TOPIC:

Lovely factory standard 1981 bike. Been in Harley dealer showroom on display for some time, 46K in km. New battery, carb kits, plugs, oils, tyres etc. Fired up and Major smoke from exhaust. Looks like new gaskets etc and engine supposed to have had work at some time in past.
When left to stand no oil on piston tops, so told probably not valve seals, more like rings not functioning.
Left a top soak of GT85 overnight, and ran up the road a bit to see if would clear a bit (rides excellent....apart from smoke)......not. 1 2 4 are oily plugs, 3 5 6 are dark but acceptable.
May try Seafoam, and even some Xando Stop Smoke in oil, just for a lucky try.....but am i on right track here? Seems logical to me, but maybe someone has experience of this......otherwise means motor down! Cannot believe someone could fit the scraper rings upside down etc....hoping for something simple............

My thoughts-
I have yet to hear of anyone who has come across stuck rings.
The only "snake oil" I believe in is Stabil 360 for combating the unwanted effects of ethanol in our gasoline. You'll hear from some that Seafoam is great and it maybe in some cases but I'm not in favor of it or anything like it.

I'm also not one for "guessing" as to what the problem is. The only proper way to figure this out would be to invest in a leak down tester and test the engine. There's no guessing with the leak down tester and if you need to tear down the engine, doing the leak down test will point you to the problem. If you chose to do more preventative work while you have the engine down, fine. After doing the work and breaking in the piston rings, do another leak down test to get a baseline of the rebuild.
Leakcdown testers can be had on EBay for $25.00 U.S.

The downside of a leak tester is you need an air compressor.. Having a garage shouldn't be a problem, but it's an investment more than just getting the gauge, unfortunately.

Done the seafoam thing and no affect at all. Still the same. 123 are not desperate, but 456 make oil at silencer end like a two stroke! Valve guide seals keep coming up as normal culprits. Oil escape is quite bad.
Seen great tool ..... where can just take cam cover off.......provided tool is not blocked by frame of course!
Do have a compressor, but never tried a leak tester......will investigate.
Thanks for responses. Is otherwise a very nice bike!

Have a leak down tester coming for £16.50p Also has a pipe on it so i could pressure up the chambers to hold valves up. Another guy on youtube even cleverer than special tool.......
Could get to each valve despite frame in way with this very simple method.
Still think is oil rings, alas. Leak down test will not show oil rings fault, or valve seal problem? Bet compression is good.........but will confirm.
Smokes all the time! If ramp along the road, and check mirrors is not crazy bad, like a GT750 on a rich mix, but as soon as stop, it runs poorly and smoke from both silencers, although left is not near as bad unless revved up. Right is actually having an oil deposit on the end! Do not see how just seals could pass that much out........Would love it to be seals, as looks like can just take valve cover off and replace them.......so, knowing my luck.......is oil rings for some reason. Maybe someone has done engine and not re-fitted correctly?

yellowperilbikes wrote: ...
Seen great tool ..... .

I've used the plunger style tool successfully many times in the past - it's easy to use and very fast. Even if the head was off the bike, the plunger tool is a much, much faster way to get the valve springs off and on compared to the old-school 'C' clamp tool. Motion Pro makes a bike specific version of the tool but the Lisle 36050 Valve Keeper Remover and Installer Kit version (one pictured in the video) comes with two sizes of plungers and is a lot cheaper than the MP version.