Rebuilding the Q-ship; a 1964 Harley Davidson Sportster

[chuckthebeatertruck]

And, finally, LEAD

OK, we got the dents out and identified the three spots we need to lead. In this case, we had one tear, one pin hole, and that ugly weld to finish off.

We chose to use lead for a few reasons:
1) We had it on the shelf -- making this a "free" repair
2) For this repair where moisture, vibration, and general abuse are present -- want a tough, flexible filler that does not absorb moisture.
3) The overall tensile strength and bond strength of lead is hard to beat. We aren't talking pure lead here -- we are talking more modern lead free solders. They are very, very tough if difficult to work with.

Can you do this with poly filler -- yep. Is it as much fun -- nope. Will you notice a difference in 10 years -- probably not. Will you notice a difference in 20-50 years -- maybe.


The key to all body filler, whether lead or poly, is clean, clean, clean metal. If you won't take the time to completely clean to bare metal with absolutely no residue or corrosion on the surface -- well, you're always going to be disappointed. Lead in particular requires super clean metal.

We started by grinding our spots with a 36 grit flap disc on a 4.5" angle grinder. We had a LOT of filler rod to grind out of the weld.

With that done, we plopped our fender on our super secret weapon -- an old garden stand -- for tinning.

Here is a photo of our basic supplies:

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From left to right:
1) A 1/2lb spool of Oatley Lead-Free Plumbing Solder (more on this in a second)
2) A 1 lb "tub" of Johnson Products Soldering Paste (not flux -- rather a "lubricant" for the forming paddle)
3) A 1/2 lb "tub" of Johnson Products Lead Free Tinning Flux
4) A hardwood, flat bottom forming paddle
5) A regular old propane torch.


Now, let's talk about lead for a quick moment.

Traditional body solder is 70% lead and 30% tin (well, 28% tin and some other junk). It melts easy and has a really wide "plastic" range where you can form it like stiff dough -- but without runs. The draw back to traditional solder is that it is more brittle, doesn't like to flex too much, and is very toxic. In terms of its strength -- think of it like Bondo. Not "body filler" but literally the cheap bondo you can buy in any auto store. Traditional lead is the bottom barrel. It works, but not nearly as well as other types of body solder. Also, traditional lead prefers an acid based tinning flux. Using lead free tinning flux usually causes an adhesion problem. So, don't mix products. Body lead is usually sold in 1/4lb sticks and normally retails around $7-10 per stick, or about $28-40/lb.

Lead free body solder has been around since the early 70s and is widely used in auto manufacturer despite rumors to the contrary. It has largely been phased out due to better production methods and epoxies -- but is still used for some remedial work by a few companies. As a result, it is still kinda hard to find on the regular market. As the name implies, it doesn't contain lead but rather a type of antimony, tin, and other stuff. The industry leader is Johnson Products Body Solder. It is available to the home shop through Eastwood, but it is pricey at roughly $60/lb. Chuck has used about 10 pounds of this solder over the years -- it is challenging to work with at first, but controllable and very long lasting.

Another option, and the one we used here, is Oatey products silver bearing solder. The one we have found to work best is labeled as "safty flo" and is a roughly 97/3 solder -- meaning it is 97% tin, copper, bismuth, and silver -- and 3% antimony. It is roughly the same price as body lead ($30/lb), but is closer to the Johnson Lead Free solder in terms of how it responds. What isn't so great about this particular solder is that it has a VERY narrow plastic range. This means it was nearly impossible for Chuck to juggle leading and take photos. But, we'll talk you through it.

As mentioned up above, clean metal is the start. Then we warm the surface a bit and apply our tinning flux. It is critical to tin the metal first. If you don't -- the lead won't stick. This is really handy when you want to keep lead off a surface -- you just don't tin it and the lead peels right off. Most tinning fluxes are greyish and turn to a liquid mercury colour when heated and reacting with the metal. You want this even "mercury" sheen over the whole surface you intend to lead. If you have spots where it just doesn't want to tin -- it usually means there's some junk that needs removing. An easy way to do this is to "scratch" the lead rod over the spot. IN 90% of the cases, this will be sufficient to cause the surface to take a tin. In the other 10%, you need to clean and re-flux/tin the spot.

Once you have the surface tinned -- don't let it cool. Instead, move right into building up your lead. Start at the low spot and work your way around melting and pressing the lead into the panel with your paddle. With traditional lead and the Johnson stuff -- you've a good 10-15 seconds in the plastic range. With the Oatly -- it's more like 5-10 seconds. So, dial the flame down and work carefully. When you first try it -- you'll overheat the panel and most of the solder will run right off. This tells you to slow down, turn down the flame and be patient.

Unlike poly filler we don't try to overbuild the surface and cut back. Instead, we try to underfill and only add a bit more lead to low areas. The really nice part is that you can move to the body file the moment the lead sets. Unlike poly you don't have to wait for it to cure for 10-30 minutes. And yes, FILE. Even with lead free it's not a good idea to grind it. Instead, use the file and be careful about clean up.

So, we filed away, filled a bit, and ran out of lead right as there were a few pin depressions and two small depressions to finish in the weld area. Well, nuggets. To deal with this, we simply cleaned the repaired area, wiped it down with acetone, and applied a very, very thin "press" layer of industrial epoxy. "press" layer means just that - you use a paddle to force the filler deep into the surface. We wanted to get the epoxy tight to the mild depressions. This means when we lightly sand it -- it will all but disappear.

Here's the fender "curing" -- this repair needs about 10 minutes of sanding before epoxy primer and high build. When done, it will be very hidden.

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We've been using this method and these materials for about 20 years without a single failure. And, we aren't talking just a few repairs. We've done multiple fenders, fuel tanks, oil tanks, etc. like this.

To give you an idea of how nice it finishes - here is a 1/8th hole "filled and filed" . . . it just disappears and isn't coming off.

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Clean up of any flux residue is just hot water on a rag, followed by alcohol, followed by acetone or prepping wipe of your choice. Because we did not use acid based flux -- we've got very little to worry about.

The fender is now back on the shelf waiting for warm weather. We will quickly media blast it, clean it, and start our paint when the time comes.

None of what we just outlined is hard to do nor expensive. We suggest not making a big investment in supplies - but rather finding some junk pieces to practice on. If you only do occasional body work -- poly fillers will be easier and safer for you to handle. If you already know how to use poly well and want to try your hand at lead -- well, what's stopping you?

For this set of repairs, it took Chuck a little over three hours from start to finish to clean up. Not bad for a hangover day. And we "almost" achieved our goal of no filler. Technically, the press coat of epoxy is filler . . .so, there you go.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Parts Washing

Now that we are approaching the finish line on the chassis, one of the next things to get done was washing up all the transmission and motor parts so that we can order what we need to start in on the power train in earnest.

Chuck uses a combination of walnut shells in a vibratory tumbler and a 20 gallon parts washer for the majority of parts clean up. The walnut shells do a very nice job, but must be carefully cleaned from every crack and crevice you can think of. This is why they are not the best choice for parts with through oil holes (think shafts that are drilled for oil passages.) It is just far too difficult to ensure the parts are totally free of walnut particles. So, be careful in what you choose to tumble.

The parts washer is nothing special. Just a basic 20 gallon unit like you can buy from most big box stores, harbor freight, etc. We wore our old one out last year and so we decided to try a different solvent this year. In the past, we've tried both water (citric acid based) and solvent (mineral spirits or naptha base) and found the citric to be largely worthless. Yes, it works, but frankly, it's too slow and requires way too much scrubbing. We loved the naptha stuff -- but it is pretty smelly and an hour of parts washing used to knock us a loop. Mineral spirits was the best compromise, but it too had smell draw backs.

With the new unit, we tried a mix of 3/4 "ultra low VOC paint thinner" and 1/4 low voc mineral spirits, with 2 qts of ATF for cleaning and to help drive off moisture. The main draw back to the ultra low voc is that it has some type of "water" or at least wetting agent in it. This "can" cause some surface spotting in a cool, humid environment. So, dry your stuff fast and that doesn't happen. The ultra low is closer to running WD40 (which is mostly mineral spirits) in your washer. It is soft on you and the parts, not real smelly, and cleans OK. It is slower than full solvent, but after 5.5 hours of cleaning this weekend; we could still see straight.

A couple of other tips -- we like to use disposable tin foil baking pans to sort and dry parts after cleaning. This helps keep junk out. We also blow the parts dry with compressed air and wipe them with clean, disposable shop rags before sealing them in clean zip lock bags. Once the parts are sealed up, we separate them by major assembly (main shaft, counter shaft, top end, bottom end, etc) so we can grab what we need when the time comes.

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You'll see in the photos that a few parts needed some more cleaning -- and a couple of tappet blocks got tossed in the tumbler to remove stubborn spots. Like everything, sometimes you have to clean it twice :-)

[chuckthebeatertruck]

On a quick side note; there's a few sets of vintage speed parts that are in the photos. The most significant are the two sets of cams. These are both vintage sifton units. They are removable/replaceable shafts, which dates them to somewhere between the early 60s and the late 70s. One set is the famous -/- meaning both the intake cams and the exhaust cams are marked with a - sign. These cams do wonderful things on strokers but are not necessarily a good choice for a stock displacement bike.

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The other set is a +h/- set; meaning they are +h intakes and - exhausts. This combo is good for stock motors or small strokers. It isn't that much different from the -/- set up . . . but it is.

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And, here's why we have two sets of cams:

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These are both stroker cranks. The crank on the left is a forged steel S&S unit. It is a"-3" meaning the stroke is 4-5/16 (4.3125). Those pistons you see are stock pistons, cut down for the stroke. This combo is used with stroker plates to give 61 cubic inches on a stock bore (3 inches) or 71.5 cubes on a big bore (3.25 inches). The nice part is that you can use stock pistons (including .060-070 over 1000 pistons for the 3.25 cylinders) trim the skirts and NOT have to lower the oil holes. Yeah, there are manifold spread problems . . .but we can solve that with a phone call to S&S vs. brazing up and lowering oil holes.

The crank on the right is the one we are going to use on the 64. It is an early S&S cast iron unit. Yes, that's right, S&S once made cast cranks. This one is a "-6" unit -- meaning it is 4-5/8 stroker (4.625). With a stock bore, it will give 65 cubes; with the 3.25s it will give just under 77 inches. This means we go from a stock 55 cubes to 77 . . .and that is a serious upping of the fun factor. Overall, this crank is in very good shape, but it is running out of true by just a bit (.0025 across the shafts; .0045 on the faces). So, we'll pull it down, inspect the crank pin and bearings; and retrue it. We are not going to rebalance the crank. It was balanced at roughly 55% for slightly heavier DYTCH pistons . . .and so we'll be within the range we want (54-56%) for this motor.

All sorts of debates can spring up around balancing motors. Let's just put it this way -- go with what makes you comfortable. Some guys will swear your bike will tear itself to pieces at less than 55% and others will tell you they can't run smooth until you hit 60%. Again, go with what makes you comfortable. A lot of this is subjective and depends on how fast you spin the motor, the chassis, etc. So, don't beat yourself up trying to figure this out.

We'll cover stripping the crank and retruing it in another set of posts.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

At the start of December, we updated the purchase list and expenditures on the 64 XLCH Q ship so as to help others understand just how much money a basket case can consume. Here’s an update to that post, detailing all expenditures to date:

$1,500 – Purchase price for about 80% of the bike, full motor, and clean title
$450 – shipping from Denver to Chicago
$500 – Dytch Big Bore Cylinders and matching heads
$191 – title, registration, and plates
$10 – insurance
$115 – tax on purchase
$75 – handlebars
$100 – handlebar spirals, grips, and internal wires for the magneto and throttle
$100 – Dr. Dick/Morris Magnetos “unbreakable” kicker shaft
$75 – Steel rear motor mount
$150 – Horn (trust me, this was a bargain)
$80 – oil tank mounts and special bolts
$60 – head lamp
$75 – head lamp visor
$25 – shift lever and rubber
$50 – side stand, spring, pin, and top motor mount
$45 – fuel tank decals
$350 – complete front end (trees, sliders, tubes, tube covers, and front trim)
$25 – rear brake rod and adjusting nut
$20 – forged oe kicker arm
$40 – swing arm and all internals
$10 – foot peg rubber
$80 – miscellaneous hardware (bolts, screws, lock washers, flex locs, and plain washers)
$50 – Colony steering stem mounting kit
$40 – NOS Red Wing shocks
$40 – KONI progressive springs for the red wing shocks
$12 – License holder
$10 – NOS 22T countershaft sprocket
$15 – Chain guard
$25 – NOS front brake pivot
$50 – Front wheel hub rebuild kit
$24 – NOS front brake cam
$11 – NOS Rear Axle collar
$10 – Front axle, nut, and washer
$20 – front brake cable tube, adjuster, and fender clamp
$20 – Clutch Cable
$20 – Brake Cable
$30 – Tail lamp assembly
$20 – OE kicker pedal and fresh rubber
$20 – CS seal kit
$25 – Clutch lever and perch
$20 – Brake lever and perch
$15 – Fuel Petcock
$35 – NOS 51T rear sprocket and rivets
$60 – Repo “smooth” fender struts
$25 – Full motor gasket kit
$25 – ’72-E73 head gaskets
$40 – Repo solo seat (later style)
$15 – NOS diamond drive chain
$40 – NOS diamond primary chain
$15 – NOS Raybestos clutch plates
$250 – Fairbanks-Morse Magneto and rekey
$10 – Dual muffler support
$20 – Voltage regulator
$40 – S&S cast alloy L series/Super B air cleaner and backing plate
$40 – Manganese Parkerizing solution
$30 – Zep-a-lume (1 Gallon w/ shipping)
$312 – Powder coating
$750 – Chrome plating, dechroming of items, and select polishing
$20 – Stainless steel chafing pan for parkerizing parts
$10 – Misc stainless steel hardware
$25 – Front brake cam lever and clevis
$65 – Front brake shoes
$15 – Front brake springs
$10 – 4 rubber bushes/donuts for the front fork covers
$5 – fork dampner gaskets
$10 – rear hub lock nut
$10 – head lamp visor plug
$10 – side stand spring (w/ shipping)
$249 – Solo seat hardware (all Colony reproduction parts)
$70 – Seat T-bar (correct for 65-70 XLCH “long”seat)
$233 – WM3 19 and WM3 18 reproduction borranni-style rims
$264 – Stainless Steel Spokes and Nipples for front and rear rims
$19 – Handle bar switches
$24 – Fork gaitors/boots
$50 – Handle bar “inners” and control wires/coils
$20 – Rear view mirror
$7 – Tail lamp to mud guard/fender gasket (rubber)
$15 – Rear mud guard/fender buffer
$7 – 1 Gallon Muriatic Acid (for Parkerizing)
$205 – Tires and Tubes (Shinko 712, 90/90-19 front; 110/90-18 rear; Bridgestone HD tubes)
$390 – S&S stroker pistons .060 over size
$100 – shipping on motor cases and -72 to e73 heads
$339 – Stainless steel “R” valves, guides, keeepers, and light weight spring kit (Kibblewhite)
$61 – Wiring supplies
$7 – hand lever bush
$11 – speedo block off plug
$15 – timing cover screws
$198 – reproduction slash cut independent dual mufflers
$36 – cad plated motor mount hardware
$74 – repo 5 piece muffler clamp set
$136 – new, chrome headers
$15 – clutch release worm cover, spring, and seal
$7 – big twin transmission shift follower “top hats”
$21 – main shaft ball bearing
$26 – cad plated rocker shaft hardware and washers
$14 – closed counter shaft bearing
$28 – two wire blocks for the throttle and magneto control
$8 – thrust washer
$8 – kicker spring washer and bush
$25 – XLR cylinder base nuts
$16 – cad primary screws
$45 – solid state end cap voltage regulator
$11 – open counter shaft bearing
$12 – clutch adjuster screw
$20 – rocker oil line kit
$3 – clutch hub oil seal
$12 – cable bracket
$30 – 3/8-24 helicoil kit
$4 – oil seal
$34 – magneto control arm
$6 – thrust washer
$6 – shift shaft plug
$13 – intake clamps
$8 – gas cap
$10 – kicker spring stud
$21 – primary shoe
$3 – misc snap rings
$5 – countershaft spacer
$5 – oil slinger washer
$10 – oil seal
$14 – breather pipe and nipple
$260 – Andrews Close Ratio 4th gear set (71-78 style to be modified)
$56 – House of Kolor Solar Gold Fine Metallic (pint)
$85 – House of Kolor DTM3000 primer surfacer (quart kit)
TOTAL - $9,876 – so far, with tax, title, tags, and insurance.

We still have two more parts to go: a nice K&N air cleaner cartridge and a magneto cap. Together, these will be about $100. We also will need to make or buy a carburetor support bracket.

Otherwise, we are more or less done with major expenditures on the Q ship.

To be clear, the point of sharing this information is not to say “look how much I can spend” but rather to add some realism to discussions about basket cases and “building them from scratch.” All the little parts that are needed to rebuild a bike add up.

And these are just parts. If you need to pay for labor; well, that’s another story.

So far, we’ve invested 86 hours and have about 60 hours of work to go. That will be just shy of 150 hours of labor. Many independent shops now charge closer to $75/hr for labor. 150 hours times $75 = $11,250 in labor.

If that doesn’t make you want to buy a nice running rider for 1/3rd this amount, not much will. Keep in mind you can buy many excellent 70s and 80s ironheads for less than $3000. These often have low miles and you can get them back on the road for very little investment.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

The Dark Arts: Flywheel Truing and Electrical Wiring

In this segment, we are going over two of the more mystical aspects of old motorbike work: flywheel truing and electrical wiring. Neither is really difficult, but due to the nature of the work many are unsure of themselves in taking these on. Our purpose here is not to give a step-by-step guide, but rather a broad overview to help you understand the process and determine your comfort level(s).

Let’s get started with truing of flywheels. Many motorcycle manufacturers have used “built” cranks over the past 120 years. In essence, these are nothing more than a series of machined parts built into an assembly (bolted together). Even with precise machining, minute adjustments are necessary to make sure all those different pieces run true to a common centerline. This is “truing” in a nutshell.

Our job as the mechanic/machinist is to do our best to build a crank that is in specification or better.

Here’s where we pause; brand new parts are different than assembling used parts or new/used parts. So, again, don’t take anything written here as a primer. It is only an overview.

In this case, Chuck had a set of vintage cast iron S&S stroker flywheels. Yes, S&S made cast wheels at one time. They are of a higher quality material than stock and came “pre-balanced” for stroker pistons. This crank was put between centers and it ran .0015 on the sprocket bearing surface; .0025 on the pinion bearing surface, and .0045 on the rim faces. The HD specification is no more than .001 per shaft (really, .0005 if you can manage it) and no more than .003 on the rim faces. Clearly, we were out.

After consulting with our technical advisor, Dr. Dick, we decided to true these wheels vs. disassembling and retruing them. We did this for a few reasons. First, the crank came from a running bike and had been put together by someone who knew what they were doing. The out of alignment was more likely due to how the crank was shipped vs. how it was trued. Second, all the accessible bearings (pinion and sprocket) were in outstanding condition, the rods were clean with honed small ends, and the rods showed no sign of cracked or broken cages. The rods have perfect end shake and no perceptible play. We determined the big end is unlikely to have issues. Third this is a cast crank with torque specs beyond factory. We did not want to disturb the tapers any more than needed. To be clear, bumping wheels to true them is not the same as separating the tapered shaft from the wheel. We know these tapers are well seated and we want them to stay that way.

So, we decided to slack the crank pin nuts and see if it would easily retrue (spoiler alert – it did).

Challenge number one in flywheel work is holding the darn thing steady. These wheels had about 150 foot pounds of torque on the crankpin nuts, meaning it took a good sized breaker bar to get at them. To keep everything steady, Chuck cheats and uses his hydraulic press with two chunks of C channel. Basically, the press serves as a big clamp and the c channel keeps us in alignment. Using a 2 foot breaker bar with an extension, just ease the nuts loose, plus a turn, then snug them again. Now, we are ready to true the wheels.

Here are the wheels sitting on the arbor plates and the lower C Channel:

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And, here they are with the top channel in place and the ram holding everything in place:

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I really gotta insulate the walls of the new shop.

Challenge number two is a fixture to true the wheels. This can be a dedicated truing stand, a set of bench centers, or a good lathe with centers in the head and tail stock. One word of warning – the internet is filled with pictures and descriptions of home-made truing stands. Whilst you “can” get away with it – it really isn’t the best idea. This is for two reasons – 1) it is darn difficult to get centers correctly aligned on a precision lathe – let alone on some random chunks of metal welded together; and 2) the whole crank assembly weighs a good 30 pounds – that flex in most DIY truing stands is enough to induce .001 or .002 of error. So, you defeat yourself. Will the bike run – yes. Will it run as smoothly as it should – maybe.

Chuck uses a lathe. Two tips here: 1) make sure your tapers or collets are super clean and seat fully; and 2) don’t let the tail stock be loose – including overhang on the ram. Tight, tight, and aligned are the three rules. Don’t try to use a mini-lathe or one of those combo mill/lathe units if you can avoid it. Both are lightly built and again – flex can induce error.

Clean your centers, including the flywheel center points, check they have no issues, and then place a drop of oil on them. Carefully place the wheels between center and introduce just a small amount of drag. Do not be tempted to do up the centers tight. You can actually push the wheels into a “false” reading” by placing too much pressure on the centers. Just enough to turn freely and no more or less.

Trick number 104; make sure your dial indicator/mercer gauge or test indicator are tracking 90 degrees to the shaft. If they aren’t . . .well, you are inducing error. Chuck tends to mount them at 12 o’clock for dial indicators and 9 o’clock for test indicators. Then, it is a matter of finding the high and low spots on each shaft. Indicate as close to the flywheel as possible on the bearing surfaces.

Mark the rim of each wheel with its low spot.

Here's an illustration of the sprocket side after we did a little bumping; Photo one is the low spot at "0" and photo two is the high spot at .001.

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So, at this stage a whole .0005 had "come out" to bring the wheels closer to true. More in the next post.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Truing Part 2

To over simplify, flywheels can only be out of alignment in one of three ways: 1) Askew – this is where one wheel is off center with the other and the most common way wheels are out; 2) Splayed – this is where the wheels “spread out” from each other opposite the crank pin; or 3) Pinched – this is where the wheels are “moved in” towards one another opposite the crank pin. Where the high spot is indicated tells you roughly what is going on and yes, you can have any combination of 1-3 going on at the same time.

In general, a high spot 90 degrees on either side of the crank pin indicates the wheels are askew. If the high spot is at or near the crank pin or at or near the bottom of the wheels, you have splay or pinching to deal with. This is where experience comes in and you learn to "read" the wheels.

In the case of this crank, we were splayed on the sprocket side enough to give .0015 and askew enough on the pinion side to give .0025.

We dealt with the splay first. Here’s how. We have a very stout work bench made of 2x6 lumber and heavy layers of plywood bolted to the floor and two walls for a reason. It makes bumping a flywheel rim relatively easy. In this case, we “gently” swung the wheel into the bench face. A handful of bumps saw it running .001 – and one more strategic bump got us to .0005. Yippee. To be clear, if both wheels are splayed, clamps or a vice are used to nip them up. We had one wheel to correct, so we bumped the face. DO NOT HAMMER ON THE FACE.

The skew is dealt with by the strategic use of the bench or hammers. But, let’s stop and talk about hammers. Do not use a steel or even a brass hammer on flywheels. Do not strike the face and do not strike the crank pin. Our weapons of choice are a 2 pound shop made lead hammer and a 1 pound copper hammer, along with a chunk of 2x4 laid on the ground.

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Sweep up the shop and work clean, please. Now, simply “hang” the offending wheel off the 2x4 and strike it right at the high spot. It took several blows and testing in the lathe until we had it running below .001.

We then took it back over to the press and started checking torque. Restarted “snug” and this turned out to be just under 50 ft/lbs. We then torqued to 50, check, torque to 100, check, torque to 125, check, and finish up at 150. The wheels were then checked a final time.


Here are the final low and high spots on the sprocket side:

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And, here are the final low and high spots on the pinion side:

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Our results are as follows, we are below .0005 on the sprocket and below .0005 on the pinion. Rim faces trued to just below .002. And, the very tip of the pinion shaft – well that trued to just below .001. In other words, this is about as true as you can get.

We then scrubbed the heck out of the crank and let solvent run through the pinion/crank pin for a solid 20 minutes. Crank was dried, oiled, and placed in a clean bag until we are ready for it.

It took about 90 minutes to retrue the crank and get it ready for install. If this is your first rodeo -- double the time and really, triple the time isn't unusual for your first few wheels. Keep in mind, this is one job that can be farmed out pretty easily. So unless you have a hankering to do it; it's usually more efficient to send them out.

One dark art down.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

And, the other dark art -- electrics

Now we move on to wiring. This is another one of those demons that seem to keep many a good bike in the garage for decades. There is ZERO excuse for being afraid of electrics. Seriously. Chuck is color blind. If he can wire – YOU can wire.

Try to visualize an electric circuit like a water pipe. The water has to start somewhere and end somewhere, it might branch off to feed other things – but you get the idea – electricity flows. So, to avoid issues, Chuck works one circuit at a time. Tip two for the color challenged, use colors you can see. Chuck is red/green – so we used only one red wire in the entire set up. That’s the one we know is “off” and therefore red. Yippee.

Wiring an XLCH is as simple as it comes. There is no fuse, no battery, no directional indicators (turn signals), and no ignition circuit. There is only a head lamp, tail/stop lamp, horn, and the generator itself. So, we know we need two switches (head lamp low/high and stop lamp) and two contact buttons (horn and magneto kill switch). That’s the extent of our “complexity.”

To make life easy, Chuck headed on over to Menards and picked up a Single Pole, Double Throw toggle switch meant for 125v lamps. These are labeled SPDT. They handle way more amperage and voltage than this bike will see. We chose this switch because it has screw terminals – this means we can use ring terminals on our wiring and instead of making up splitters to feed the electricity, we simply connect two ring terminals back to back. The oe stop switch is the same.

Chuck then ordered up a bunch of cloth covered wiring. This isn’t the “old” cloth wiring – this stuff is fully water resistant and has a PVC jacket then the cloth covering. It is super tough and fun to work with. Chuck chose 16 gauge wire, which is heavier than you need for a 12v system, but good if we ever convert back to 6 volt.

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We then spent a few minutes drawing up a wiring diagram and labeling each run. We also sat down and figured out where and how we’d connect up power supply. With that done, it was time to start running wires.

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Chuck tries to avoid only crimping connections. So, every terminal was crimped and soldered. For high vibration bikes, Chuck also does a trick known as “folding.” What this means is that you deliberately strip an extra ½ inch of wire. This allows you to crimp the wire tight in the terminal and then fold it back over itself and solder the wire to the shell. This means the wire is doubly secure by being crimped as well as soldered inside and out. Simply put, it can’t separate easily. We then use a small piece of shrink tubing to insulate and give more flexibility.

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With each set of circuits prepped, we then ran them through asphalt looms and carefully routed the wires. Be sure to move the headstock to both locks and check for free movement. We then zip tied the loose wiring to keep it out of the way for now. We did not finish the stop lamp switch or the tail lamp wiring. Those will get cut to length when the components are mounted. Similarly, we temporarily put the horn in place to run its wires. Keep in mind, this is an original 6v horn. If you put 12 volts through it, it will burn out fast. So, we will wire in a ballast resistor in the final installation to drop the voltage and make it “safe” to run. It will be a pathetic horn either way . . . so don’t be underwhelmed.

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Chuck also placed the tail lamp wiring on the left shock. This is so we don’t forget where it went. The final thing we did was to measure and make up an extra earth/ground for the tail lamp. In theory, the tail lamp grounds through its housing to the rear fender/mud guard. Normally, this works fine, but Chuck has learned a short ground strap from the housing mount to the nearest fender strut mount ensures a clean ground and by extension a nice bright tail lamp. Considering we only have one lamp to try and keep cagers from running us over . . .bright is good and magneto bikes aren’t known for bright lamps at idle.


There you go – wiring ain’t so bad after all.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Just a few more wiring photos;

Here is that ground strap I was talking about:

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The Single Pole Double Throw switch (SPDT):

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Left is low beam; center is off; right is high beam.

Here is the tail/stop lamp wiring waiting for the mudguard. Note this "harness" is longer than needed. The final fitment will come when all the parts are being mounted.

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And a few more shots showing how I chose to route the wires. And, yes, there is a gap over the wires in the back bone. I'd like to say this was deliberate, but in reality, the thickness of the cloth covered wire makes it a PITA to get through an asphalt loom if the dimensions are close. So, we left a gap under the fuel tank. Because these wires have both a cloth and a PVC insulator, we aren't worried in the least. Note also that the magneto grounding/kill wire is zip tied to the control coil. This makes for a simple, clean install -- though the zip ties are certainly not "period correct."

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The hawk-eyed will also notice a "y" splitter by the front motor mount. This is the power feed. We will be using a regulator mounted on the end of the generator, so this allows a quick, easy and neat hook up. We'll finish tieing the looms out of the way once the motor is in place.

[aumick10]

To over simplify, flywheels can only be out of alignment in one of three ways: 1) Askew – this is where one wheel is off center with the other and the most common way wheels are out; 2) Splayed – this is where the wheels “spread out” from each other opposite the crank pin; or 3) Pinched – this is where the wheels are “moved in” towards one another opposite the crank pin. Where the high spot is indicated tells you roughly what is going on and yes, you can have any combination of 1-3 going on at the same time.

In general, a high spot 90 degrees on either side of the crank pin indicates the wheels are askew. If the high spot is at or near the crank pin or at or near the bottom of the wheels, you have splay or pinching to deal with. This is where experience comes in and you learn to "read" the wheels.

In the case of this crank, we were splayed on the sprocket side enough to give .0015 and askew enough on the pinion side to give .0025.

We dealt with the splay first. Here’s how. We have a very stout work bench made of 2x6 lumber and heavy layers of plywood bolted to the floor and two walls for a reason. It makes bumping a flywheel rim relatively easy. In this case, we “gently” swung the wheel into the bench face. A handful of bumps saw it running .001 – and one more strategic bump got us to .0005. Yippee. To be clear, if both wheels are splayed, clamps or a vice are used to nip them up. We had one wheel to correct, so we bumped the face. DO NOT HAMMER ON THE FACE.

The skew is dealt with by the strategic use of the bench or hammers. But, let’s stop and talk about hammers. Do not use a steel or even a brass hammer on flywheels. Do not strike the face and do not strike the crank pin. Our weapons of choice are a 2 pound shop made lead hammer and a 1 pound copper hammer, along with a chunk of 2x4 laid on the ground.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]26944[/ATTACH]

Sweep up the shop and work clean, please. Now, simply “hang” the offending wheel off the 2x4 and strike it right at the high spot. It took several blows and testing in the lathe until we had it running below .001.

We then took it back over to the press and started checking torque. Restarted “snug” and this turned out to be just under 50 ft/lbs. We then torqued to 50, check, torque to 100, check, torque to 125, check, and finish up at 150. The wheels were then checked a final time.


Here are the final low and high spots on the sprocket side:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]26945[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]26946[/ATTACH]

And, here are the final low and high spots on the pinion side:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]26947[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]26948[/ATTACH]

Our results are as follows, we are below .0005 on the sprocket and below .0005 on the pinion. Rim faces trued to just below .002. And, the very tip of the pinion shaft – well that trued to just below .001. In other words, this is about as true as you can get.

We then scrubbed the heck out of the crank and let solvent run through the pinion/crank pin for a solid 20 minutes. Crank was dried, oiled, and placed in a clean bag until we are ready for it.

It took about 90 minutes to retrue the crank and get it ready for install. If this is your first rodeo -- double the time and really, triple the time isn't unusual for your first few wheels. Keep in mind, this is one job that can be farmed out pretty easily. So unless you have a hankering to do it; it's usually more efficient to send them out.

One dark art down.

Thanks for taking the time to document this process Chuck. One comment on truing. I prefer to use dial gauges with 0.0001" graduations. They are more expensive but give me a better feel of where adjustment is needed. A 0.001" dial gauge works good, this is my personal preference. I also have the 0.0001" dial gauges on my bore gauge for conrods and cases anyway.
Cheers

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Thanks for taking the time to document this process Chuck. One comment on truing. I prefer to use dial gauges with 0.0001" graduations. They are more expensive but give me a better feel of where adjustment is needed. A 0.001" dial gauge works good, this is my personal preference. I also have the 0.0001" dial gauges on my bore gauge for conrods and cases anyway.
Cheers

Thanks for posting. Yes, I sometimes use a .0005 test indicator instead of the mercer gauge . . . but I haven't used a .0001. Might have to just for fun. I'm not sure it would make it faster for me. I tend to work slow on flywheels anyways.

[aumick10]

When I was doing EVO bottom ends, the tolerance is +/- 0.0001", so you need the good gauges.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Fitting pistons and finishing rear wheels

The pistons for the Q ship came in last week -- and the cases were getting bored this weekend -- making it an excellent time to fit the pistons to the cylinders.

Let's pause for a quick second and talk about what we're doing here.

Normally, we fit pistons to a "known" specification -- generally what is recommended by the manufacturer. In many cases this has you setting static bench clearance around .002-.004. For a big bore ironhead stroker, decades of experience have shown that anything less than .008 generally causes trouble with piston life -- and really .009-.011 isn't that nutty. Heck, the old Dytch/Axtell cut sheets said .008 minimum, so this isn't a guess. These "large" clearances came about for a reason. IF those types of numbers scare you . . . look way now, cause it's gonna get worse.

We measured up the pistons and both were exactly 3.248 at the skirt base. Our cylinders measured out straight and true at 3.252, leaving us a static clearance of .004. This means we needed to open them up a minimum of .004 and ideally .005. Setting up the boring bar for such a light cut is actually much more difficult than people realize. It's basically a .0015 cut to leave enough for final honing. That's a tough cut. So, for hogging less than .007 or so; a hone is a good weapon of choice.

By hone, we don't mean a brush (or dingleberry) hone or a three legged glaze breaker like you find in the auto parts store. We mean either a mandrel supported rigid hone or a portable rigid hone. These are high precision tools that will see you have a very straight and true bore. But, they do take some skill to use. Best piece of advice is to practice on some dud cylinders until you learn how to use the tool(s) well. The craftsmanship isn't in the tool . . . it's in your hands. A good tool just makes it easier.

Chuck has a mess of Sunnen and Lisle portahones; as well as a full Sunnen honing station. All of the Sunnen stuff is out of the price range for most enthusiasts. Simply put, unless you do a lot of motor reconditioning you'll never come close to breaking even. So, for this series of articles, we chose to use the "cheapest" option available to us: a Lisle rigid hone and a Harbor Freight slow speed drill motor. Here are direct links to each tool:
https://www.amazon.com/Lisle-15000-E...24085560&psc=1

https://www.harborfreight.com/power-...ill-63112.html

Together, these tools are right around $200-$250 brand new with different stone sets etc. You can hone about 4-5 sets of cylinders (twins) before the stones need replacement.

Again, this is the "cheap" version of a portahone and does take some practice to use well. The sunnen version is a bit easier to learn on -- but also considerably more expensive.

Here's a picture of our drill motor and the hone set up with coarse stones to do our initial cutting.

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The trick is to match your rotational speed and stroking speed to the bore. For this one; we stayed around 400-450 rpm and stroked it at a rate that "felt" right. This was probably a stroke every few seconds. The point is that you work the hone -- you don't just turn it on and hope you get a straight bore. You must overlap strokes and adjust the tension using the micrometer head to make it all work right.

So, you need to mount the cylinder in such a way as to be comfortable and to keep an eye on it all. Now, here's where we can get technical. Many cylinders hone better with torque plates. You'll notice there are none in these photos. Here's why: these cylinders were previously honed to size and run by a known associate. It was clear there was no or very little fastener distortion. The bore was clean and the first few passes with the hone showed complete and even contact. So, we could certainly have made up plates, but it seemed unnecessary for these cylinders. Others have VERY strong opinions about plates. Go with your gut. Conversely, I prefer to torque plate flatheads regardless of what the hone is telling me.

In this case, we mounted some soft jaws in our bench vise, covered those with tape, and grabbed the cylinder flange. This set up allows us to swivel the cylinder so we can hone from both ends. With that done, it's really a matter of hone, clean, measure, hone some more, clean some more -- and repeat until you hit your target. Keep in mind that the cylinders were heat up from honing. So, you have to wait for them to cool before you take final measurements, etc.

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These photos show a progression. First are the "coarse" cuts, which we use until we get within .001-.002 of our target. Then, we swap to "fine" stones for that final bit. The last finish is done with a brush hone of the grit recommended for your ring pack. These cylinders were then scrubbed like crazy, the oil returns were brushed out, more cleaning, and then blown dry with compressed air before being cleaned again with WD40. This is not the final finish. This is just to get everything ready for mock up. We'll then pull it all down, do our final surface finish, clean everything again, and THEN assemble.

When it comes to using a portahone -- it is not a fast process. It took about 45-60 minutes to do each cylinder.

Also, keep in mind that pretty much all "new" reproduction cylinders also need to be honed to size. Chuck had a set of Dixie/Superior cylinders on the shelf that also needed fitting for standard bore pistons. The pistons measured out at 2.998 and the "new" cylinders were 2.997. So, a solid .004 had to come out. This has tripped up more than one person who ordered new pistons/cylinders and was dismayed to find out they still needed fitting.

Again, it is usually much more cost effective to send these out if you only have one bike to do (or even two or three); even the "cheap" tools aren't super cheap; and the nice to work with tools are a mortgage payment or two.

The purpose here is to give you an idea of what goes on when you send parts out . . .there's still a lot of experience standing in front of honing stations that can't be captured in photos. . . so your mileage/results may vary.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

With the cylinders pretty much done; we turned our attention back to finishing up the rear wheel. Tubes finally got delivered after a nearly three week delay! So, we mounted up the tire, mounted up the drum, and got the rear put back into place. About now; all that time spent on the rear hub/drum/chain guard comes into focus. This assembly ran dead true -- which will come in real handy at triple digit speeds.

You can also see in at least one of the pictures that we balanced the wheel by wrapping solder around the spokes. This is a much older way to balance wheels -- and one we like a lot. Stick on weights look a bit cheap and I'm just opposed to the big crimp on lead things. Most of the time, we now use the internal balancing stuff. But for this bike, we wanted to show an older and cost effective way to balance. It's as easy as it looks, just time consuming. You simply clip a piece of solder, form a j and hang it on the spokes until you find balance. Then, you tightly wrap it. Chuck uses a nylon bar to help push the solder in a tight coil without killing his hands or marring any finishes.

Final piece of the pie was reassembling the L series carb for the Q ship. We didn't take detailed photos -- the L series is about as easy to put together as a lawn mower carb. It takes some skill to tune; but not that much to assemble it :-)

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[chuckthebeatertruck]

Dechromed and rechromed and polished bits came back

I arrived home last night to find the Yeti happily guarding a big old box from Precision Plating in Quincy, Illinois.

Inside were all the bits I had dechromed, some polished and two rechromed.

The work came out exactly as I specified.

Let's start with dechromed pictures:
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[chuckthebeatertruck]

And, here's the rechromed fork legs -- complete with their details intact.

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And, here's the invoice so you can see what I paid for each item:

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