripping out of se a/c w/ baker +1 on 01 rk. cut back to 1/2 qt. low on stick which is actuaaly +1/2 qt. over stock and oil is gone.
 
First, HD Air cleaner element IS washable...only problem is after a few wash and dry cycles, the element gets pretty soft and deforms easily and actually come apart with portions sucked into the carb intake tract. So yes K&N element is more robust and probably what you want in there eventually anyway.

Second, I can attest to that cutback by 1/4 to 1/2 quart...! The 2nd time I did my oil change, I just decided to put full 3 quarts as specified per manual...cold it was right at the full hash mark. For the next week or so, I would park the bike on the jiffy stand and when I came back to the bike an oil puddle about two to three inches in diameter was there. I ended up using an old turkey baster to pull out about 6 oz dried everything and checked over the next week...no more puddle.
 
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....great tips about the "Blow-by" from the intake........I've had some small drips....hardly worth noticing...but still it's good to know what to look for and how to remedy the problem.........Thanks.....I love the Harley, but I've got a lot to learn....

Tom-T-Bone
06 Ultra Classic
US Army 65-69
Ga Patriot Guard
 
First, HD Air cleaner element IS washable...only problem is after a few wash and dry cycles, the element gets pretty soft and deforms easily and actually come apart with portions sucked into the carb intake tract. So yes K&N element is more robust and probably what you want in there eventually anyway.

Second, I can attest to that cutback by 1/4 to 1/2 quart...! The 2nd time I did my oil change, I just decided to put full 3 quarts as specified per manual...cold it was right at the full hash mark. For the next week or so, I would park the bike on the jiffy stand and when I came back to the bike an oil puddle about two to three inches in diameter was there. I ended up using an old turkey baster to pull out about 6 oz dried everything and checked over the next week...no more puddle.

Always learn the hard way, the crank case and oil galleries hold about 1 quart so if you use the owners manual well its over full:s
 
As many have said previously, this can often times be a result of overfilling when changing oil. The problem manifests itself because the manual might say to replace with 4 quarts of new oil. When you drain the oil out you will leave almost a 1/3 of a quart in the crankcase and oil galleys. This is unavoidable unless you take extroidinary measures. So everybody usually just dumps in 4 quarts of new oil and assumbes everything is OK. It might be OK until the outside air temp gets up into the high 90s and you are running 70 mph down the interstate. At that point the oil begins to swell up and suddenly the excess is being thrown out the breather. The easy solution to all this is to watch the dipstick when you fill up with new oil. When you get to the high point...stop pouring in more oil. Remember, you have that old oil that is still in there so you will probably have about a 1/3 (approximately) of a quart left in the last oil can or jug.
 
I had the same bike. I had a stage two, 95 inch kit with a K&N filter. I had the same issue with blow back. I took it to two different Harley dealers and they both told me this was an ongoing issue with this year of bike. My oil pump was aligned and I did not overfill the oil. I was cleaning the filter every 1500 miles or so, depending how hot it was and how hard I rode. The easy thing is cleaning the K&N is simple. I started slightly under filling my oil in the hot summer months and that helped. I know it's not much help, but thought I'd let you know your"e bike is not alone....
 
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