pinging

[luna]

Mike, I have an 05 Road King FI with 8000 mi. it has recently started pinging and using oil. what could be causing this? By the way the info you provide on these forums is great!

[Mike]

Thank you for the kind words and enjoying our forum. The pinging and oil cunsumption are related. Oil in the combustion chamber degrades the fuel quality effectively reducing the octane rating. Curing the oil consumtion will likely also cure the pinging (since it did not ping before). 05's are unique in that they had new valve guide seals that proved to be faulty and allowed oil to build up under them and then hydraulic down the valve guides into the intake ports (the exhaust does it too but does not cause runability issues). A good indicator is excessive deposit build up on the spark plugs and oil laying on the floor of the intake ports and back sides of the valves. This is a very common and known problem with 05's and may even be done under warranty (check with your dealer on the warranty possibility). Updated seals are available to address this issue, but the heads must be removed to change them. The new seals are orange in color vs. black for the original seals (early update seals were also black but should be processed out by now).
Thanks, Mike

[luna]

Mike,
Thanks for the info. This will be very helpful when I Take it in for repair.
Joe.