I am posting this from another forum, I was stumped with what was going on and the bloke is not to sure if things are ok with the bike..  By the way the bike has 75k miles on the clock.  

 

 

 

Alright fellers... sorry about the long read; just wanna be accurate. Old folks is what I need here; if you couldn't vote for Reagan, you're not going to be much help on this one, I suspect. PolliMorphi, I'm counting on you, here.

Buddy buys '81 FLH Shovelhead, appears to be an 80 in. (10 fins is a 74 incher, and 9 fins an 80 inch, right?)

Guy he bought it from knows fuck-all about the bike. Been setting a while, guy thinks it's got fucked up oil lines, because it's puking oil into the primary.

I got a diagram of the oil lines from the factory manual (fuck, that is a lot of lines. Four hundred and twelve separate vent lines.) I couldn't see every inch of every line, but it looked like the shit was all where it was supposed to be. Jim's aftermarket pump, but the line routing looked pretty close to stock, I guess.

I put a battery in. I opened the inspection cover, and oil barfs out. I put new 20w50 about halfway up in the oil bag, and start it. Bitch comes to life, and the oil pressure starts climbing to about fifty pounds, and the top end seems noisy. (The whole thing was noisy - drag pipes in a concrete garage!) Open the primary, pukes everywhere.

I repeated this process three times, and finally, the oil level in the bag stopped dropping, the clacking up top stopped, she put out a solid forty pounds of pressure at fast idle without climbing, and the primary stopped filling. (I think - it sure as shit slowed down if it didn't stop!)

Is this normal? I assume the check ball either wasn't seating or had some crap between the ball and seat, and since the bike has some odds-and-ends safety bullshit that needs pretty immediate attention, told him to check the primary level again after he next started it to see how bad it's sumping. (The bike sat for like five years or some crazy shit.) I figured if it did the same shit, we'd try and clean up his seat with a new check ball or some lapping compound, but if it was in pretty good shape, we'd chalk it up to the long spell it just sat for.

But can this feeding into the primary chaincase happen? Instead of crapping through the vent onto the garage floor, can Shovels offload that oil into the primary? I watched it for a bit with the inspection cover off, and it was fucking puking in there at the beginning of this little science experiment, but it seems to have stemmed right down to nothin'. I've only really worked on Blockheads, and those have sealed primaries, so I'm in the dark on this one. I pronounced this bike drivable for the time being, but I told him I'd ask someone more knowledgeable than me to give me a green light before it got my blessing - did I do right, or just fuck my buddy? (Fuck him anyway, he got a Shovel for 3k plus two beers and a few boxes of ammo for me to come dick with it/show him how to dick with it.)

Thanks! -L.

Straight fifty weight is the go for shovels.Cast iron doesn't like the addatives in multi grades. Penrite HD seems to be the best of wots available these days.

 hi,  the loi drip feeds into the pri  chain  & returns from the lower rear left  inner pri cover too the scavenge @ the back of the engine case inboard of the oil pump above the engine  breather ,  make sure all oil line's are correct 1st 

but the shovels are bad for the left  main case race insert coming loose  i would be checking buy take off the clutch etc + rotor & stator  , heat up around the steel main bearing insert  put some soapy water or just use wd40  on around the  case insert  & blow light air presure up thru the engine breather  look for any bubbles  , look for any lip were the steel meets the alloy , then you will know if all the main bit's are good 1st 

good pic kiwidave ; after checking the main seal replace with a new 1 if the main case race looks ok, ,    if you have a ail leak in the pri cover gagkets the pri scavenge will not work , also if there is damage to the breather gear  in the cam chest as it's the breather gear  inner hole that doe's all the scavege  work for that  oil return,         i   also convert too the later oil system 1984 & up

The bloke really appreciated it as well.

i was brung-up on cast iron sporty's & shovels  & work spanners  in a shop

Shovels are a bike that you need to work on. If you cant wrench buy a Twinky. I love mine and have spent 100's of hours working on it .....wouldnt have it any other way.