Well my '04 1200R has been slowly leaking oil from somewhere since I
got it. The dealer I bought it from is 3 hours away (Coziahr in Decatur, IL)
and the weather has been crappy so I thought I might have a look at it. I did make an appointment at Heritage H-D in Lisle but its still a couple weeks out and I thought if I could fix it by tightening something it would still be free and much quicker.
I couldn't tell where the leak was coming from, but it looked like the
top of the oil tank (??) so I went ahead and took the oil tank off. It seems the tank itself is weeping oil from the junction between the top and bottom half. That was the bad news, no real way to fix it (tried gasket sealer, didn't work).
So I scraped off the gasket sealer and decided to try my luck at the dealer. I walked in with the tank and displayed it for the guy in the service dept. He said the whole thing would have to be replaced but they couldn't do anything unless I brought in the whole bike. I said yeah I know. He said do you really want to pay for the part since it's still under warranty? Hmmmmm.....
So I decided to be honest (thats the type of guy I is) and told him this:
"No I don't want to pay for it, but what I want even less is to wait 4 weeks and find out it was something I could have tightened up and been done with, so I tore into it myself".
Service guy: "Well, put it all back together and bring it in on the day you already have scheduled and well take care of it".
Me: "Ok, but this isn't going to void my warranty, right?"
Service guy: "We don't know that you touched it. Just tell 'em when you bring it in that you were inspecting the bike and you saw oil weeping form the tank."
So we'll see what happens, but for now I'm happy quite happy with the service there. I'll update this after my service appt. May 11.


On a side note, it's not necessary to remove the rear fender to get the oil tank off (the manual says it is). Just take out the battery and battery cage and it slides out the right side, didn't even take off the belt guard.

......Well..Good Luck and keep us posted. Taking the oil tank off my 85 Ironhead is NOT a piece of cake. Boy, Lisle is quite some distance from Decatur.. did u move after getting ur bike. Got a gal down in Decatur that's nice and I want to get back down there myself and see her again. It's a good 2hr ride from my place. :smoke

If u lived in Decatur at one time..were u active with ABATE down there? Let me know, would ya? If u were, got a question..

Are you sure it's the oil tank leaking? When I took off my cover, I also thought it was weeping some oil. But then I realized that the "weeping" is right near the push-in dipstick. I think that filling the oil tank, or overfilling it causes oil to weep out of the push-in dipstick. Just a thought. But I'll have to watch mine in the future, you may be right....who knows? Maybe all rubber mounted Sportster owners should be aware of this. The tank looks to be 2 fiberglass filled plastic pieces, probably sonic welded together.

Bikerdude, no I was visiting my folks who live in Champaign and actively looking for my sporty, so I would hit a dealer anytime I was near one. Just happened to run into it there.
It's actually leaking from the left side of the bike. After I had the tank off I set it up in end and left it for a few minutes. Less then 5 actually. It was still weeping out the rear left corner when I checked it again, that was with only residual oil on the inside. I'm curious if anyone ever has to pay for one how much it would cost, it looks over-engineered to me. At least it's not the cases, but it's still stupid that it even leaks at all.

I'll try get a picture up if my camera is working tonight.

As you can see I need to get the rest of the gasket sealer off, but yo get the
idea.