Stripped the top end and measured. The front exhaust valve fit to guide is .0007" above upper servie limit (.0033"). All 4 rocker bushings in the front head are .0005" above max fit. No weak lifters...double checked. Have good flow thru all 4 lifters.
Hopefully this will fix my problem.
There was a ton of carbon in the combustion chambers, 1/4" deep in spots. One of the valves was buried in it. One valve recess in the piston was full!. All cleaned out and ready to reassemble.
Wrist pins and bearings had no radial or axial play. No cylinder or piston scuffing.
Will post.............

 

Most likely the carbon was getting glowing hot and causing detonation which will certainly make a noise and especially since it was only noisey after getting the engine up to operating temp, that is most likely your noise problem. Possible causes for the buildup could be worn rings or valve seals. A simple "de-carbon" and freshen up the top end with rings and a valve job would take care of all that. Depending on whether the compression reading was taken with the throttle open or closed, 110 is rather low for an Evo. The book says 90, but anything under 125 I consider compromised.

 

Okay...Head's in the shop getting a new guide. Putting in new valve seals, new valves, new rockers in front head. (Will rebuild old ones as spares) New rings.
I think the carbon came from 2 sources...seals, and when I bouught the bike, it had a CV carb on it. I only got 90 miles to a tank of gas. New S&S on it, I get 180 miles to a tank. Was obviously running way too rich.
It was pinging hard if I advanced the curve on the ingnition box. The noise I hear now isn't detonation, it's a "tink" sound in the head...hopefully will be gone when I fire this beast up. I think it was oil passing the rockers when thinned out and you could hear the excess play, or the loose guide. You pick!
I did check compression with the throttle closed... my F-up, shoulda had it open!
New rings should ensure good compression. I'd never remove jugs without changing the rings, cheap insurance. Base gaskets were leaking anyway, so jugs came off(was supposed to be next winter job)
Anybody have a good, easy way to remove the base gaskets? Man, it took quite a few hours to scrape those things off.

Thanks for your posts! Keep them coming. Hopefully this thread will be helpful to someone down the road, too

 

Anything about removing the old base gaskets will help me! My front one is bubbling on the right front corner, so I'm going to have to pull of the top end before too long (hopefully next winter, too!), and I agree with you that I might as well re-ring while the jugs are off, etc. What kind of new gaskets did you go with?

 

Aircraft Paint Stripper

The trick to that stuff is to brush it on thick in one direction only (like the instructions state). If you use back and forth strokes, it just doesn't work well. (???)

Clean the oil off them best you can with whatever and the longer you leave the stripper on the better. And if you can leave it at least an hour, scrape off what's easy then apply another coat to sit longer, they come right off.

 

NorthGeorgiaHawg,
New base gaskets are James gaskets. I deal with Motor City Custom in Oshawa and they set me up with a mix of HD and James gaskets for the motor kit. Told them to supply me with what they use... I only want to do this once

 

Thanks for the tip, t150vej.
I'm gonna be changing them on my 1200 Sporty before I sell it, so I'll give it a try then.
I assume the paint stripper will peel the paint off the jugs, too, if ya ain't careful.

 

Pick up some foam rubber padding like they use in the seats. Cut it large to fit in the spigot bore with a slit to go around the rod. It works better than rags to keep junk out of the bottom end. You can take a vacuum and vacuum most of the junk up before you remove it if you make it tight enough, you can't do that with rags.

 

The PO had obviously done the wrong modifications to the CV carb. I'm assuming you mean 180 miles before you need to go to the reserve? That would be acceptable, as the stock HD petcock gives close to a gallon of reserve. At least that's how it was on my 93 FLHS. Swapping to a Pingel, you go down to 1/2 gallon of reserve.

That, is an outstanding idea!

 

Finished reassembly this morning. Fired up and went for a ride to seat the rings. When I got back home, there was the familiar tick. It's very faint now...have to get near the motor to hear it. Could it be a bad lifter from HD? OR could the oil passage in the lifter block be partially obscured? Guess that's the next place to look. Didin't make that noise until I got the lifters changed.
At least now I have the peace of mind that the top end/cylinders are in good shape.
The new rockers got rid of most of my typical EVO top end noises.
Carb settings have changed, probably with getting all the carbon out. Pops once when at low RPM when rolling up the throttle.
Riding the Blue ridge parkway in June, so I still have a couple of weeks to play before making the 1500 kms to get there.