Engine Rebuild

I have a 1999 Electraglide Classic with almost 93K on it, and it seems to be leaking a little oil, I cant quite figure the exact spot that it is coming from, but seems to be around the place that the jugs and main case come together. My question is, if I am going to be trying to fix the leaks, would it be cost effective to do a engine rebuild at the same time. Also, would a low mileage take off cylinder/piston be acceptable?

I would just buy the 95 kit as the jugs have been factory fabed for the heat and done properly as with having them bored the jugs are more accurate but more chance for error JMO

ifn ya want to have em bored i would buy an ebay 88 set and have them bored so ya dont lose any ridin time

If I had a quality machine shop with torque plates available (thankfully I do) I'd do just the opposite. I've seen more than one 95" kit (& others) have to be done again in 6 months because the engine was re-assembled under the assumption that the new pistons & cylinders had already been matched when they hadn't been. I never trust off-the-shelf parts - mass-production tolerances are sloppy compared to a good machinist checking each part individually & honing the cylinders precisely on torque plates.

With 93,000 miles on the engine it only makes sense to rebuild it now as you're going to have to do it before long anyway & getting the PTW clearance *exactly* right is crucial if you want to go another 93,000 miles without messing with the engine. For a shop which has the tools & does that type of work all the time, it's not difficult or time-consuming to get it right & there are good machine shops all over the country.

Ok then, who do you recommend for boring cylinders? Or does it pay to find someone locally and pray that they do what they say they will?

If there's not a good machine shop locally that has experience with M/C barrels and heads, I'd take HRK's recomendation where to send them. You wouldn't want to have to "pray" they got it right.
Pretty sure Art could steer you to a shop that you could be confident the job is done well too.
You want quality work. No praying allowed!! :devil:

Except of course for our troops!!

You may very well have a good local shop, but I wouldn't just hope & pray they knew what they were doing, I'd find out by asking around & going there. Torque plates are a must & if you've not seen them, they're simple thick steel plates with a hole in the middle - one bolts on either end of the cylinder, making the cyl. "the meat in the sandwich" then long bolts that join the 2 plates are torqued to the same specs as the cyls. should be when installed on the engine. Now you can bore & hone, knowing the cyls. will be the right shape when installed - when you take the plates off, they'll go out-of-round, but that's OK 'cause they'll go back when you torque the heads down on re-assembly.

The shop must also have a bore gauge, designed specifically for measuring the diameter of a cylinder top to bottom & all the way around. Expensive tool that only shops that do cylinders often will have. And they must know that pistons are not perfectly round & measure with a micrometer below the bottom ring groove in line with the wrist-pin hole & again 90 degrees away. Pistons "grow" as they heat up, so they will be round when the engine's warmed up, but for boring/honing purposes you go from the largest measurement on the piston. And different piston manufacturers will recommend different piston-to-wall clearances, so you go by what they say.

If you don't have a local shop, there are several you can send your parts to. I haven't dealt with Bishop's that HRK recommended, but I'd trust his recommendation; here in North Carolina I use ECS Engineering (which has several sets of torque plates for different size cylinders & 40 years experience):
ECS ENGINEERING
& out in Colorado I can recommend NRHS (been there, know the owner):
NRHS - High Performance for your Harley Twin Cam, Evolution, Sportster or Buell!

There are other shops I've dealt with like Zippers Performance in Maryland, but the big shops like that charge more & take longer.

Very informative post Art, thank you very much. At least armed with a little knowledge I won't have to pray! (except for our troops like Lucifer said) I was toying with the idea of doing the 95" kit, not for any other reason than power.

I must have missunderstood the post I was under the impression that he was looking to keep riding and was looking at just the top end, (quick turn around) but I agree with both you and hrk a well seasoned jug is best, sure as heck would get all the machining done for a complete rebuild, bigger faster stronger that way, but most folks don't have the machine shop in their back yard nor do they have reputable shops close by for such work, so shipping and hoping comes into play, the fact that there is play in a factory is not going to keep it from going another 93,000 miles, preventitve maintanance, or the lack of is, the and the 6 month problem isnt the ptw matching problem i would look for, it would be the assymble as i have seen and heard of both 80, 95, 110, 88, 103, both factory off the shelf and custom machined, and most failed from bad assymbly, and bad machining, but have seen a broken piston and a set of bad rings before also, not starting an argument just giving the other side