2000classic
Active Member
Back in '05 had a dealer speed shop install gear driven cams in my injected 2000 Ultra. Afterward 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 back plate 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 back plate 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 anywhere. Finally pulled the air cleaner and sure enough, had some oil pooled in the a/c. and seemed to be coming from the front breather tube. The new back plate 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!
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!
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