Powerplus or Bust, Eh?

[Shaky Jake]

New rubber on the rear wheel of the 1916 Indian Cannonball bike, #97. Still round after 4,000 hard miles. Isn't that Sumpin'!

Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

Here we go again. Assembly time. Seems like we just did this a couple of years ago, doesn't it? Total crankshaft side play is .015, right where I want it.






Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

With the rear swing are all rebushed and rebuilt, I figured I'd better address the rear wheel. It was pretty cruddy. I literally have cleaned it three times since the 2016 Cannonball, to get it looking this good.












This is an original Indian PowerPlus rear hub. They use a loose ball, cup and cone bearing design, similar to a bicycle. They have an adjustable cone on one side so that you can adjust the bearing clearance. Many of us did this on our Schwinns and Huffy's when we were kids. After I greased and assembled it with new balls, cups, and cones two years ago I set the clearance by snugging the adjusting cone against the balls, and then backing it off a quarter turn. Every day of the 2016 Cannonball I gave the wheel a shake to see if it needed to be tightened, but it never did. I never regreased. After 4,000 hard miles I can now see that the bearing clearance has loosened up less than 1/8 of a turn. That seems reasonable.

To be continued...


Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

The wheel came apart with no surprises, and there was still a little grease on the balls.












The cups, cones, and balls were all in great shape. I cleaned and greased them, and reassembled with the same parts.














While I was at it I decided to throw on some new rubber. The old one probably would have made another Cannonball, but I'd rather change it now than risk having to do it on the side of the road.










Enjoy your holiday and please take a moment to remember those who have gone on ahead of us, and those who have sacrificed in service of our country.




Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

With the freshly shod wheel now mounted on the rebushed swing arm, Kat and I got to talking about the rear fender. The problem with this bike is, if you have a flat tire, you pretty much have to either take the fender off or lay the bike on its side to get the rear wheel off and fix the tire. Time consuming in a competitive situation, and difficult for one person to perform on the side of the road. So we decided to make a hinged rear fender. I sourced a quality repop fender from Ziggy of Canada because I don't want to butcher an original. I found a repop hinge for an HD JD, I think got it from Lonnie Sr. up in Sturgis, if I remember correctly. Kat worked on sorting the tool roll while I fashioned a mock-up from scrap to help me figure out where to cut the new fender.












With the mock-up in place I was able to fit the wheel between it and the rear stand, so I transferred the resulting dimension to the new fender and made the chop.












Once I put the hinge between them, the front section will be supported by the front double stays, and the rear section will be supported by the rear double stays. To hinge the fender up for wheel removal, I will just have to unbolt the rear stays from the swing arm (one 1/4 inch bolt on each side).










That's it for now, more to come as I make progress. Thanks for watching.


Kevin

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[hairynob24]

nice work Kevin , i enjoy reading your thread seeing where your at with the bike , Rob

[Shaky Jake]

nice work Kevin , i enjoy reading your thread seeing where your at with the bike , Rob

Thanks Rob. It will get more frantic as the deadline approaches. This evening I was working on a new invention. I think I'll call it a Slingometer. We'll see. ;-)



Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

I remember the first time I put this little motor together I was quite nervous. I've been rebuilding engines since 1970 (I was 11 years old when I did that first one) but this one was 50 years older than anything I'd done before. These old motors are quite simple, yes, but different still. I'm not quite as nervous this time, but I will take my time anyway. So now, the first step is for three big parts to become one:





I set the crankshaft side play at .015 inches.





The first time I assembled the automatic oiler it took some research because things didn't seem to fit together right. It turns out my problem was that I was missing this little roller was that goes on the oiler crank pin. Once I found out about that, and actually found one, things fit together properly. Sometimes it's the little things that can throw you for a loop.








Then the plunger and crosshead go in and everything makes sense.








You can see the adjustment screw slot on the end of the plunger:








Here is a video of how the automatic oiler moves:

Now the timing gear, which also drives the automatic oiler, goes into the oven, and then onto the pinion shaft:











It gets retained by a little left handed screw and a copper washer:








Here the discharge check valve, inlet elbow, and caps have been installed. This time I was able to find a lead washer for the inlet elbow, which made it much easier to orient it correctly:








Stay tuned.


Kevin

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[Shaky Jake]

Flipping over to the drive side, this little oil deflector goes on the shaft. I have seven sets of PowerPlus engine cases in my shop, but this is the only one of these I've seen, so I recorded the dimensions so I can make some more. There is no seal on the shaft, just this deflector that slings the oil outwards to the drain hole. I've seen them where people have tried to use felt or something to seal the shaft, but I believe this to be the correct part, part number H-72 in the parts manual. The threads on the cover are left handed.












I'm probably going to leave the timing cover crusty, because that's just the way I am:








I find it easier to install the bottom end in the frame without the cylinders, but while I hade it sitting on the bench I temporarily installed them to check the piston clearance. I felt this was necessary because I had increased the compression height on the pistons this time, to bump the compression ratio from 3.5:1 to 4:1. My silly putty test indicated that I still have plenty of clearance:








Now the bottom end rests happily in the frame, where it belongs. You may also notice that I'm thinking about adding another gas tank. Rumor has it that there may be some longer runs between gas stops in 2018.














Happy Father's Day!


Kevin

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[nuklhd]

Kevin, thank you for taking the time to document and take us along on the build. I really enjoy this thread.

[frichie68]

Love the details I would never have thought of . . . Thanks!

[TechNoir]

Hi Kevin, well done on progress so far and I am also very much enjoying the ride.

I like your rubber band idea for keeping the con rods safe until the cylinders are fitted, I might borrow that one.

I also chuckled when you commented that you now have 7 sets of cases because I seem to remember that at the start of this you had never had a bike anything like this old. It seems that you are now fully immersed in these old bikes.

How did the final version of the cam followers turn out or is that the next installment? I will be interested to see how they improve performance.

Keep it up, there are a good few of us guys who are following both yours and BoschZEV's progress and hoping that all is well once you finally get underway.

John

[Shaky Jake]

Thanks for the comments guys.

The cam followers got delayed when the machinist I was using had some parts failures (bubble memory etc.). After several attempts to fix it, he ended up getting out of the business. He got me through the prototype phase though (we made three prototypes before I finalized the design). I have now found a new CNC guy and I should have Parts soon. Yes - it will be the subject of a future post.

And yes, I have become a bit of a Parts hoarder, and I have two additional bitsa-bike projects going.

On the far back burner is a 1919 PowerPlus. It's in the parts collecting phase. I have a frame, some wheels, engine cases, transmission, and a few more parts. I'd like to put a sidecar on that one. I'm looking for ~1919 cylinders if you know of any.

On the near back burner is a 1914/16 singlespeed racer. This will be done in the style of a privateer board track racer with 1914 style pedals but a 1916 PowerPlus motor. I have most of the parts for that one, I've started on the engine, and I'll probably start on tin work this winter. I've already talked to a painter, this one is going to be shiney not crusty. I want to modify a PowerPlus clutch to work like an earlier Hedstrom era single speed clutch. If anyone has details on the early teens single speed clutch hub and worm, for a bike with pedals, I would take any information I can get. I need to make a custom clutch hub to mate the pedal crank to a PowerPlus clutch.

I'm planning to start blogging about the racer soon. I took a vote on my other forum, and they think I should include that bike in the same build thread as the Cannonball bike, rather than start a new thread, so I'll probably do the same thing here unless anyone objects.

And yes, I'm also following Charles' build, though I'm a bit behind on my reading. I'm looking forward to meeting him in person in September.

Cheers and thanks for posting!


Kevin

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[BoschZEV]

And yes, I'm also following Charles' build,

And vice versa. As far as I can tell, ours are the only two 2018 Cannonball builds on the web.

I'm looking forward to meeting him in person in September.

And vice versa.

[pisten-bully]

You might not be getting a lot of feedback from guys like me, but that's because I'm lapping up everything you post and watching with intense interest. Thanks for documenting your work so thoroughly and taking the time to share it...it's very, very cool!