Here she is,, my 58 Duo-Glide

[mogman]

We are going for our first ride since starting phase 2 of the restoration, I still have a ways to go, in restoration at this time are wheels, brake controls(foot), Jiffy stand/foot shift controls, axles and shocks, sorry for the "quick pics" and it's cloudy today, But I got to get my boots on and gooooo..
Oh yes that is a rattle can paint job, I am waiting until I find the correct foot shift left tank and my ship to come in before getting that high dollar restoration paint job...

[john HD]

looks good to me, i like the black headlight bucket!

john

[mogman]

I have got to figure this tappet crap out , I am not a dumb ass , but this beats all, I have tried repops, went through a bucket full of OEM units hand selecting the ones with the least leak down, steel pushrods, al pushrods, the cam followers are in correctly, I have good oil pressure, I mean oil only has to get into the bottom of the cam followers and the tappets will do the rest, it's not freaking rocket science!!! To top it off a 26 mi round trip to the local "dive" and it was closed do to the fact all the drunks got toasted early and went home.

[john HD]

what kind of shape is your tappet screen in?

john

[windweaver]

looks good keep up the work WW

[mogman]

John, it's a new re-pop from NOS parts.

[john HD]

John, it's a new re-pop from NOS parts.

try running without it in place and see if it improves... i had one that looked perfect but would not pass enough oil.

you can remove the screen temporarily and just put the cartridge back in. run it and see what happens.

i have been running my bike without the tappet screen for quite some years now with no ill effect. however i do have an oil filter on the bike.

also, not all hydraulic lifters are created equal! the set i am running now came from accel, my motor guy and i went through about 10 of them that were not up to his standards. recently i was helping a buddy of mine with a lifter problem on his 62 FL, we tried about 6 new oem harley lifters until we found a couple that seemed good enough and ran quiet.

keep at it they will work well if you are persistant!

john

[mogman]

Well it is defiantly an oiling issue, I opened the pushrod tubes and I can collapse the hydraulic units completely easily, just like when I drain them before installing them, furthermore I can "pump" them" as much as I want and they do not pick up any oil telling me the wells under the hydraulic units are dry. I will have to dig out the oil pressure gauge I had on it for a short time, as I remember the oil pressure was so good that when it (the gauge) started leaking I did not think twice about just removing it, I even think it was mounted in place of the cap over the lifter screen!!!!!!

[mogman]

I pulled the rear pushrods, I used a large screwdriver to listen to the lower pushrod tubes when I got home last night and the rear intake was the loudest, it also had the most play when I checked it today, it is not a total lubrication failure as everything is plenty wet, I guess I will try the no screen next.

[mogman]

Well I pulled it down to the point of removing the tappet blocks and lifter screen, using compressed air to in sure the oil passages were clear to that point re-installed everything and switching back to the steel pushrods, leaving the screen out, fired it up and within 20 seconds the lifters filled and all was good, rode about 6 mi to the gas station to top off the tanks and all was good running great and quiet, started first kick and of I went, as soon as I got back up to speed the damn lifters started getting noisy again, went another 5 miles to the HEB got some soda, started first kick and headed home still tapping away( I have been limiting my speed to 60 or so), about 4 mi from home it got INSAINLY loud and in a very short period of time, limped home at 30. Still hitting on two though, when I shut it down it did not roll much as if it was very tight, I am letting it cool down, I'm thinking a complete top end tear down is in order to see what kind of crap is going on. I have looked at my logs and I actually have over 700 mi on this rebuild, I would have thought if I did something dumb ass it would have shown up before now

[panhead]

Did you check if the oil is returning to the tank?

[mogman]

I assume it is the tank is always full(the check valve leaks by very slowly over time and the level goes down in the tank, starting it every month or so would bring the tank back up to full), I waited till it cooled down and restarted it, the lifters picked up oil and it was relatively quiet, also the oil tank was not nearly as hot as the engine when I returned home, all this is now telling me I do not have as much pressure/flow as I thought, when it gets hot it does not have enough oil pressure to supply the lifters, I pulled the filter and did not see anything evil, when I built the engine I flushed the oil tank and all of the oil lines, I did use the OEM pump but it looked like it had very little wear, if all this is so I am sure the rockers and maybe the pistons are not very happy campers!! I am getting old and now I am not sure I ever had a gauge on this engine, I built it about 3 years ago and have many projects going at the same time..

[DuoDave]

Mogman - If your lifters are getting that noisy, you are running a real risk of a pushrod jumping out of location. That could result in a snapped rocker arm, bent pushrod and damaged valve cover. A simple and relatively inexpensive solution would be to fit solid lifters, but, if it was me, I would want to know what the problem is. What grade of oil are you using? Go over the oil feeds again, you want to be absolutely sure that they are clear. What procedure are you using to adjust the pushrods? You may have a problem with worn bushes so that there is not enough oil getting to the lifters to keep them pumped up once the engine is hot. A badly worn oil pump could cause the same thing.

[panz4ever]

mogman, are you running an Andrews A grind? If so check out the cam question for Cotton on Forum 1.

[mogman]

All of the bushings are new and have been checked for fit(but for the rockers and they were in great shape.at least then), I am running oversized tappets that I carefully fit using my pin hone machine; one can almost install the tappet guides before the tappets slide out if they are oiled first. I have tried strait 50 and 60W oil then on the advice of an old engine builder in Corpus I switched to 20-50W Castrol (what I have run in every air cooled engine for the last 35 or so years) I am running a J grind cam.
I am going to install a gauge today, but I am pretty sure what I am going to find, if so I'm sure the rockers are probably in bad shape by now, given their reputation even when the oiling system is working properly, I should just throw a sheet over it and start working on the house as it is that time of year when it's cool enough, I'm getting to the point where I hate to even go and work on it, it will be even worse if it was a defective oil pump the whole time and not only did I miss it but have gone so far as to cause engine damage, I did pulled the cam cover a couple of weeks ago and all looked fine. I have not seen any indication of lubrication failure, scoring, galling etc,and I did not see any metallic particles in the return oil filter when I pulled it yesterday, or on the suction screen in the cam case.