Preventative maintenance is the best way to ensure a long life for your V-twin. One of the best preventative measures that can be taken is to make sure your engine oil stays within its specified operating temperatures. Every time oil goes through a heat cycle, a portion of its additives can be burned away. Exceeding the maximum operating temperature of your oil burns off additives at a faster rate and reduces the performance of the oil and its usable life more quickly.
During the summer months, it can be tough making sure that our air-cooled motors stay within their average operating temperature of 220 degrees. One way to ensure that your engine oil lasts as long as it should is to install an oil cooler. One of our riding companions has an '03 H-D FXSTBI Night Train that gets ridden pretty hard all over Southern California during the weekends and spends a lot of time commuting in traffic during the week. Jagg Oil Coolers has an assortment of oil coolers for Harleys, so we decided to try its Deluxe oil coolers.
1. Here is the oil hose, the...
1. Here is the oil hose, the hose clamps, and the oil cooler that we needed to install the Deluxe oil cooler. Since we were bolting the oil cooler onto a twin cam, we also had to order a twin cam offset filter adapter.
2. Installing the oil cooler...
2. Installing the oil cooler kit was a very simple procedure. We mounted the cooler onto the left frame downtube. The cooler has two mounting tabs on one side of its body and attaches to the downtube with a pair of uralite clamps, which slip around the downtube and bolt to the tabs on the cooler.
3. Before we completely tightened...
3. Before we completely tightened down the two mounting bolts, we checked to make sure the cooler wouldn't interfere with foot control operation.
4. This was the filter adapter...
4. This was the filter adapter required when bolting the cooler up to a twin cam. The filter is designed so that the oil goes through the filter first, then on to the cooler to prevent a restriction in oil flow. We removed the five Allen screws from the adapter, then separated the two halves.
5. We removed the oil filter...
5. We removed the oil filter and drained all the oil.
6. The back half of the adapter...
6. The back half of the adapter was mounted up to the oil filter flange.
7. The oil lines were secured...
7. The oil lines were secured to the outer half of the adapter before it was mounted.
8. Once the seal was placed...
8. Once the seal was placed on the front half of the adapter, the two halves were fastened back together with the five Allen bolts.
9. We replaced the original...
9. We replaced the original oil filter with a new K&N chrome-plated oil filter. After filling the filter half way with some fresh oil, it was mounted to the adapter. Then, the two hoses from the adapter were held up to the fittings on the cooler, so we could see where they needed to be cut.
10. After cutting the hoses,...
10. After cutting the hoses, they were secured to the oil cooler with the supplied hose clamps.
11. We double-checked all...
11. We double-checked all fittings to make sure they were tight, then we filled the oil tank with the recommended 3-1/2 quarts. After running the Night Train for a few minutes, we made sure there weren't any leaks. Before we installed the oil cooler, the Night Train would run anywhere between 220 and 250 degrees on extremely hot days. With the oil cooler installed, the bike's temperature averaged between 200 and 210 degrees, even under the most severe conditions.