Powerplus or Bust, Eh?

[Shaky Jake]

Hi Jake, they look very clean and shiny, are they for your original engine or for the second engine that you mentioned a little while ago?

John

It is my original Cannonball engine. There was almost no paint left on them, so I decided to blast and paint. Hopefully it won't stick out too much on my old paint bike. I didn't blast the timing cover, because it still has some original paint.


Kevin

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[TechNoir]

Hi Jake, they look very clean and shiny, are they for your original engine or for the second engine that you mentioned a little while ago?

John

[Shaky Jake]

Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

One more thing on the swingarm. This is the bolt that threads into the frame and clamps the swingarm pivot in place. It's supposed to have a little nub on the end to engage that hole in the pivot shaft.










I could have made a new one, but I decided to renub the old one instead.












Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

It struck me as a pretty big jump to go from hardened steel, to plastic, but going on a recommendation you trust makes sense.

Call me a risk taker. ;-)




Kevin

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[BoschZEV]

I ended up going with Nylatron on the advice of a respected friend who has had good experience with it in the past.

It struck me as a pretty big jump to go from hardened steel, to plastic, but going on a recommendation you trust makes sense.

[Shaky Jake]

I also wondered why you didn't use bronze. Great thread, by the way (great threading, too...).

Bronze was certainly an option. I don't have any strong reason for choosing Nylatron over bronze. I guess once you decide to deviate from original it opens the door to many options. I ended up going with Nylatron on the advice of a respected friend who has had good experience with it in the past. Time will tell how well it works in this application. I pretty sure it will at least get me to the finish line.


Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

Very cool Kevin, what gains do you expect from using the Nylatron material ? just curious

Hi Tom. I'm just lazy I guess. If I'd have stuck with the original hardened steel, I would have had to make them, them harden them, then hone them. With the Nylatron I just had to make them.

Don't judge me too harshly. ;-)


Kevin

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[BoschZEV]

what gains do you expect from using the Nylatron material ?

I also wondered why you didn't use bronze. Great thread, by the way (great threading, too...).

[Tom Lovejoy]

Very cool Kevin, what gains do you expect from using the Nylatron material ? just curious

[Shaky Jake]

More on the swing arm. I repaired several threaded holes on it with thread inserts. I know thread inserts aren't we're interesting, we've all used them, but I was excited to find this kit for 1/4" - 24 tpi holes, so I thought I'd post. On these early Indians all of the threaded fasteners are 24 tpi, from 1/4 to 1-1/2 inch diameter. Apparently HD used 1/4-24 at some point too, but they aren't very common anymore. I was happy to find this. If you need one, shop around because some people are asking crazy money for them.










The kit came with the drill bit, tap and installation tool. It also has a cutter for facing off the insert after it's installed, so its flush.










In other news, here's one of the rear stand pivot holes that I repaired:








And here's the smaller (1/2 inch) Nylatron bushing I made for the spring strut:








Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

Left handed drills, spiral extractors, square extractors, all that and more, but like I said, when two pieces of metal are together for that long, they become one piece of metal. Once you think of it that way, the solution is simple, drill the hole out to the minor diameter of the threads, and tap new threads into it. So that's what I did. Usually, with new metal, when you drill them out that far you can see the threads in the hole, and then take a dentist's pick and remove what's left of the bolt threads. In this case, I drilled it out all the way to the Minor diameter of the old threads, but you couldn't see any thread lines in the hole. The two pieces of metal had become one. To coin a term, I call it "Time Welding."









And there you have it, with the new adjuster installed. In this picture you can also see the Time-sert that I had installed to fix the threads for the rear stand pivot.








The swing arm bushings had .025 to .030 inches clearance on the diameter. Crazy loose. You couldn't hardly push this bike in a straight line while walking beside it. It was like a sidewinder snake. So the old bushings came out.










The original bushings are hardened steel. Some of you guys might not like this, but I made the new bushings out of Nylatron, on the advice of a respected friend.














And then I pressed them in:








This pivot shaft I bought from Dale Walksler. It was used, but much better than my old one. I made the bushings really tight, and they feel good. Probably even tight enough to provide a little damping, but they feel really smooth.








To be continued.

Kevin

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[Steve Swan]

yes, after going through a couple sets of eze-outs, breaking them, slipping in the holes, i threw them away when the shop i worked for introduced me to the Mac's. the Mac's haven't failed me. Yet.

[Shaky Jake]

Kevin, do you have a set of straight flute extractors ? The extractor has no taper, the diameter of the extractor is the same the entire distance of the extractor. my experience, i believe the spiral extractors like eze-outs can make the problem worse, seems they actually expand the metal needing removed into the surrounding metal. i got a set of the straight flute extractors from MAC and will never go back.

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I have one that I made years ago out of a square punch. It didn't work in this case either. I agree with your observation about the spiral extractors Steve. The one in the picture came with a Snap-on set that includes left-handed drill bits. The drill bits work pretty good, sometimes they spin the piece right out. The spiral extractors almost never work for me, and I've seen them break off. Good comment.


Kevin

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[Steve Swan]

Kevin, do you have a set of straight flute extractors ? The extractor has no taper, the diameter of the extractor is the same the entire distance of the extractor. my experience, i believe the spiral extractors like eze-outs can make the problem worse, seems they actually expand the metal needing removed into the surrounding metal. i got a set of the straight flute extractors from MAC and will never go back.

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