Powerplus or Bust, Eh?

[Shaky Jake]

It's quite reassuring to see how much times have changed, especially in the priorities of safety, and respect for human life.

Amen to that. I know the business I'm in has changed dramatically in the last 30 some years.



Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

Killing Time

While I was waiting for the new fork parts to come in, I decided to pay a little attention to a spare set of cylinders that I managed to get my hands on. They were rusted pretty bad, and have some broken fins so I've been soaking and scrubbing on them for a while. The front jug had an exhaust nut stuck on it. I soaked and heated on it for a couple of weeks, and put enough pressure on it that I was afraid I would break something. No joy. So I decided that I had to cut the nut off to try and save the exhaust spigot, because I'm pretty sure that spigot is never coming out of the jug. Here's the nut still in place:








I took a die grinder with a cut off wheel and made two slots in the nut, almost to the threads and diametrically opposed:







Then, a couple of light taps on a chisel in the slots broke the nut in two:







A 1 7/16 - 24 thread die cleaned up the threads nicely.


Kevin #97


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[Shaky Jake]

Another little project that needed taking care of was that the threads for the rear stand pivot on the right side of the swing arm were stripped. I drilled and tapped the hole for a properly sized Time-sert thread insert, and installed the insert with locktite:









Here are the repaired threads and the pivot installed in them:









Kevin #97


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[BigLakeBob]

Great job on the thread repairs. Better to waste the nut and save the spigot, timeserts are alot better than helicoils in certain applications thats for sure.

[Shaky Jake]

Great job on the thread repairs. Better to waste the nut and save the spigot...

Right. I really wanted to save that nut though; all the repops are all hex, that one was cool. I might try to weld it back together.



Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

Right. On with the forks. The new struts and rockers came in, so I test fit everything first:







The only problem I encountered was with the rockers. The width of the rockers where they fit over the pivots is a bit too thick, so that when you tighten down the nut it would prevent the rockers from pivoting freely:







The width of the rockers should be slightly less than the shoulder on the pivot, like the old ones:







Here you can see the difference between the old and new rockers. The new ones will have to be machined:









I also had to do a little filing to fit the pivot pins to the spring struts. Once that was done I painted them up in preparation for assembly:







The lower headstock bearing cone looked fine, I re-installed it with some Locktite so it wouldn't rotate on the stem:





More to come...


Kevin #97


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[Shaky Jake]

The front spring pack that came on my bike was correct for a 1914 model. It had a short leaf on top with a rounded leading end. The leading end of the second leaf from the top is rolled and a pin passes through the rolled end. There are two little nickel plated caps on the end of the pin. I'm not sure what the intended purpose of the pin and cap arrangement is, I am guessing that it is there as a safety stop in case the top spring strut stud breaks, it would prevent the fork from collapsing all together. The third leaf down is longer and has a rounded leading end that curves downward, part way around the loop of the leaf below it; the fourth leaf down, which loops all the way around and the lower spring strut passes though it. The bottom leaf (fifth from the top) is slightly shorter than the third leaf from the top. It (the bottom leaf) has a pin on the end of it that attaches to a nickel plated clip that goes around the third and fourth leaves from the top. A picture's worth a lot more than all those words, here is one of the circa 1914 spring pack that was on my bike when I got it:







Here are two pictures of the circa 1914 lower leaf, with the nickel plated clip on the leading end of it which passed over the two leaves above it:








In the following picture you can see, sitting on the can of grease, the fourth leaf from the top, which the long one that loops around and has the lower spring strut stud passing through it. Also in this picture, in the blue tub, is the new reproduction of the 1916 style reinforcing leaf, that was used to replace the 1914 style lower leaf with the clip on the end of it:







Below are pictures of the other three leaves, starting with the top leaf, then second and third from the top, as they are being cleaned and greased in preparation for assembly in the new configuration with the 1916 style reinforcing leaf:









You may have noticed that most of the leaf springs were stamped 'H-E' near the trailing end, except to one was stamped '13'. Perhaps someone out there knows what that means. In any case, the next post will cover mounting the clean greasy leaf springs onto the fork...




Kevin #97


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[fciron]

Well, shoot. I forgot to look for any of the people I sort of know online at Wauseon. It was my first AMCA event and there was a lot to see. Did Clifford the big red Dodge get fixed? Did you get flooded?

[Shaky Jake]

Well, shoot. I forgot to look for any of the people I sort of know online at Wauseon. It was my first AMCA event and there was a lot to see. Did Clifford the big red Dodge get fixed? Did you get flooded?

Clifford got fixed, but not until after the event. I drove to Wauseon in a rental car and stayed in a hotel. Luckily I had some free National rental car and Marriott points. Don't ask me how much a remanufactured New Venture 6 speed transmission costs though. Yikes!


Kevin

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[rwm]

Look for sirhrmechanic's thread about spring pack rebuilds. It will help a lot

[Shaky Jake]

Look for sirhrmechanic's thread about spring pack rebuilds. It will help a lot

Thanks for the tip. My forks are all together already, I just haven't gotten a chance to post the rest. I'll look for sihrhrmechanics posts when I get a spare minute.

So tell me, while we're talking about repairing cooling fins, is there any reason why a guy couldn't just braze on some new cast iron pieces, and grind to the appropriate shape prior to nickel plating?



Kevin

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[exeric]

Kevin, I repair the fins on all of my cylinders. I tried the donor route with cast iron fins from old cylinders and that was always very frustrating. I now use steel which I shape to fit the profile of the missing chunk. When I get the replacement fin fitted, I texture it with a needle scaler to match the cylinder fins. I find the steel is much easier to work with, and I can make it blend with the cylinder texture much better than a cast iron donor. Also, I braze the steel fin to the cylinder and find that I get much better brazing penetration between the steel donor, and the cast iron host. I have had many of those cylinders nickel plated and the repairs blend well; not perfect but even cast iron donors will show. The trick is to get a good plater that will put a thin dull plate on the cylinder. That is not easy to find as platers use a nickel solution with brighteners. Your best alternative is to sandblast the cylinder to get more of a matte finish.

[Shaky Jake]

Kevin, I repair the fins on all of my cylinders. I tried the donor route with cast iron fins from old cylinders and that was always very frustrating. I now use steel which I shape to fit the profile of the missing chunk. When I get the replacement fin fitted, I texture it with a needle scaler to match the cylinder fins. I find the steel is much easier to work with, and I can make it blend with the cylinder texture much better than a cast iron donor. Also, I braze the steel fin to the cylinder and find that I get much better brazing penetration between the steel donor, and the cast iron host. I have had many of those cylinders nickel plated and the repairs blend well; not perfect but even cast iron donors will show. The trick is to get a good plater that will put a thin dull plate on the cylinder. That is not easy to find as platers use a nickel solution with brighteners. Your best alternative is to sandblast the cylinder to get more of a matte finish.

Thanks Eric. That's what I'll do then. I'm much more comfortable brazing on cast iron than welding on it, and steel would be easier to source than cast iron. I like the needle scaler idea.


Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

continuation of fork reassembly

Continuing on with the front forks; the spring pack was assembled using the new 'reinforcing spring' in place of the old shorter leaf that had the nickel plated clip on the end of it. The reinforcing spring wraps all the way around inside the loop, preventing it from crackage. Here are a couple of pictures of the assembled spring pack:









This is the short leaf that gets left out when you use the reinforcing spring:







It took a fair amount of leverage and force to get the spring pack assembled, and the large rubber bumper installed. I learned that you cannot use the rubber bumper AND the reinforcing spring, it's one or the other. Here is why; the big bumper spreads the springs too far and the top pivot stud won't go through:









So, I removed the big rubber bumper:







And installed this smaller one that goes between, and parallel to, the two pivot studs:







Here is the fork assembled:







And here it is on the bike:







I'm adding this picture of the smaller rubber bumper, installed. the little tabs are metal, and hold it in place:







Kevin


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[Shaky Jake]

Catching Up

Wow. That summer went fast. We got some stuff done, but I'm not where I wanted to be right now. I'm back at work, on the road, so I thought I'd use my spare time to get this blog up to date. I started the summer trying to get to the vintage AMA meet in Lexington, OH. I didn't make it. I did, however, learn that a NV4500 six speed manual transmission in a 2001 Dodge 3/4 Diesel Truck is only good for approximately 268,678 miles. While that was being fixed, I rented a car and hit the AMCA vintage meet at Wauseon, OH, which was awesome as usual. Ended the summer with the Davenport meet and now there's only a few days less then one year left before the Cannonball. Here's a quick list of some of the main things I work on this summer, on the Indian:

Magneto
Cylinders
Valves
Valve Guides
Rockers, Valve Lifters, and Tappets
Spare Cylinders
Seat
Rear Stand
Crankshaft
Clutch
Gas Cap
Rear Wheel/Hub/Brake
More Nickel Plating

I'll spend some time soon posting pictures of those things and anything else I can think of. I hope you enjoy it.


Kevin

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