Man! I have worked on VW's for years and got used to leaky motors but thought I had gotten away from that,,, Wrong! My Fatboy was doing great then this week both rocker Boxes have started leaking. Enough that it leaves 2" puddles on the floor overnight. What happened??? Was dry as a bone! Has 12k miles on it and I have put around 1k miles on since I got him. The bike had sat for 2 yrs. before I got it with it being started a couple times a month. Dry gaskets?? I have put in Mobil 1 15w50 oil. Syth. oil have anything to do with it leaking? How involved is it to replace the gaskets? Thanks Mark

 

Sometimes when you switch from dyno to syn oil, The syn oil will clean varnish off your gaskets and with the varnish gone you will develop some leaky gaskets on a older engine. I switched to syn oil at 60,000 miles and my base gaskets started leaking within the first thousand miles. With a new set of gaskets,it won't happen again [8D]

 

I had this happen on my FLHS once. It was a result of starting it cold and rev'ing the engine too high I think. The engine wasn't warmed up enough for the gaskets to "swell" (they were paper gaskets) yet. I think I just blew one of them out. I replaced the top end rocker gaskets (all 5 I think), and she's as good as new. Due to the fact that your bike was started while sitting, maybe it didn't warm up enough and you had the same problem. Just a thought.

 

ive had a rocker box leak on an o4 SE electraglide....i took it to the stealer (the bike only had 1200 miles on it) that was th eonly harley i ever had that kind of problem before, since and after...of course they covered it under warranty because it was so new

 

Wow! I couldn't take it. I got the gasket set and tore into him. He put up a good fight but I got all of the gaskets changed. The rubber ones were like new but the paper ones under the bottom rocker were brittle and cracked. Don't know why they weren't leaking before now! The front cylinder isn't bad but the rear one nearly got to me! Took me about 6 hours to do the gaskets and jet the carb,lube the clutch cable and put it all back together. Went on a 100 mile ride and no leaks so far! Welcome back BO! (I had named him that the day I went to buy him but when he started leaking on my shop floor I changed his name to SPOT!) Thanks Mark