Checking Oil on Harley and All Other Fluids

Okay, here we are, we're gonna go ahead and check the transmission oil level, and we now for sure the oil level's probably gonna be a little low because Harley wants you to add like four quarts and then set it as needed. So let's go ahead and pull the tranny dipstick here. Now, the procedure for that, take and wipe the dipstick off. They just want you to lightly seat it in 'til the O-ring touches then back it out and check the level, pretty simple. There we go, and you can see it's on the mark.

Looks good. And really be careful, you don't wanna cross thread that either because that's gonna be no easy fix. Okay, we're gonna snug it up and then we're gonna torque spec. Harley's got a torque spec on that as well, and it really does vary. They're saying 25 inch pounds to 75, so wherever you're comfortable in that range.

We're gonna probably set it right around 50 here. Don't take much, so okay, got that out of the way, gonna set this aside. Now for the motor oil. Same thing, they want you to check it on the side stand, there's a mark on there for upright and side stand. We're on the side stand, or jiffy stand, as they like to call it.

Unscrew it. Wipe it clean. Go ahead and screw it back in 'til it seats. Okay, two marks on the bike, one for on the side stand, one for on the jiffy stand, or on the upright position. So I can see it's a little bit low, I'm gonna go ahead and top it off.

She's right on the mark. So anyway, we're gonna go ahead and screw that back in and reset there. Get this out of the way. Okay, last little item, we had the little tray off here. I went ahead and put the cowl on the lower part after doing inspection, no coolant leaks, everything's good.

I verified the coolant level, got it right on the line, we're just gonna go ahead and put this cover on. That's about it, you gotta do the shakedown run, verify everything's cool on the bike, but really it's just a matter of going over your manual, going down the checklist, looking at everything. It's really, I mean, if you think about it, it's really straightforward stuff. It's just sometimes Harley wants to lead you to believe it's very intimidating and monumental, they want you to come in and spend the money. And if you can get this motorcycle through two years once the warranty's up, then it's not gonna be such a big high pressure deal on you.

But in all reality, if you're keeping your receipts, you're documenting everything, you're doing the required services, it's pretty straightforward stuff. And if you went through and added up the one K, the five K, the 10 k all the way down the line, I don't know how many thousands it would be at a dealer, but it would be a lot. Two years, use your warranty if you have a problem, other than that, I mean, really, you're gonna be doing all your maintenance. If you can do this service, you can take a wheel off, you can bring it in, have them mount and balance the tire, you put it back on yourself. You're gonna be saving money, and really that's the whole idea behind the projects you're doing here and watching, so.

Pay attention, wrench safe and get out and enjoy the ride.