Short story first
Bloke comes to me with a 16 Model Breakout with 500ks on the clock wanting cams.
So I pop heads fit .030" head gasket and cams take for a test ride all good, Customer picks bike up and rides into sunset.
Next day I get a call that the bike is leaking oil from the front rocker box above exhaust, so I chuck on the trailer and go pick the bike up thinking never had a new lower or upper rocker gasket shit itself on me before.
tell the customer I'll sort it and have it back to him in a day
Now the juicy stuff I pop the front rocker gear and find a fault in the head casting and will now take this up with Harley for a new head, Customer is spewing that his new bike has this happen to it
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[URL=http://s307.photobucket.com/user/Ando1450/media/IMAG8436_zpsxnliaxok.jpg.html][/URL]
[URL=http://s307.photobucket.com/user/Ando1450/media/IMAG8437_zpsclwzvymj.jpg.html][/URL]
[URL=http://s307.photobucket.com/user/Ando1450/media/IMAG8438_zpszgymfrjh.jpg.html][/URL]
 

Whoops, doesn't look good.

You pump out enough parts and this shit happens. It would be nice if they went over every part, until you got the bill of course. One day robots (**disclaimer**not the guy from this site) will handle all this shit, though most of us will be broke and out of work...

Or maybe improve the robots, Bonkerz...

I'd hope it came off an automatic line somewhere, not done by someone who failed to check his work. Still, even then it should have been quality checked. You'd think there'd be several human eyes involved during the process of casting, machining and fitting the thing...

Oh well, mistakes happen, I guess. The most important thing is that Harley deals with it satisfactorily.

Sorry but just trying to confirm that it's a hole that the tip of the pen goes inside of?!

Was the hole there when the heads were pulled for the change of head gasket and cams or perhaps not noticed? Can't believe it would of sealed at all from the get go...

If he wants to ride it in the meantime why not just fill the flaws with JB Weld and level them off. Its not like its a high oil pressure or air zone given the breathers etc.

At least that would get him up and running.

Bloody hell. Bad robot; be interesting to hear what HD have to say ...

mistakes like this shouldnt happen in this age of technology ,but they slip through some how occassionaly . had a not very old tractor recently that would not "breathe" and release trans pressure build up.removed pto housing and checked gallery drillings for the breather passages and 1 of 2 drillings had been missed in the machining process,easy fix, but should not have been missed.also surprised the head didnt show a leak earlier,may be the gasket just covered the fault and missed a bit when disturbed. i imagine the owner of a near new bike isnt that impressed.

Let's hope they ( the WA dealer !) don't try to bug out on the warranty because "they did not discover it" in their franchised workshop, banging on about "HD trained mechanics" blah blah...

They CAN and DO wriggle like a worm on the hook sometimes for warranty , I had an ABS fault on a 22 month old bike with 14,000 k's , and by the time I booked and got it into the workshop it was 24 months+ Old !

Dealer ( SOR !) then tells me , ' I'll have to "pay and claim" as it's too old for warranty now' and they took 6 weeks to book me in because , quote " we are very busy in the workshop with new bikes ".

I'm onto HD Australia like a whingeing customer , and then it's all good , no money from my pocket which was the whole idea !

I had a mate that had a bearing missing out of his gearbox ( 2nd gear ) from the factory. Harley inspected it and replaced the whole gear set even though it was out of warranty. Would say some arses got kicked over that

Difficult to tell from the photo... but could there have been a membrane of metal on the surface which would have resulted in your not seeing the issue when you replaced the gasket?