Installing the Harley Oil Cooler

I got the Harley Premium Oil Cooler Kit for my ‘09 Ultra from Santa this year. Even though I live in Seattle, I do spend a fair bit of time riding in Eastern, WA where the temps can get quite warm in the summer months. Also – Seattle is famous for rush hour gridlock – so I figured a little help cooling the engine would be a good thing.

For starters, the instructions that come with the kit appear to be wrong. It states that the gasket has a peal off tape that reveals a sticky side – it doesn’t. I mangled a gasket trying to find the paper.

The good news is that Harley sells a Gasket Service Kit. So – I ordered a replacement gasket and went looking for some type of Gasket Dressing. I ended up getting the Loctite spray on kind.

Lastly, you need a 5/8” allen socket to remove the filter bolt. That was a little tougher to find. I ended up buying a large allen wrench and cut off the “elbow” part.

Assembly is quite straight forward. I chose to install mine this time of year just because I needed an oil change. I also opted to go synthetic (stock the bike has dinosaur oil). It was MUCH easier to remove the faring lowers – and reduces the risk of scratching them as well.

Now for the bad news: it leaked like CRAZY! The leak was at the mysterious gasket. Since I HATE having a motorcycle that marks its spot, I tore it apart to see what was up. The Loctite dressing caused the gasket to firmly adhere to one side of the fitting – the other side was a little suspect. I cleaned off the exposed side carefully – using brake cleaner to dissolve any oil remnants.

I bought a tube of Permetex “instant” gasket maker to serve as the gasket sealer for the exposed side. I bolted her back together (making sure to put red Loctite on the bolt and torqued to spec).

Voila. Oops – she still leaks. Not as bad – but still a spoter! So – I now have chased down that Harley carries a gasket dressing (made by Hylomar). I have also ordered my 2nd Gasket Service Kit. My NEXT installation will be using ONLY the Harley Gasket Dressing. Let’s hope this will be the last time!