did an oil change and checked the tappet screen and found 4 tiny aluminum chips in the screen. Should I be worried?

 

On an Evo, yeah, I'd worry about that. Drain and check your oil tank. Maybe flush it out with some kerosene and look for chips. Next, cut that last oil filter open and look. If you don't find anything with that, then I'm going to guess you have an oil pump problem and I'd pull it apart and inspect it if it were me.

 

tore apart the old oil filter (has in tank filter ), looked good. So its the oil pump for sure? Just want to confirm before I go taking it off. thanks for the quick reply.

 

if it's aluminum for sure, something is gouging something up somewhere.... i'd surely start with pulling the cam cover and seeing what's what.... more than likely you might have chipped a tooth off one of the oil pump gears and it's having a field day gouging up your breather hole

 

There is no "fer sure," until you have the parts in your hands are look, but I would look at the pump or in the timing chest next, certainly. This isn't a dry primary bike, is it? I don't know what Evos came with an in tank filter. A dry primary bike with an in tank filter could have the source also be in the primary, which would be common on a shovelhead but rare on an evo, as dry primary evos are pretty rare.

 

its a bastard year bike, 86' FXWG. Evo with a rotary top 4 speed, elec. & kickstart. it does have oil in primary but it has already been sealed off. I think I may have found the root cause, there is rust in the bottom of the oil tank! I vacuumed out the tappet screen area to find what looked like rusty flakes, so I then checked the tank. sure enough rust!

 

Ya but aluminum doesn't rust if thats what you mean.

 

I'm thinking that the rust is causing havoc inside the oil pump, maybe thats why I'm finding aluminum pieces?

 

it's possible...pull that cam cover off and take a peek, anyway

slide the breather out (noting timing marks, of course) ...and take a look

 

alright I'll give that a look.