lose of oil out air cleaner

[jcolson]

I have a 2011 tri-glide with 100hp. It has screaming eagle ported & polished heads,259e cams,screaming eagle tuner,stage1 air cleaner,v&h power duals,&pro mufflers,10:5/1compession pistons.Drove about 26mi. to dinner one night. Got to the place & smelled oil.Looked at my right fender & it was covered with oil. Thought it was from the trans. side cover.Took it to the dealer the next day.Turned out it puked out a half a quart of oil out the air cleaner.I only have 7800mi. on it. They said some high compression engines do that. Bull!! for some reason it didn't vent right.They told me to run 3.5qrts. instead of 4qrts.Has anyone had this problem,& how was it solved? Thanks. Jcolson

[msocko3]

I have a 2011 tri-glide with 100hp. It has screaming eagle ported & polished heads,259e cams,sreaming eagle tuner,stage1 air cleaner,v&h power duals,&pro mufflers,10:5/1compession pistons.Drove about 26mi. to dinner one night. Got to the place & smelled oil.Looked at my right fender & it was covered with oil. Thought it was from the trans. side cover.Took it to the dealer the next day.Turned out it puked out a half a quart of oil out the air cleaner.I only have 7800mi. on it. They said some high compression engines do that. Bull!! for some reason it didn't vent right.They told me to run 3.5qrts. instead of 4qrts.Has anyone had this problem,& how was it solved? Thanks. Jcolson

I'd start with running 3 1/2 quarts like they suggested and see how that works. If your still pushing that much oil out in such a short ride they have something messed up with the final assembly of your build. There are plenty of folks with larger cubic inch and higher compression builds that don't puke oil. Depending on the miles since your build it could be the rings haven't seated causing excess blow by.

[jcolson]

When they built it the tech installed the second ring(scraper)it was upside down. I drove it to California & back.It used over 2qrts.So I took it back in to see what the problem was. After they fixed it,I drove it just alittle bit. Then we went out for a day ride along Lake Michigan. No problems.Then the next day we went 26mi. Thats when it blew out the oil.I made them put it in writing about the 3 1/2qrt. thing, just in case there is a problem down the road. I worry about not having enough oil to keep it cool when it gets hot out. I found out there is a filter in each head. They said it's too new to be gloged up.I remember someone else had the same question quite awhile back. Haven't tried to find it yet.The sevice manager said some of these dip sticks aren't right. Any other thoughts? Thanks! Jcolson(Jim)

[Gorilla]

Jim. give the 3.5 a try. .5 low is not that big a deal on a dry sump engine. Theres still plenty of oil for cooling.

[NemoPHD]

On the cam support plate their are 2 small holes. They let the oil that gets trapped by the breather filter to return to the motor vs. blow out of the air cleaner. Drill the one closes to the exhaust valve to 1/8 in. I do this to EVEY bike that I have to get into the rocker boxes. The screamin eagle plate comes with them drilled to 1/8 already.

[msocko3]

On the cam support plate their are 2 small holes. They let the oil that gets trapped by the breather filter to return to the motor vs. blow out of the air cleaner. Drill the one closes to the exhaust valve to 1/8 in. I do this to EVEY bike that I have to get into the rocker boxes. The screamin eagle plate comes with them drilled to 1/8 already.

Never heard of drilling the cam support plate, I've heard of drilling the returns in the rocker supports to 1/8".

[msocko3]

When they built it the tech installed the second ring(scraper)it was upside down. I drove it to California & back.It used over 2qrts.So I took it back in to see what the problem was. After they fixed it,I drove it just alittle bit. Then we went out for a day ride along Lake Michigan. No problems.Then the next day we went 26mi. Thats when it blew out the oil.I made them put it in writing about the 3 1/2qrt. thing, just in case there is a problem down the road. I worry about not having enough oil to keep it cool when it gets hot out. I found out there is a filter in each head. They said it's too new to be gloged up.I remember someone else had the same question quite awhile back. Haven't tried to find it yet.The sevice manager said some of these dip sticks aren't right. Any other thoughts? Thanks! Jcolson(Jim)

There still is a problem with their work, they should do a leak down test which I'm sure will show more than normal blow by. The filter in the head should not be a problem, they shouldn't be gummed up in this short of time. One troubling thing is the 2nd ring they didn't install right then had to replace, did they hone the cylinder and replace all the rings? My bet is they popped it apart and replaced the 2nd ring then buttoned it back up, this is not how it should be done. The 1st 25 miles of a build is when the rings seat, they seat due to the honed finish on the cylinder. Once this honed finish has been smooth out by the rings scraping against it cylinder ring seal is as good as it gets. If they just slapped in a new 2nd ring it isn't sealed because the honed finish has already been smoothed out, it was a 50 - 50 chance they took and I'm pretty sure they lost that bet.

Running a half qt low won't hurt a thing, I've done it for years with no issues at all.

[jcolson]

Hey MSCOKO3, I think your right about not honing the cylinders. I asked them if they were going to hone them & the service manager said the cylinders looked good.So I bet they didn,t. I will find out.I will leave it at 3 1/2 & see if I lose anymore oil.Anytime I ever tore down a motor I always hone the cylinders. You would think that would be a given.Thanks everybody!
I'm going down to Muncie to see Dennis from T-Glide Stuff in the morning. Going to be cold.Use to ride in cold,when I was young & stupid.Now I am just old & stupid.

[Mr.Wizard]

Just under the rocker box cover are the rocker arms and the rocker arm plate. Sitting on the top center of the rocker arm plate is the cylinder breather assembly. There are two gaskets on the breather assembly. Under the rocker arm plate there is an o-ring for the breather assembly. Dollar to a doughnut either the o-ring is missing or damaged or one of the two gaskets for the cylinder breather is damaged. This will cause oil to puke out of the air filter.

To find which cylinder is puking the oil take your air filter off and remove the back plate bolts one at a time. Inspect each bolt to see which one has an accumulation of oil in it and on the threads. That will be the breather gasket or o-ring that is bad.

The breather assembly is about 13 bucks and a buck for the o-ring. Take the tank and the rocker box cover off and use a 3/8 socket or speed wrench to remove the two bolts that hold the breather assembly on. You may have to scrape the old gasket material off so use Kleenex to fill all the open holes then use a Q-tip dipped in oil to remove all the small specs of scraped gasket material. Finish off with an air gun. Reverse the process.

When removing rocker arm plates you must remove the two breather assembly bolts first if there is spring pressure via the push rods. This is not so important if the push rods are cut but they still must be removed when removing the rocker arm plate. If the cylinder breather assembly becomes dislodged from the rocker arm plate the bottom gasket will tear every time or if the motor has some miles on it with a lot of heat the gasket will become brittle. Oil from the head will be pulled into the cylinder breather assembly and gather in the air filter to drip on the bike and biker.

Not hard to find, not hard to fix but a real pain if you don't replace these when refitting your rocker arm plates.

[NemoPHD]

oops i ment rocker arm support...not cam plate wtf was i thinking....

[jcolson]

Well,started out to drive down to see Dennis this morning.Didn't get too far. Started knocking & kept getting louder.I get valve train noise, but nothing like today.Stopped to check oil & was ok.Kept getting worse,so I stopped again.It was clattering when idling.Called dearship to come get it. Their driver was in Grand Rapids,Mi.So my brothers son took off work to bring a trailer.Took a couple hours.I think something broke loose inside.Sounds life a rod.Does not sound good.Dropped the bike off at the dealership.They new I was pissed.Maybe I should have gotten the bike somewhere else.This is the 3rd time it's been in. Hopefully this is the last time,but not holding my breath.Thanks for all the information.At least it's still under warranty.