Need Mechanic

[blackheart]

Seems as though you must be running lean to crack these heads.  My #307 with factory tune had 6200 on it before super x tune added. Now it's fairly rich which should help.  As I understand it, EH just plain missed the boat on the heads.  With just a single exhaust port and thus a narrow web between the two valves the thermal stresses imposed locally in this bridge area is huge. This is why Polaris and Japanese ATV's will circulate oil in the head.  HD circs oil or water around exhaust seats to help suck heat out.  Check out a Honda XR600 or 400, those totally air cooled heads have two exhaust ports with substantial material between them.

It's far cheaper to buy another bike than spend $10k.  If you want heads welded you might try Noland head service in KC.  They have specialized in weld repair for decades. Aluminum is far easier to weld than cast iron.

[Berlin Bob]

those plugs  aren't  right !!!!!

[EH389]

Thanks for the info Blackheart.   The first overhaul was done by Bobby and that one cost me $8k and the next one cost me $10k.  The problem is I am always optimistic when they go in and am sticker shocked when they come out.  May try and get them fixed one more time before switching to a Goldwing.  For the cost of these two bikes and all the repairs I could have owned 3 new Goldwings by now and driven 300,000 miles.

[blackheart]

I cant fathom anyone charging that kind of money when they likely did very little.  I'm sorry but #307 was purchased as a third owner at 6200 miles. It was a factory demonstrator or that's what I was told.  Build list confirms that.  I did the transmission upgrade myself and had ecm reflashed at 6800 miles.  No other engine upgrades.   At that time I found 2 tablespoons of aluminum shavings in oil pan below transmission. I figured it was scuffed pistons.  I rode it to 14k when I figured something was wrong as oil filter still was getting small metallic particles in it.  Turns out the LH main spun and was basically severely overheated and scored.

I went ahead and bushed the case and decided to run leaded bronze bushing in lieu of a new OEM bearing on both mains as I found the thrust washer smoked too and when I made the new one I made an integral thrust face on RH bushing.

At the time while I had it apart I went ahead and ground the valves as you could see the exhaust valves were needing attention. I had Swain coat the chambers in the heads and coat piston crown/skirt.

Granted I had some time in it but if I would have worked 50 hours straight I'd have done it all in a week.  I guess you could say my time is worth $200/hr but I dont see it worth anywhere near that for basic mechanical work. 

That engine did fail due to my omission for adequate clearance to allow for case expansion and not bind up the starter gear between the splined adapter and LH main.  I'm now convinced the original main likely spun for the same reason.  I had what I think was an early prototype late model crank/compensator as it is below the s/n when they switched and it had hand written paint pen clearance readings written on it.