Hey Gang,

I took off most of my engine and tranny covers to have them PC'd gloss black. I wanted to do the lower rocker box housings and the lifter (aka tappet) covers as well but was unsure of the procedure for removal. The service manual breaks that process up over and entire section that covers a complete top end overhaul so I am having trouble narrowing down the necessary info to simple get these covers off and then re-install them.

One idea I had to help keep things a bit more simple was possibly removing the rocker arm support plate WITHOUT removing the breather assembly from it. From what I can tell from the parts breakdown, the breather assembly's fasteners do not go through the support plate and into the rocker housing so I am assuming that the unit can be removed as a whole? Can anyone verify this? Or is this one of those cases where I should take the breather appart while I'm in there and replace the filter and umbrella-thingmajig with new ones? My ride has 63K miles on it and was running trouble-free (except for needing a new stator and regulator) prior to tear down.

I guess on this same note...in order to remove the lifter covers, is it necessary to remove the rocker arm support plate before I can remove the push rods to get the lifter covers off? Again, the manual does not cover a process of simply removing the lifter covers and begins the section with the removal of the rocker boxes. I ask this because if I decide not to do these two sets of parts in black now then perhaps in the future I can at least do the lifter covers which would be the most of offensive of the two if not done in black to match everything else.

Again, my ride is a 2008 Softail with stock 96B motor.

Thanks,

Skeez