Dog Down! Oil Light On

[Jersey Big Mike]

If the bike starts and doesn’t make any unusual sounds, that’s good. Is the tapping sound you mentioned in your first post still there? Engine wear is supposed to be gradual, but an incident without oil pressure will accelerate that wear. If you had partial oil pressure, you might not have hurt it at all.
Any competent mechanic can do a leak down test (check to see if the cylinders hold a steady level of compression psi). Look it up on Utube and you’ll know, too. If there is excessive wear on the piston rings and cylinder walls, it won’t hold compression very long. That will give you an idea if there was significant wear on the piston rings, which is a decent overall perdictor of engine wear. If you can get your hands on one, do it yourself.
If it turns out to be a failed oil pump, you may get away with a $50 (or so) rebuild kit. As I recall replacement S&S oil pumps are about $500 or so. If you have some tools and decent skills, just go to any of Mr. Wright’s posts. On the bottom is a link to all the manuals—download yours and think about doing it yourself. It just takes time and care. You do have to remove the rocker boxes, lifters, and camshaft. Then you’ll know how to do that too. The instructions explain how to avoid cavitation. I think I took some kind of syringe to put oil in the pump before firing it up. You’ll have an oil gauge on it by then, so you’ll be OK.
FWIW, I value a local wrench who is skilled with our Evo design engines over a HD dealership any day.....this repair is not a difficult one for any shop, if you decide to go that way.
Appreciate your service—I was Army ‘66-‘68, combat engineers.

Hey Rick, was that 1866 or 1966? With one of the old ones you never know!

 

[SKOGDOG]

Might even be 2066 with the way things are going!! Haha

 

[82ndAirborne]

I installed a Tappet Screen gauge and fired it up. The gauge didn't budge...nothing. I quickly put my ear to the rocker box and could hear a Tap-Tap noise. Sounded exactly like a car sounds when running low on oil. I don't feel confident enough to perform the pump rebuild/replacement, particularly when a mistake could do significant damage. No idea at this point if damage has already occurred. I plan to drain the oil and have a look. Regardless of what I find, I've located a shop that has a good reputation and I plan to take it out to him when he can schedule me in. Thanks for your help.

 

[Sven]

I can think of 3 oil checks right off the tip of my [burns when I pee] but that's another story. Wire coat hanger and bend a hook so the pushrod tube is held up and stays there. Rear exhaust looks the easiest. Start the engine and if you see oil pepper out of there, kill the engine. Remove the timing plug at the lower engine case, start the engine. If oil heavily sprays out of there, kill the engine. Remove oil gauge, clean threads with a wooden toothpick chasing thread tape or whatever; start engine to purge debris and oh look, oil shot out of there is 3 ways of finding if the pump is operating as per.
A solute for your services.

 

[Sven]

I quickly put my ear to the rocker box and could hear a Tap-Tap noise.

Post 8 says the keyway dropped out and no pressure. No blue mist 12, no 'splash lube' to the piston skirts. This galls the aluminum to the cylinder walls and sort of snowballs material off the thrust sides of the piston. This opens a normally tight clearance so you do not have this slap-slap, or tick-tick being the change in direction from top to bottom skirts = Ticking.

So the deal is... slide the rear exhaust push rod tube up and light off the bike. Brake clean the tube clean at the bottom before you pull the C-clip. And it takes no tools to remove that C-clip. Just grab the bottom of the C ends, pull down on the little cap, grab the C-clip out at the bottom.

If you hear the ticking and no oil out of the lifter, then yeah, skirts might be damaged causing the tick.

Here is a flow chart. Top end receives oil first =1-2-3-4-5, then 6 [spring] is overridden via 2A's main pump; feed's 7 to the bottom end.