WET SUMPING
One common problem that scares people is wet sumping. This is basically when you have too much oil in the bottom of the crankcase and it either blows out the breather or the flywheels throws it up on to the piston skirts and the motor smokes badly or both.
There are a couple of things that will cause this. Most of the time it is because of a check valve in the oil pump that is not seated This is very common in Harley Sportsters built before 1977 and softails fall into this group occasionally.
Usually this happens after the bike sits for an extended period of non use. On the older Sportster it usually blows a big puddle of oil out of the breather tube attached to the bottom of the cam cover. Sometimes it will smoke, sometimes not, it just depends how much oil is in the bottom of the motor. Usually if the plugs don't foul, it will clear itself out just by running the motor awhile. If it happens repeatedly at shorter and shorter intervals it is probably time for a new oil pump or at least a rebuild. The problem happens because of the oil tank being higher on the bike than the motor which causes siphoning of the oil into the engine.
On later twin cam engines, a misaligned oil pump can also cause this problem. There have been some issues with a incorrectly installed "O" ring on the oil pump mating surface from the factory which allows engine oil to enter the cam chest cavity and the scavenging section of the oil pump cannot keep up with the task of removing it fast enough. When this happens, you will experience a sluggish engine and possibly engine oil blowing out the breathers. The sluggishness is caused by the flywheels in the motor running through the excess oil in the crank case area.This condition on a newer bike that is under warranty should be taken care of by the dealer under warranty.
One common problem that scares people is wet sumping. This is basically when you have too much oil in the bottom of the crankcase and it either blows out the breather or the flywheels throws it up on to the piston skirts and the motor smokes badly or both.
There are a couple of things that will cause this. Most of the time it is because of a check valve in the oil pump that is not seated This is very common in Harley Sportsters built before 1977 and softails fall into this group occasionally.
Usually this happens after the bike sits for an extended period of non use. On the older Sportster it usually blows a big puddle of oil out of the breather tube attached to the bottom of the cam cover. Sometimes it will smoke, sometimes not, it just depends how much oil is in the bottom of the motor. Usually if the plugs don't foul, it will clear itself out just by running the motor awhile. If it happens repeatedly at shorter and shorter intervals it is probably time for a new oil pump or at least a rebuild. The problem happens because of the oil tank being higher on the bike than the motor which causes siphoning of the oil into the engine.
On later twin cam engines, a misaligned oil pump can also cause this problem. There have been some issues with a incorrectly installed "O" ring on the oil pump mating surface from the factory which allows engine oil to enter the cam chest cavity and the scavenging section of the oil pump cannot keep up with the task of removing it fast enough. When this happens, you will experience a sluggish engine and possibly engine oil blowing out the breathers. The sluggishness is caused by the flywheels in the motor running through the excess oil in the crank case area.This condition on a newer bike that is under warranty should be taken care of by the dealer under warranty.