Leaky Rocker Box

[DJW]

Started blowing a small amount of oil out of the rocker boxes. I do know the parts were 150 bucks, i'll post them once i pick the bike back up, labor was about the same.

The dealer stated that this has been a problem with VR, although it's the first i've heard of it.

To check your bike look very closely beneath the chrome rocker boxes at the top of each cylinder. Be sure to check the concealed area between the cylinder heads and the gas tank. Although I didn't notice the problem until I saw some black power, it's possible there was oil in the concealed spaces that I didn't see.

In particular look carefully if you have the VRB where the black soot will be much harder to see.

Hopefully this is freak thing for me only, but if the dealer is right this is something you should all check carefully.

PS. I have an 02 with about 15k on it.

[harleymoe]

Mine's an 05 and we found a couple of oil leaks during the 1600 km (Canada) check-up. One was the rocker box and the other was the head gasket. Nice. Harley doesn't want to fix them unless they are actually dripping ????

[notso4x4]

My battery was dead before I picked up the bike so they put a new one in, but they didn't tighten the breather hose on top of the Rocker Box. It started leaking oil and looked like it was coming from the edge of the cover. Not true, when they started looking at it the fitting that goes into the rocker Box was loose. The tech called harley they said it just pushes in there, no seal, no o-ring nothing. He decided to put some sylicone on it and put it back in and tightened the hose. No more problem since. The tech did say that harley had commented that there had been complaints about the fitting leaking.