I have a 96 sportster. no oil to top end

indicates water in the oil
could be from the head gasket or cracked head
or from leaking oil cooler in the radiator

Your only fix is a new head gasket

I have no idea why you would have done
anything else but take it apart, to diagnose
what was need to resolve

Now you have all sorts of sealer in there, that
may come back to bite you some day

did you have the head gasket on the wrong way around by any chance blocking off the oil feed through the gasket for cams

Good oil pressure, but no oil on top of engine could be a blockage in the oil passages somewhere. You might try some very thin oil, run it a few minutes to see if you can get oil to top of engine. Other than that, I don't know, maybe somebody knows of a solvent or something that may be put in the crankcase, like Marvel mystery oil, or a Lucas product, something might work. Hope you find the problem, Jim.

In 1993, Harley went to the "head breathing" crankcase breathing system. The crankcase pressure is vented into the air cleaner to be routed though the engine and burned. This was a requirement mandated by the EPA. Prior to '93, the crank case vent was down behind the oil pump and a pipe directed the crankcase pressure up to the air cleaner. If you have the "head breather" heads, you'll have a large hollow bolt going to each head from the air cleaner assembly. If whoever did the top end job on your engine left the umbrella valves out, installed them upside down, or put the center plates in wrong, it could be causing your problem. If they replaced the head gasket and did not replace the base gaskets, the base gasket are going to leak. Whenever you take the torque off the head bolts, you must replace all gaskets. Additionally, if the cylinder studs on your engine have not been replaced, they are probably stretched and not holding the torque like they should. In 1996, Harley came out with an improved replacement stud for the Evo engine. The large diameter part of the stud is at the lower end of the stud rather than at the top end like the older model was. If you can't get those, Colony Fasteners makes an excellent set of studs that cost about the same as H-D parts. Blue or black smoke out of the exhaust usually indicates a rich fuel mixture.

Good Luck
Steve

Blame the EPA for this. The EPA requires that vented crankcase pressure be routed through the intake system so that it can be burned in the engine. So, Harley used the "head breather" system to route the crankcase exhaust into the breather resulting in oil building up in the air cleaner assembly.

As you noticed, I'm sure, that the large bolts that hold the air filter backing plate on are hollow. This is where the crankcase pressure is vented. There are several aftermarket kits that are available to reroute this pressure so it won't mess up your air filter.

Good Luck
Steve

Get a compression check to find out if you have a bad head gasket, I have a 96 with the 3.8L that had the same problems at first. then it started to blow out antifreeze thru the expansion tank, the head gasket finally blew the rest of the way going down the highway

Head gasket is not your problem when you had the top end of the engine rebuilt it was 2 strong and blew the bottom end out so meaning the cylinder has 3 rings if they leak or on leaks you get wash out in the cylinder and it will burn the oil. the lurching is OK as long as its not a clunking

replace your pcv valve. this should fix it.

replace your pcv valve.