Main shaft pitted?

[AdminGuy]

My main shaft for SS is pitted. Can you hard chrome and salvage these? Otherwise it's perfect.

I wouldn't even consider running a welded one. I have a couple busted at the key. I wonder what that sounds like when it happens? I heard "don't hammer it. Roll it on."

[T. Cotten]

I haven't my listing handy, but Eastern (of South Carolina) is making a couple of lengths of mainshafts; top quality.

Their Scout offerings increased dramatically in the last catalog.

[AdminGuy]

THx Cotton, will cont. IND sup.

Reply was very polite. heee-heeh-hehheeee...

[AdminGuy]

Indian parts production run???

Ok, So what's with that? As I know very little, I will try to explain.

Many parts of your machine will be (surface) heat treated to harden the metal. This reduces wear and improves strength. Pitted parts-bad. The old method of heat treating main shafts would sometimes warp them a bit. ie. a banana shape. Mike Tomas in the Kiwi cato makes note of this in regards to checking the end run out to see if it's within tollerance. As some came from the factory a bit out.

The modern heat treat process will give a rockwell hardness of approx 60. With less chance of heat warp and shrinkage - I think.

If I were to restore the bike as a museum piece I would likely use my pitted main shaft as no one would ever see it, and most likely the bike would never run. In this instance I intend on running her. So the main shaft should auto be replaced if it's questionable. Someone has laid out the capital for a production run and I'm real happy to pick up the phone and order one. Chrome and a grind costs money. Chief parts are more common and production runs are larger, so prices reflect that in most cases. Financeing a large production run is a pain because you can only sell so much and then have to sit on it for an indefinate period of time. And so goes the Indian parts supply biz. Yup, risky. H-Ds had larger production and many cross over parts. So things are generally priced accordingly.

If you have anything to add -please do.

[AdminGuy]

Got the Eastern .050 t-slot pistons, pins, rings, clips & sticker?. They look great. Ya'all do nice work!!! Thanks.