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Guys who wrench XL's

1549 Views 4 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  satanizkool
I posted a few days ago 'bout my primary vent spewing oil on my '74 XLCH. I had posted that i thought i added too much oil in it. But thats not the case. Oil must be comin in from the crankcase through the seal @ the driveshaft (just guessin) Is that an easy fix? Just pull out the primary drive? No case splittin involved is there? Any input would be really appreciated.
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How do you define spewing? Is it a big gush? or just a little? Are you sure it's engine oil? Different color than primary. There's only two things that I can thing of right away to make engine oil get into the primary. 1, bad crank seal. 2, blown seal between the crankcase and tranny where the two case halves meet. Both of these are worsend by bad venting, or bad breather gear timing. A buddy of mine years ago had the same concern when he filled his primary up to the inspection cover rather than just the screw towards the bottom of the primary. I would make sure your tranny is vented, your engine breather tube isn't plugged or too small, and you breather gear is timed right before I took the primary off. Was your motor recently apart? Or have you rode it for years and it just started doing this. Worse case, it's a blown case towards the back at the wall between the tranny and crankcase but i doubt that's it. Could be leaking there though. What year sportster?
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OK I should have read the post better it's a 74 xlch. that's the best year sportster and model ever made. It was the last year they shifted on the correct side, they fixed the tach drive weak spot on the cases the prior years had and best of all it's a real sportster with kick start only. Make sure the tube coming out of the front of the cam cover is not plugged or too long. If you've had the cam cover off you need to make sure you got the breather gear in right. But most importantly, only fill the primary, to the level of the little phillips screw towards the bottom of the primary, not the big plug on top which is for the fill hole and checking primary chain tension. I also forgot one othe thing that could make your bike do this and it happened to me on an old 55 panhead. Your return oil pump could not be working and oil gets pumped in but no way for it to get out. If this is the case, you'll also see it spewing out of the breather pipe. Good luck and report back tot he group.
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This is what makes this board. That's some info that doesn't come from watchin TV or reading magazine. That's old school. On behalf of satinizkool (?) thanks Creepinogie.
Yeah, knowledge is power;& Creepinogie is Superman. This isn't the first time he's been able diagnose some obscure prob of mine. Rightious. I'll check that out. Thanks a million.
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