that's what the shop that did the work did. In retrospect, a thorough teardown might have been better, but who knows? There's a lot of places a chip could hide.

 

So the more I read the more I realize that some metal has gone through my motor. I was reading about the breather and I noticed it was scored.

Can I also assume this associates with more oil leaking from the bottom of the my S&S carb cover from the breather tubes?

At this point I do see scoring in cases and the plastic breather did have small flakes on it that wiped off with few pretty deep gouges.

Is it safe to say that putting in a new reed breather would be the best/easiet bet, I really don't want to get into honing the bore...don't have the tools.

 

How do you know when to replacem them? Do.you wait to hear the knocking?.or replace them at.40 thousand?

 

If it was me or when my bike gets another 25K on it after the rebuild. They will be replaced again. Maybe even at 20K . For a few hundred bucks it's a pretty easy DIY job. So much info out there--why take the chance of the lifters pounding the crap out of your cam. I think I could have saved my cam if I didn't ride my bike after I heard the noise but who knows!!

What if it starts making the noise when your 40miles from home? We are not talking about a small tick here. This was a ball peen on an anvil noise!! I should not have ridden my bike after hearing it but.....I kept hearing it's an EVO they make noise BLAH BLAH BLAH...thrash it and if it blows up rebuild it..... I'll know next time!

 

Well got my bike all back together. Rinsed the whole thing with Kerosene and a squirt bottle. Removed bottom inspection plate from the cases to see how much metal I could find. Basically some very tiny pieces of what looked like Chrome flake from the the lifter/Cam surface.

Put everything back together using S&S metal breather, Screaming Eagle quick change pushrods, new 0023 HeadQuarters cam, Harley B lifters, New oil pump.

Everything seems OK with about 40miles on the clock, just about ready to change the oil again.

So pumped, no noises and running just how I remember!! I guess we will see for how long but so far so good!