Now that I am done with the wedding, and I still have some free time before work, I decided to tear into the bike. Its been leaking oil for the past few months. In reality, its been leaking since July of 2004.*THAT* leak started when I was haulin' back from Kansas City, and the Harley left me on the side of the road. (see June 2004 for the original story).

My original fix-it job from June involved the front pulley and the rear rocker box gasket. The front rocker box looked fine. Fine that is until a mere 200 miles later, the front rocker box started leaking. Good Ol Harley - engineering to specifications at its finest. Two critical gaskets fail with in 200 miles of each other! (I'll bet the MoCo is even ISO 900x cetified!)

The weeping oil really hasn't been that big a deal. I just watch the levels, and keep some cardboard under the bike. But, with a free day, I decided to tackle the gasket in question.

It really helps to have experience! The first time I did the gasket, it took me two days to disassemble and then reassemble all the parts and pieces. This time, it was a mere 4 hours. I'm sure that I could have gone faster, but my next door neighbor came over and we chatted for a while.

I'm happy to report that the bike fired up on the first try, and after idling for a few seconds, the extra clanking subsided, and the bike sounded normal. I let it run while I picked up and cleaned my tools. No leaks! I'll have to road test the beast to be sure, but I have a high confidence that everything it torqued and assembled correctly.