harley eight valves

[c.o.]

and they said i was crazy

You may very well be jurassic.... but that bike gives me the shivers! Man I wish footage could be found of Dodge City!!!

[silentgreyfello]

Lonnie, did you get the 8-valve running?!!!! If so, any footage? That thing is killer.

[Barry Brown]

nicely made up patina. That is a pretty radical angle where the bottom of the push rods meets the lifters. do you think Harley did it that way? maybe that is why they trashed the first design

[rwm]

barry i saw on the owner had soldered nickels to the lifters. i quess he had problems with the pushrods sliding off

[jurassic]

this picture of the 1916 8 valve is probably the only one we can trust. if you look very closely at the top of the pushrod ,you can see some sort of a ball joint ,that connects the pushrod to the rocker. this ball joint is also barely evident in the 1944 clymer picture of the 1915 8 valve. closer inspection of the bottom of the pushrod in this picture leads me to believe that some sort of ball joint was used there as well. too bad i didn't have this 16 picture when i built the 15.

[Barry Brown]

with or without ball joints it's a beauty

[Chris Haynes]

nicely made up patina. That is a pretty radical angle where the bottom of the push rods meets the lifters. do you think Harley did it that way? maybe that is why they trashed the first design

I would venture to guess that the reason they don't line up right is because it is a repop top end on a F head bottom end.

[HarleyCreation]

Look at that monster motor!

and they said i was crazy

If you're crazy, it's good crazy.

But we still badly need a good clear documented photo of the 1915 Harley Eight-Valve to verify what the 1944 Clymer photo really means.

But there is absolutely no doubt that a 1915 Harley Eight-Valve existed. Not only existed but set a 100-mile board track record right out of the bag at Chicago-Maywood on Sept. 12, 1915, even if previous books and articles say otherwise.

We also know now that Harry Ricardo had NOTHING to do with designing Harley's first Eight-Valve either. That's one persistent myth that deserves to be dead and buried once and for all.

R.I.P.

Now, if only we knew the true origin of the term: "Chicago Harley," maybe I could get a good night's sleep.

[Chris Haynes]

I don't know the year of this one. Obviously one cylinder blocked off. It is a Four Valve Head and an early bottom end.

[HarleyCreation]

I don't know the year of this one. Obviously one cylinder blocked off. It is a Four Valve Head and an early bottom end.

Great photo Chris!

I'm not absolutely certain, but I "think" that might be the 1916 Maldwyn Jones special. The frame, fork, and bars look the same. Look at the bend in the frame front downtube. Merkel frame & fork?

Only trouble is the motor. Known photos of the Jones's special show it with a rear cylinder and I don't think this guy is Maldwyn Jones either.

Another bike similar to it? Or the Jones's bike with a different four-valve motor configuration with another guy sitting on it?

Didn't we have a thread on the Jones's special?

[Chris Haynes]

That bike looks to be the same, although different as Maldwyn's machine. This bike has the front cylinder while Maldwyn's had the rear. Engines installed at totally different angles. Jerry Hatfield gave me this great picture of Maldwyn on his bike. Sill does anybody have an idea what year the bike in the H-D photo is?

[Chris Haynes]

Here is the serial number from Maldwyn's bike.

[jurassic]

[jurassic]

looking at the 15? and 16 side by side can tell a little about the clymer bike. i noticed that the compression release on both bikes was the same frame mounted direct cable setup.both have the rubber band return spring on the release lever too.actually all the lines and wires are very similar on both bikes as far as routing goes. the gas lines ,linkage and cables all look clean and orderly on the clymer bike. another thing i noticed was the pedal crank sprockets. they both have round holes. the only two harley's i have ever seen with round holes in the pedal sprocket. also the only two years they used pedal crank sprockets on 8 valves. as far as we know. another thing about the clymer bike is the front fork .it is a harley factory race fork. the same fork used on the 15 wrecking crew bikes ,and the 16 eight valves. we shouldn't overlook the background and angle at which both pictures were taken either.

[jurassic]

if you look close at the fork on the clymer bike you cant see the front fender mount. thats because they moved it up and put it above the three plates on the stem. they also put a flat plate sticking out between the three plates that keeps the fork from hyper extending. just like the hillclimbers in the twenties. this pic shows the race fork on a 1915 wrecking crew bike. something else thats interesting about this bike is the size of the gas caps. they are the large 1916 and up style.