1912 HD Belt Twin (AKA EVIL TWIN)

[Slojo]

Spring and Things

The rear cylinder bore cleaned up much sooner than the front cylinder, clean size is 3.326" rear 3.334" front. The next decision is weather to match the bores or run two different size pistons. With the scarcity of matching 1912 cylinders mismatch pistons sounds just fine even if it is only .008" . A call to CP pistons will determine final bore sizes. The finished bore size is ultimately determined by the ring manufacturer.

Last night was a late night programing setting up and making three prototype coaster parts on the Okuma . Once completed with that task a trip to the spring shop was scheduled.

Off to the spring shop for a spring curling marathon to accompany the coaster part of the coaster hub. These compression springs (.03 wire,7/32 OD X 3/8 long) will be part of the friction device that assist the coaster to slide left,right. Bill twisted the springs faster than Timothy Leary can twist up a .......oh slipped . Another fine job by the guys at McGuire spring.

Afterward a trip to the east side to see a customer , followed by a trip to the shot peen shop where my connecting rod set was treated to stress relieving surface shot blast.

Rod races , bearings , cages , and a modifiable big twin crank pin ordered and should be in next week . Many of the motor parts are coming together while working on the coaster hubs. Careful preparation of all the pats should cause for an assembly marathon in the not so distant future .

On to the other project, Knucklehead heads are troubling. I have late model rocker tins and need the early style that have the offset to clear the rabbit ears casting shoulder. A set my have been located , stay tuned.....

joe

[Slojo]

Bits and pieces

A trip to Lyndon Fabricating to pick up some 1/8" cold rolled steel for fabricating belt tensioned parts followed by a run to a new welding source in closer proximity to headquarters. While at Lyndon Fab. they sheered and bent plate steel for my belt tensioned bracket. Belt drive twin tanks are non existent and chain drive tanks are without the brackets required for a belt tensioning ratchet plate. I fabricate a bracket that picks up of the top motor mount and holds the ratchet device along side the left gas tank.

Wendell Turned a local custom bike builder and friend happened to be at Starlight Welding when I rolled in . Wendell introduced me to Starlight's Andy , a polite , easy going personality. After conversation with Andy I left my cylinder behind to have a large cooling fin welded and a repair to the cracked exposed portion of the valve guide.

A couple hours later the cylinder was ready for pick up. Welders are worth their weight in gold, fortunately a much better deal was had than paying pound for pound in gold to get my work done professionally.
Thank you Andy.

The next cylinder process is to have them stress relieved prior to finish honing .

Back to the barn for some quality machine time where coaster brakes are still the focus and will remain so for a while. I am down to making two primary parts for the rear hub and some secondary parts to follow. The coaster device with its new design friction generator works perfectly and should not be a problem unlike the original coaster device. This is an important device, if it malfunctions brake function and pedal starting becomes impossible the pedals spin freely in both directions. Without pedal engagement...... fun ceases.

Side note, Knucklehead parts are on order for the 37 motor project now in process.

joe

[BigLakeBob]

Keep posting, still enjoying your progress. You must never sleep.

[Slojo]

Road Trip

Well greezy bikers, finally a long anticipated road trip of 1200 miles round consumed my weekend . Purpose, parts chase. This trip was first attempted in November or December but canceled, snowed out.

With a friend at the wheel we traveled to parts unknown in search of those elusive missing items for each of our projects, mine, parts for this twin. After a day of digging through a personal collection of parts the twin gets an original 1912 rear stand , a decompression / spark control drag link , one good inner and outer control cable and cable nut assembly , complete belt tensioning assembly , two sets of early spokes including nipples , a 23 inch clincher rim with ...count em.... 40 punched spoke holes and some miscellaneous small bits.

Forty spoke hole 23 inch rims are rare rims that for production Harleys were used exclusively on the rear of 1912 twins , they were also found on Board Trackers the latter with safety wire tided and soldered spoke crossings . Typically 1912 and earlier 23 inch rims are 36 spoke holes and 1913 and latter 22 inch rims are 40 spoke holes. This excellent condition 23 inch rim will not be used for Cannonball service but will supplement the twin for after Cannonball activities where a switch of wheels returns the bike to authentic chassis condition. Yes, for Cannonball the chassis will be stock excluding brakes tires and rims.

Back in the shop anther hub piece is in the machine, set up and first part run off. This time an internal brake anchor, it is a modified from original item and is part of the incorporated braking safety. Back on the job today an early finish with a customer sent me off to the east side , Apollo EDM.

Apollo will do work that will be instrumental in the coaster . Left behind with Apollo are fourteen coaster shifter sliders to be EDM (electrical discharge machine) for an internal multi start thread lead . This EDM process typically would be broached in a production situation. More on that latter.

joe

[Slojo]

Change of pace.

Wasn't up to cranking out hub parts tonight so , fired up the Bridgeport mill and the Parker Majestic surface grinder for work on the modified / welded belt tensioning lever. New for 1912 the Freewheel clutch with hand lever operation. Harley underestimated the force on the belt tensioning hand lever resulting in lever failure . 1913 brought on wider stock for the lever. The twin will get the correct for 1912 lever with reinforcements in critical areas adjacent the drilled holes where friction and pivot points are located.

USPS lady arrived this afternoon with two packages. One package , a set of Jeff Willis pedal cranks and eccentric crank carrier . Jeff a long time friend and sponsor of both my cannonball builds has provided me with quality castings for many years. Jeff produces many type of castings for our antique mtorcycles and can be found in the club membership roster , Ohio section.

Also from the mail lady came a package from Molalla Oregon's Jethro Smith. Jethro has been instrumental in this bike , he has restored the seat and now built an oil tank / tool box combo. for the twin. Once again Jethro has provided a quality product . Thank you Jeff and Jethro.

Finally a rare delivery by store manager of Production Tool following a shipping error sending my package to a wrong location. Production Tool supplies me with many items , this time cutting tools for machine work on the outside of a exhaust valve guide of one of the cylinders where damage was repaired by welder Andy..

Does anybody know where Cory is?

joe

[Slojo]

Brakes....give me a break.

Wow three months remaining until Cannonball and painting , plating , or assembly have not begun .... yet. To compound matters this damn computer keeps locking up , losing unpublished posts , sorry.

Pedal crank and eccentric parts machined over the weekend , tough steel. If the bike falls over on the side walk the pedal crank won't yield to the pressure , the side walk will break.

Speaking of break , taking a break from the hub project temporarily to stir up parts in preparation for coatings. Parts must be assembly ready prior to sending out for plating. Painting might be an in house affair on this bike although to move forward my painter may be brought in , more hands on deck will probably win out. Remember this is not an all out restoration, many damaged rusty banged up parts are being used on this flat tanker.

The hub project has consumed more time than I imagined. From conception to completion more time will be spent on the front and rear hubs than anything else in this build or the previous Gray Ghost build combined .

Signing off for now before this computer locks up again .

joe

[rwm]

joe, is the color the same for your 12 twin as an 11 single? if so please share the paint code with eric (2cam) he is ready to paint his 11 and needs help.

[Slojo]

Paint....

Rob

On this build the paint supplier botched the blend and has been tinting it for the past month to correct his error . Currently the primary gray has a tan hue , not good. Harley's gray paint is most likely a blend of two primary pigments "lamp black" (blue shade black) and white with a minute amount of blue tinting to get the desired shade.

The current blender most likely mixed my gray paint with primarily "carbon black" pigment (yellow shade black) and white resulting in the "tan" hue gray. He has re-tinted several times to achieve a match from a 1912 / 1913 tank back side where the UV light has not affected it's original paint.

These two black pigments have been in use for more time than my source can account for. My brother John (source) has 30 years experience as a color matching guru. specializing in field and in house tinting / matching paint pigment for the automotive industry. Lesson , should have had John mix the paint.

A while back on this forum the color of Harley's striping was a hot topic. I was brought into the fray and asked my opinion (we all have one) of the true color of Harley's early striping . I claimed the large stripe as a slate gray blue strip. Gray is the color choice of some of the researched people and the other guys typically use blue. I stand on the gray blue due to the pigments available, "Lamp black" has a natural blue hue in it and as pigments fade difficult arise for anyone to be absolute on this color shade.

When I built the Ghost the paint tinter re-tinted the dark gray blue striping paint several times to get away from the predominate blue of his original mix based on the same original paint fuel tank. The result is still more blue than I desired.

Back to the Twin, Hub parts are still the primary focus but many other items are materializing and being repaired , welded and machined into a usable form. I thought of posting several photos tonight as Cory is still on board but to much time was dedicated to the righting this article , the photos will have to wait.

joe

[Slojo]

Spending time at Bruce's shop bending pipes. Bruce a friend and fellow motorcyclist owns a tube bending shop and is pitching in on this build with new exhaust head pipes for the twin. Bruce's pipes should be spot on, already his rear head pipe has the best offset of any remanufactured pipes I have seen.

Bruce picked up data from an original set of pipes off the 13 twin I raced at Barber last year. We tested his prototype pipes on the 12 Twins mocked up motor , frame , muffler combination , close..... The rear head pipe has a peculiar offset to clear the cam chest , the front head pipe has the reverse bend rotated at the lower end ahead of the muffler Y pipe.

Most of my time is still spent on the Okuma making parts. The rear hub needs special threading tools for the coaster device since $3400 dollars is out of my reach for the EDM sinker . The front hub is also nearly finished, it will be fully serviceable virtually without tools. The hub shells will be wire EDM cut for the brake plates , the wire price should be easier to handle.

Back to McGuire Spring shop today for wire snap rings to hold the front hub assembly together. Ron wound 15 turns to cut 15 wire snap rings out of the music wire.

Computer failures are adding up its time may be near..... Three and a half hours to send seven scanned copied documents and write this article , not productive. On line problems continue with Verision wireless.

joe

[BoschZEV]

Not that you could be feeling any pressure, but the Cannonball starts in only another ~10 weeks and it's not clear from your recent updates how close you are to having an operating motorcycle. How many more hours of work do you estimate it will take to have your bike all together and ready for the first road test?

[Slojo]

Under Pressure

Yes I am still working on the Twin every day. Posts have been missing due to constant computer issues , several posting attempts have crashed prior to hitting the send button. Parts are arriving and being made on a daily basis. The hub project is looking good and now down to brake plates and actuating cam and worm devices.

Today I will be picking up finished exhaust pipes and working on the front hub cam , after the customer base is satisfied first. After all, still have to go to work to pay for this flurry of activity.

joe

[rwm]

6/24/14. 7/24/14 8/24/14 and now 10

[Tom Lovejoy]

I just read on face book that Joe is out this year, hope that's not the case - cause, I really wanted to see that belt drive make the run. Thought if anyone could it would be Joe to do it.

[frichie68]

I just read on face book that Joe is out this year, hope that's not the case - cause, I really wanted to see that belt drive make the run. Thought if anyone could it would be Joe to do it.

Is there an update? What happened?

[frichie68]

What happened to Slojo?