!914 Twin HD Cannon ball request

[Tom Lovejoy]

Way to go Joe, bring that Henderson back to life !

[Slojo]

Picking up speed

It was time to reassemble chassis and body components, fabricate brackets and fit these items together properly. Three brackets were made to secure the primary cover to the motor and frame. The rear bracket is a little tricky as it must be bent on a compound angle and finish on a single plane when setting on the table. After fabricating brackets, alignment, drilling and riveting followed to finish off the primary cover.
A temporary motor was refitted to the frame, aligned and bolted to the motor mounts without any stress.
The frame is now ready for its final welding session. The rear primary bracket will be silver soldered on the new lower rear frame leg and the motor mount top rail will be TIG welded and metal finished.
Finally the muffler was fit to the bike. It is good to see the bike going back together after all this time. Closing the night out with an assembly awards a feeling of accomplishment. Photos to follow.
Joe 2-10-2010

[Slojo]

Tom
It is my responsibility to prepare the Henderson cases for a motor builder. I am not set up to build four cylinder bike motors nor do I desire to be. Perhaps some day that will change.

[c.o.]

Pretty cool...........

[Slojo]

Fit and Finish

Fitting and tuning was today’s agenda. The rear tab on the primary cover was finished and its mounting block silver soldered to the frame. Every time I looked at the rear fender it appeared to be leaning to the left. I rather it leaned to the right. Center is what I settled for, with a few adjustments of the braces the alignment fell right into place.
The top motor-mount frame rail found its way back into the fold and permanently welded into place. Now the frame can be considered finished unless some other problem pops up. The rear center stand had the normal wear. Chris welded the wear and I metal finished it to like new condition.
Finally, after looking at the out sourced exhaust cut out pull rod for the last couple months I could take it no longer. This rod was made from over-sized stainless steel rod and just did not look or fit right. Stir in an 1/8” TIG welding rod, a little oxygen and acetylene blend a vise and a 1” diameter round bar and some vise grips stir evenly and ‘pop’ out comes a new pull rod with a perfect loop on the top end. After a little fussing the other two bends and a 1/16” drilled cross hole for a cotter pin finished off the pull rod and installed perfectly.
I won’t be telling you about the muffler bracket welded into place last week except it had to be removed and a new one re-installed today. It appears I did not reference my prints prior to installation. Note to myself, muffler cans are not the same length from 1911doubles to 1914 twins, so do not use the spare 1911 muffler can for a gauge when installing the muffler support bracket on your 1914.
I saved the film for tonight. After all today’s work the project looks much as it did yesterday except it has a refined appearance.
Joe 2-11-2010

[gary.h]

those last pics gave me the tingly feeling in my gut and put a big smile on my face joe,its looking great man..!cant wait to see the end results,but you know once yer done this project you are gonna have to start another one
for us to follow along with you this thread has been awsome.

[Slojo]

Message to the readers and early HD cannonballers

Gary
I have several other bike projects in line. This 1914 cannonballer “took cuts” in front of what was planned for this winters build project. Passing up on the event of the decade was not in the cards for me so the 14 was first imagined and now is becoming a reality.
It was not my intention to build or own a 1914 twin Harley, after evaluating all the options available my decision was to build what was not in my collection. The 14 seemed to be just the right bike for this particular event. Stronger crankcases than anything earlier in the HD line up (just in case you did notice I am silent gray fellow believer), single speed (not an early transmission sickle fan, an early mototsickle fan). Up dated rear hub, read, no widow maker coaster brake hub (the coaster brake hub can work ok for most applications just not coming out of mountains and not 3500 maintenance free miles). Anyone planning on running the 13 and earlier HD coaster brake hub better bring plenty of back up parts and plan on a full hub tear down every two days to inspect the condition of the working parts and grease the brake shoes, yes I did say grease and I meant it. Also the 14 was the first year for the modern luggage rack an all important tool. Not to be overlooked, the 14 still carries the fine lines of the silent grays.
Thanks you for the encouragement it goes a long way in promoting my ability to focus on maintaining this article.
Joe

[c.o.]

Joe! The project alone is quite the undertaking so far. It's one thing to do the build itself but to take the time to document it for the world to see is another undertaking all together. My hat is off to you for sharing your work. It's an inspiration to this early bike lover for sure!! 21,409 views indicates a fair amount of followers. I guess they are a bit of a quiet bunch....

[HarleyCreation]

Gary
I have several other bike projects in line. This 1914 cannonballer “took cuts” in front of what was planned for this winters build project. Passing up on the event of the decade was not in the cards for me so the 14 was first imagined and now is becoming a reality.
It was not my intention to build or own a 1914 twin Harley, after evaluating all the options available my decision was to build what was not in my collection. The 14 seemed to be just the right bike for this particular event. Stronger crankcases than anything earlier in the HD line up (just in case you did notice I am silent gray fellow believer), single speed (not an early transmission sickle fan, an early mototsickle fan). Up dated rear hub, read, no widow maker coaster brake hub (the coaster brake hub can work ok for most applications just not coming out of mountains and not 3500 maintenance free miles). Anyone planning on running the 13 and earlier HD coaster brake hub better bring plenty of back up parts and plan on a full hub tear down every two days to inspect the condition of the working parts and grease the brake shoes, yes I did say grease and I meant it. Also the 14 was the first year for the modern luggage rack an all important tool. Not to be overlooked, the 14 still carries the fine lines of the silent grays.
Thanks you for the encouragement it goes a long way in promoting my ability to focus on maintaining this article.
Joe

Spoke with the wisdom and experience of a true motorcycle rider!

Looking very very good and I wish it were mine.

SN# H7762-H

1914 serial numbers are something of a mystery.

The "H" prefix must be something to do with it being a 1914 model. For 1915 they used letter prefixes beginning with "L" and since "H" comes before "L" in the alphabet, subtract 1 year from 1915 and you get 1914. But the exact prefix letter system used in 1914 needs clarification.

>A fellow "Silent Gray Fellow Believer"<

[MJW]

Slojoe, I'll admit this has been the most interesting project I've followed and always look for new updates. Thanks for taking the time to document your journey!...Mike

[Tom Lovejoy]

Yep I agree, I look forward to these post every day. Really interesting, your efforts in sharing are appreciated. This is as close as alot of us will get to being in the Cannonball, but your helping us dream about it! Keep it up Joe and thanks again!

[felthamw]

Quiet no more!!!

I too have been following this thread all along with intense interest. THIS is the main reason I check this forum daily. It just gets better and better. Good work, Joe. No, change that - GREAT work. Excellant story.
Wayne #4329

[Slojo]

Rolling on (a little hub lingo)

Tom, Herb, Wayne, Mike and of course my partner in crime Cory good to hear from all of you, and Wayne happy to hear you finally removed the felt from your hammer becoming auditable. I am not the best conversationalist yet I still try. Sometimes talking on this forum gets boring so I try entertaining myself best I can.
Enough said. There was no update last night due to burning the candle or was it oil till past midnight? Any way yesterday was a good and productive day. The rear hub became priority, this unit was a complete assembly produced by Competition. Lonnie and the guys did a nice job, fit and finish is beautiful. It was my determination to perfect what they already did. So first in order was to update the bearings to modern ball bearings.
After the math was complete the machines began to hum. The trusty old (1954 capable of 1000 RPM) Monarch Lathe with a six jaw Buck chuck was chosen over the Okuma CNC and the Parker OD grinder for its versatility and ease of set up. Note to all who care, when photos are posted here of machine operations they are all taken while the machines are actually running, making chips. The camera used for the photography stops spindles dead as fast as I have been running them usually 1000 to 3500 rpm depending on the machine and the operation.
The four heat treated hub bearing races were machined using a ceramic cutter. Ceramics outperform carbide under certain circumstances. Just don’t take too much off .020” on a diameter is a good cut the hardened material comes off like butter its truly magic. Tolerances are close for this type of work holding all diameters to within .0002” to .0003” of target dimensions.
Next was to fit five hundred dollars worth of fine line bearings to the clutch race. This is a tight area to fit a bearing so the Kaydon bearing applies itself well here. No other bearing to my knowledge would fit in the close restraints as the Kaydon unit. I hard turned the clutch splined race to allow the Kaydon to fit.
Afterwards the clutch drum became my focus. These Freewheel clutch drums are an old product of mine and after years of trickling them out to guys building these old bikes I turned the remaining belt drive product over to Lonnie at competition. Left over was a few pieces to build one chain drive drum of my own construction, I chose this over the competition supplied unit because it is of my own construction.
A special race had to be made in order to accommodate the new bearings. This race was turned and press fit into the clutch drum. Once fit to the clutch drum the entire drum was chucked into the machine and indicated to within a few thou true (Ah… nothing like a six jaw chuck for this operation). You cannot get the drum to run any closer due to slight out of round and flatness conditions caused by riveting the unit together. The rivet process induces high amounts of stress distorting the drum slightly. Finish boring the race to accept the bearings can be performed now. With the race pressed into the drum a perfectly round bore can be machined without concerns of distorting the race during a press fit operation. If your bearing is fit into an out of round bore it will negatively affect the running conditions reducing the life of the bearing.
Following photos demonstrate what I started with, in process operations, finish bearings installed on the components and finally the assembly. To prevent improper adjustment of the axel nuts an inner sleeve will be built today prohibiting over tightening of the inner races making the system fool proof.
Joe 2-14-2010

[c.o.]

Lookie here! Some pics just in time for Valentine's Day!!

[c.o.]