Gentleman. Need a little help locating a noise in what sounds like the top end of the front cylinder. Recent modifications to my 99 FXSTC includes new S&S steel breather gear new S&S cam as well as a new full roller bearing. The noise I'm hearing seems loudest at the front left side of the rocker box. It's a ticking sound but not overly loud and only appears after it warms up and sometimes it disappears without warning. I have listened with a stethoscope and cannot hear anything out of the ordinary ANYWHERE BUT WHILE SITTING ON THE BIKE I CAN HEAR IT REFLECTING OFF THE WINDSHIELD. When I did the cam the bearing looked fine but replaced it and junked the INA. The lifter rollers looked just fine and nothing out of the ordinary. I'm approaching 17k on this bike and I know about the lifter issues with them. I had a lifter fail on my twin cam totally out of no where. No warning or anything. Which gives me concerns about being a little fun shy on the lifter issues. I will be doing lifters and adjustable pushrods this coming winter but in the mean time I would like to try to find the cause of this noise. All suggestions would be helpful. The noise appeared after the cam change. Thanks all

 

Mine makes the same noises, has been for years. Let me know what you find out!

 

Front exhaust valves make noise. Now how much noise is OK, that depends.

 

Make sure it's not your front exhaust gasket making that tick sound, very deceiving.

 

She's gonna BLOW my friend......... take 2 teaspoons of SEAFOAM and keep your fingers crossed........

 

Quite probably the problem is the lifters, IF you re used the stock Harley lifters. ONE: They are almost to the Harley reccommended replacement mileage, and TWO: Harley lifters WILL get very noisy, very quickly on an agressive cam like any S&S. They work just OK on cams with .490 lift or less, but anything over that, they get noisy real fast. They simply are not designed to work on quick cam lobe ramps like S&S and many others use to generate much faster cylinder filling. With a TC of that vintage, it has obviously had its cam bearing changed, but probably retained the original cam drive which is inherently much noisier than an EVO. Most likely it is the very fast opening ramps combined with factory lifters which you are hearing. Change the lifters to S&S or Fueling and the noise should be greatly reduced. You DID switch to adjustable pushrods, didn't you? If so, be sure they are adjusted properly or they can mimic rocker box noises. H.D. Certified Tech {retired}.

 

Thanks for the replies gentleman. Haven't changed to adjustable pushrods yet planned that job for this winter along with new lifters. It appeared after the cam change so I was pretty sure it is definitely valve train noise due to the higher lift cam. I figured it's the valves closing harder. Exhaust gaskets have been changed no leaks as of now rocker arm bushings seemed fine. Best guess I could come up with is the pushrods are traveling more allowing the increased valve noise.

 

Any danger in running til this winter? Also any special procedure when installing lifters on the EVO. Do I need to preload the lifters or anything special like that. My only concern is when I install the adjustable pushrods with the new lifters are they gonna bleed down like a "in-use" lifter or will they already be bled down making adjusting the pushrods different than just taking out the slack then turning the specified amounts of flats per the new pushrods. Thanks