Does anybody know if there is anywhere where you can do a short course about Harley engines?  I live in melbourne and wanna just learn the internal stuff and basic understanding on the engine and its workings.  Enough so you can work on your own bike confidently.  I'm pretty good with my hands and can figure most stuff out but would like to do this course if there is one.  Cheers.

Thanks Ozroder.  Makes sense that Harley wouldn't run a course because then now one would need to get their bikes serviced at the stealers.  Looks like I'll just have to learn by experience and with the help of this forum.  Tell you what though if you were a Harley technition it'd be a good little buisness venture to start up.

have read somewhere that HD have set up one of their university courses here for dealer techs... will see what I can find

BUY A SHOVELL ULL LEARN QUICKLY

buy a harley workshop manual. theyre pretty good.

Ive already got a workshop manual. It's great - worth every cent. Just thought it'd be good to learn how to pull down an evo engine and rebuild it etc. Don't wanna do that with mine just yet as she's still running perfect.

Everybody always says that shovels are always breaking down or leaking. Is that true is it? Also I've heard that the evo engine is probably the best and strongest engine that Harley have made is this true too?

Everybody always says that shovels are always breaking down or leaking. Is that true is it?

Poorly maintained shovels are very unforgiving and will leak and give you the shits, but they are a great bike if looked after, they are well priced due mainly to the laziness of people who cast them off as junk and are not willing to put the time in, they are a great second bike, "i do not have that luxury". If you want to learn they will certainly teach you and challenge you. If you just want to ride and have a latte stay with new stock bikes, but if you want to meet some great people and learn a shit load and remain poor rebuild an old bike, one thing for sure you`ll never have nothing to do.

Have the primary off mine at the moment changing the infamous gearbox main oil seal, but will be back on the road by weekend.

Good to hear the Evo is easy to work on. Don't wanna pull mine apart just yet but with the manual I reakon i'll give it a shot myself before I go to a dealer. It's running great at the moment but i gotta admit the S&S carby gives me the shits a bit. I'm forever fiddling with the idle and mixtures just to get it right.
As for you shovel blokes I take my hat off to ya. They are a nice looking engine with plenty of character and lets face it they make the best sound out of all the engines.

Thanks kiwidave. I have downloaded the manual from the S&S website which is great - thats how i got it running right now. That link you gave me is pretty much a brief rundown of the manual.
Just a quick question - At the moment i've just got the standard pipes on with tapered turbo slip ons but i wanna put a set of vance and hines big radius 2 into 2 pipes or a set of short shots on the bike. If i do this will i have to rejet the carby too?

I have a colortune for setting up carbs, gets you pretty close.google it see what you think, your welcome to borrow it .

Well bugger me thats a bloody great tool houli. I googled it. I never knew they even existed. Thanks for the offer to borrow yours but I think i might buy myself one. Thats the kind of thing i can see myself using for years. Did you buy yours online or at a shop?

Got it off ebay, have you had a look at a 2-1  stainless steel supertrap, were the exhaust to have for evo`s  a few years back, performance wise. 

You`ll have to look at your plug size to tell which one you need, pull a plug and measure the diameter of the thread, i am of the opinion that V twins perform well with muffler volume, look at the old XR750 and XR1000, talk to people with real life experience not salesmen. http://www.supertrapp.com/ worth a look, the good thing is they are tunable.

Thanks Raymond. Uncanny I just found the website for Fix my Hog yesterday. Looks pretty good but pricey. Might put it on the xmas list. Thanks for the info.