So, yesterday was the day I finally swapped out the exhaust header on the Road King. I put on the header that I had removed the cat from a year ago.
It was not too bad of a job. Starting on Friday I began putting penetrating oil on the head fasteners and the mount under the transmission. I removed the right-hand floor board, the right hand muffler and the chrome from the exhaust.
The head fasteners were not on real tight, so at least there was no worries there. Then I wiggled the exhaust header off the heads and out of the exhaust cross-over pipe. In hindsight, I should have disconnected that cross-over pipe first.
The exhaust port gaskets do not look to0 bad even after wiggling the exhaust out. I will leave them in and take my chances.
I disconnected the O2 sensors from the bike, removed them from the old header and put them into the 'new' header. I then transferred the head connecting hardware from the old to the new.
After some attempts and finally determining that the cross-over pipe I left in place was hindering me, I finally got the pipe installed.
The test run went smoothly. I do not hear any ticking of exhaust leaks.
I took the bike for a test ride. Afterwards, I re-torqued the head fasteners. The bike has a slightly deeper tone.
Today, I put the chrome on and took it for a ride. I am getting some vibration in the bike that I didn't have before, so I will probably have to loosen the exhaust brackets and run the bike again to get everything to settle into a happy place. I will run it for a few days first, and let the bike settle in.
