!914 Twin HD Cannon ball request

[Slojo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnef8SQJ1uU

The video above demonstrates nut blank manufacturing. These nuts will be threaded when needed for the couple thread sizes and pitchs required.
A You Tube search of slojovideo will provide all videos produced for this project.
Joe

[c.o.]

Judging by Terry's comments.... Joe you just may get parts orders.....

[marsh1915hd]

The original Harley Skunk Works Team would have been very lucky to have you on there team. You would have changed history. May be you are now? The parts you are makeing are top notch. I am going to buy some. So bring some to Davenport.

[Slojo]

Sunday....The day of rest.

Terry
The Gray Ghost will have the traditional HD decals on the tank even though I have built so much of this bike it is not my original concept/design. The rest of the machine has an abundance of original parts and some N.O.S. parts. I would like to think of this build and my shop as William Silvestor Harley's Skunk Works Team project.

Now with that covered time to get on with today's progress. A run to the painter to pick up the fenders and tool box/oil tank and some other miscellaneous painted parts. Next over to another friends house to inspect his Sunnen hone and other motor building equipment, very impressive.

Once back home focus was on rebuilding a customer's spindle, surly he will be calling tomorrow.
Afterwards it was back to the cannonballer. Arraignments set for the striper to show tomorrow morning to strip the fenders and tool box. I also inspected and reworked more hardware for near future assembly.

Last project for the day was to write and run two programs for special nuts. Chamfered top with washer face bottom and radius top also with washer bottom. This was an easy task, with so many programs on file cut and pasting sections of other part programs produces a foundation program to work with and saves a lot of time.

The radius top section of the program was taken from an old program that makes all the Fillester screws. This program calculates the head arc start and finish points with basic information. The computer then crunches the numbers using a trig. format I built in the part program. It then puts out a finished tool path for the shape desired. Just fill out about five variables and any size radius faced nut blank can be made.

I uploaded a You Tube video twice but can not find it???
Joe

[marsh1915hd]

So Joe what name you going to put on the tanks? SLOJO-DAVISON ?

[c.o.]

Joe!!! I'm thinking with you being so particular in the fab process that the Grey Ghost is going to go together pretty smooth!!

[Slojo]

Loose ends

While finishing the rear brake today a decision was made to alter a good Pat Murphy brake plate. This item is used for its clever internal modifications updating the brake on these early bikes. The conversion permits use of springer fork brake shoes (knuck and early pan) on the teens bikes rear brake. Pat does a crafty job concealing the modifications to make the updates undetectable.

I wanted a little more out of this brake mod. so I extracted his trick concealment of the brake pivot stud and installed a stock HD stud with the ability to adjust the shoes as Harley did on the springer front brake plates.

This return to OEM style operations will allow adjustability in centering of the brake shoes. Since all shoes are not created equal this is a crucial tuning tool for improving the performance of your brakes. What I have lost in originally (very little) I have gained ten fold in safety and performance.

Finally the tapers on the flywheels are complete. The non helix taper flute end mill did an excellent job leaving a good finish.

Work has commenced on front fork trussing to aid in flex reduction due to the brake loads. It would appear the rear frame rails I have made will become instrumental in front "fork tuning" (no Yamaha here though). I have not moved to far in this direction yet because front fender restraints may prohibit the concept.

Front and rear fenders along with the tool box /oil tank may get striped tomorrow. This will allow the final clear coat to be applied Monday.
Joe

[Bill N.]

Joe,
Yup, the Sears will be the Cannonball ride... Sean Brayton is setting up a second Spacke motor that I will use for the run... The original motor (as seen in the photo) will serve as a backup only. This week I'm going to shoot over to his shop with my 1915 HD 3speed to set up as a spare bike for the run... Running an original frame and front end on the Sears might rear an ugly unforseen problem somewhere down the line. The spare bike will allow me to continue along with everyone to Ca. Why cut short the ride of a lifetime ?

Looking forward to more posts....

Bill

[Slojo]

Joe...
This bike is gonna be WAY too nice for the Cannonball. How are you gonna keep it clean ?
Kidding aside, I can't wait to see and hear your ride... Following your posts taught me a lot. (since I'm no machinist... that means EVERYTHING was a learning post!)

Bill

Bill

http://oldironrider.blogspot.com/2010/05/small-stuff.html

Is the sears your cannonballer ride? Nice machine. Thanks for ridding along here with my cannonballer build. Now its time to get back to work.
Joe

[Slojo]

Busted, I was in Leo's shop my glasses were at home. No excuse.
Joe

[Ryan Mackey]

Where are your safety glasses? That is not accepted at Carl's Cycle Supply where safety is always number one!

[c.o.]

[Slojo]

Preparations

I had some springs wound up today for the clutch, unfortunately they are a little short. Monday a new set will be twisted. With new clutch springs and finalization of brakes the rear wheel will be ready for installation.

The nickel plating is still causing troubles with assembly. Once all the parts fit together assembly is trouble free since I have assembled these parts previously.

Both wheels near finished, I turned to the front fork and assembled it without any fanfare. It went together well. The upper spring are to long in my opinion so perhaps an inch or more will be cut out of them to raise the ride height, increase compression travel and soften the compression. Caution in assembly is key when building a bike you want to ride. I use a liberal amount of sticky red grease on most parts especially fork springs and plungers.

The seat of all things is still causing problem and should be sorted this week. This seat is a high breed, hardware from the early teens attached to a half pan from later years. When I say a high breed I mean it as it appears to be a tall seat height, comfort is key here.
Joe

[Slojo]

Reaching out, In other words delegation of authority

I forgot to mention thanks to Dennis over at XL Machine for providing the contouring numbers. This saved time on devolping a program for the carb air choke. Dennis has the computer, software talent and knowledge that would make my life easy. Would you like a new job Dennis? If so make sure that you convince Jim on continuing your pay, bring Frank with you.
Joe

[Slojo]

Anticipation

Bill
Happy to still have you along for the ride (build). Things are going to get hot soon on this project. Don't change that dial.

A trip too Lansing to see and meet with the people at Trick Titanium for valves. They will make Ti. valves for this motor using the previously mentioned Ducati valve closer shim and split rings in place of the HD valve spring retainer. These retainers are small similar to the Harley valve spring retainers from the times except they are using split rings to lock the valve stem instead of the drilled hole and flat pin.

Next was to finish making 5 of each motor main shafts and run them over to heat treat only to find they do not heat treat this XR material to the depth of case hardening required for my application.

A call placed to High Tech heat treat in Saginaw and a conversation with their resident metallurgist had me convinced that these are the right guys for the job. They will induction hardened my shafts and carbonize the steering head races. The induction hardening will give the best results with the Quadco XR steel. Since the XR already has the core of 30 Rc. My requirements are for the case to be elevated to 60 Rc and the core will remain the same with the induction H.T.. If we processed the shafts with the carbonizing core hardness would raise to about 50 Rc , to hard for the toughness this shaft requires for durability.

After the heat treat parts were packaged and sent too U.P.S. my focus returned to the carburetor. The choke is my concern right now. It is a spring loaded leather seal that restricts air entry in the "normal" carb entry port at low engine speeds and causes air to enter from the bottom of the carb in order to pull fuel from the only circuit this style of carb has. The leather choke is a durable system but doesn't have performance characteristics.

I fired up the Okuma set new tools and wrote a program to produce a new choke for the intake port. Shown in the pictures to follow are two chokes, an aluminum and a plastic version, the plastic version is half the weight of aluminum. I will repair the leather choke, make new springs at differing tension rates and have a few durability and performance options to test and select form.

Just as I decided to call it quits for the night a change of mind took over (second wind or maybe third). The second flywheel was placed in the Okuma Machining center where I finished machined the crank pin hole.
Joe