Rebuilding the Q-ship; a 1964 Harley Davidson Sportster

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Well, we actually did a lot on the Q ship over the past three weeks. I hadn't been posting because I was actually supposed to be sitting in Addis Ababa about now . . .but some type of global pandemic has kept me stuck in Chicago. Good thing my shop is 10 steps from my back door :-) Anyways, let's get caught up.

After we finished up the bottom end, it was time to drop it in the chassis:

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We now have our own rolling motor stand. Yippee.

Seriously, just take your time. It's much easier to install the bottom end without the transmission when working by yourself. Remember to not force the motor into place. Let the rear mounts find their place, tighten them snug, then the front, then final tightening. Go slow and make sure it lines up correctly.

With that done, we tried the sprocket cover and learned why the -67 foot rest won't work on the right side. It fouls the cover by 1/4". So, off it came and a replacement -52 went on. Then, suddenly everything fit. Go figure.

With that done, we turned our attention to make a few little things. First up were the sprocket cover bolts. The thread was destroyed in the upper and I elected to go with a fine thread 3/8-24 instead of the original 3/8-16. Mostly because I had the helicoils on the shelf. So, the top bolt and the bottom bolt are different threads. I don't normally like doing this -- but they are one off bolts with larger heads anyways. I went with 5/8 heads so I can more easily get them off on the road with an adjustable. Also, these are slightly tapered bolts to center up on the cover -- so a bit bigger gives me more purchase. With them made, they got treated to a quick oxide bath.

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Part of the reason for making this type of hardware and all the time spent on hardware is for ease of service. If you are restoring a bike, you want all this stuff to be the correct bolts and finishes. If you are building a bike you can deviate more. In this case, we wanted to assemble the bike with all known hardware. A small assortment of wrenches and two screwdrivers are all that is necessary to take this bike down to it's components. This makes is MUCH easier to life with on the road. Even our internal parts are off the shelf. It limits downtime and keeps you from going nuts in the future.

We'll start talking even more about details in a minute.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Next up on our list was getting things prepped for the c ratio clutch gear conversion. Currently, Dr. Dick is grinding a clutch gear for us (more on this in a transmission installment) so we can enjoy a c ratio on our dry clutch bike. Normally, I do it myself -- but I misplaced my tool post grinder in the move to the new shop last year (crap.).

A few things need doing with the conversion, one of which is installing a true oil seal in the clutch hub nut. When we modify the c ratio gear, we lose the clutch extension piece on 900s that carries the inner oil seal. So, we gotta make our own.

Here's the hub nut, which is way too big of an ID to take the seal.

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So, we grab a piece of stock and make a press fit sleeve

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Sleeve gets pressed into the hub nut, which is then faced flat and bored for the oil seal:

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And, here's the oil seal in place. No original parts are harmed and going back to OE is as simple as pressing out the sleeve. Our goal throughout this rebuild was to have fun but not permanently destroy original parts.

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[chuckthebeatertruck]

With all that done, it was time to rebuild the heads and get the top end squared away. However, nothing is that simple. Longstory made short, there is a lot going on with the heads that we will cover in a more in-depth technical article. Dr. Dick is editing the article and fixing my ugly hand drawn diagrams. We will post it up in a couple of weeks. In the mean time, let's talk about what is happening.

When we finished the heads, we discovered the coil bind spec was not what we wanted (again, we'll cover this in a soon to come article); so we had to sort that AND check all the clearances in the rocker box.

So, let's start with walking you through shimming valve springs. In this case, we wanted to shim the packs within .060-.090 of coil bind at full lift. We're using moderate lift cams (.436) and big valves (1.95 intakes and 1.75 exhausts) with extra length stems. To make it all work to our intentions, we needed to add shims under the lower collars.

Here's how it all goes:
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First, I like to lay everything out that I need. Shims, collars, springs, valves, and keepers.

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Here are two .030 shims. They go in first.

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Shims in.

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Lower collar in. Then springs and keepers. Remember, don't let the keeper edges touch!

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And, finally, we were able to check that we could indeed get at the head bolts with the rocker boxes in place. Keep in mind we have 1972 heads (1000cc) with 900 cc rocker boxes. We weren't 100% sure whether we'd need to grind the boxes for wrench clearances. Turns out we didn't have to!

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Now it was time to get down to test fitting.

For a bunch of reasons, we needed to check the rocker arm to top collar clearance. Again, we'll cover this in depth in a forthcoming article. But, in the meantime, here are the basic steps.

We used dayglow silly putty for our "clay." We need to check rocker to box and rocker to collar clearance, so each gets a layer of putty.

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We also put putty on each of the valve pockets in the pistons as we assembled the motor.

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With the pushrods adjusted, we then carefully turn the motor over by hand through at least two full revolutions.

Then the motor comes apart and we start reading the contact patterns for clearance

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I like to cut my "clay" in half with a new razor and read the depth using stacked feeler gauges. If you can slide a gauge over the top and leave no mark, you have clearance. Our goal is .060 all around. So, we grind the rocker arms as needed, clean, reassemble and test again. We wound up doing the rear head once and the front head three times to get it all right. Take your time and don't grind any more than needed. With that done, it's time to clean, clean, clean and clean again.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

With our clearancing done, we had two final things to take care of.

First, surfacing the heads -- that took minutes on a sheet of glass. And second, making sure our headgaskets fit!

We are using a novel combination of parts. Not too many of these alloy cylinders exist and fewer still run 1972 heads on them. These cylinders also use 3/8-24 bolts for the head bolts . . . so we wanted to make sure the gaskets don't get fouled by the bolts AND that we can get to them on the road. So, we did a full test run on the bench before going further

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One thing you can see clearly in these photos is all the parkerized hardware. This is NOT how this stuff came from the factory. Instead, the alloy cylinders forced us to use XLR style base nuts. There just wasn't the clearance for traditional nuts. Well, those came to us in black oxide. The head bolts are commercial grade 8 and were finished in yellow chromate (yuck) while the rocker box bolts were original cadmium. Three different fastener colors was a bridge too far. So, we choose to go with the parkerized finish and stripped everything. It really does only take about 30 minutes to dissolve the old finish in muriatic acid and then parkerize. I personally like the clean look of parkerized hardware on fresh alloy.

Anyways, now that we knew everything fit, it was time to build the top end. We started the process by annealing the head gaskets. Keep in mind that factory copper head gaskets are cold formed and the punching of the holes work hardens them. This means they are harder than they need to be for good sealing. Because we have an alloy cylinder with a steel liner, 3/8 bolts with relatively low torque potential, an iron head, and an alloy rocker box . . . well, we need soft gaskets.

Annealing is as simple as can be. Heat the gaskets until they just change color and drop in water. They go soft as paper practically. Treat them gently. Some guys like to spray copper tack on them, others like me prefer a very light coat of oil. Both work well, just don't bend the darn things whilst they are dead soft.

Then, we took the time to lay out all our parts and fasteners on the bench

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A few things are different about assembling this motor vs. normal.

First, we are not using base gaskets. Instead, we are relying on correctly machined surfaces and a very light smear of yamabond. This is because we have alloy cylinders and want full support on the cases. Base gaskets squish just a bit and the last thing we want is cracked flanges.

Second, 900s didn't use rocker box gaskets. A lot of guys run them anyways, but we aren't. So, those got surfaced and also installed with a smear of yamabond.

Third, the S&S stroker pistons are different from normal sporty pistons. The wrist pin bore intersects with the oil control ring. Therefore, they use alloy pin buttons with also provide support to the oil control ring. To install the pistons, you start with the oil rings and work your way up. But, because of this you can't install the piston in the cylinder and then the assembly on the rod. You have to ease the rings in from the base. With a VW style compressor this is easy -- but guess what tool Chuck loaned out and doesn't know where it is?

Thankfully, the alloy cylinders are hella light, so we just did them by hand compressing the rings with our fingers. Big old cold clearances make it pretty easy.

From there, it is straight forward sportster assembly. Take the time to align your intake manifold before tightening everything down!

The head bolts are not like OEM -- don't try to torque them to 60 pounds. These are 3/8 bolts and max torque is 45; but we're starting at 30. We will go through multiple retorques and experience says 30-35 is fine on these for gas motors.

So, we finished that up, adjusted the push rods and called it a day.

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[chuckthebeatertruck]

But, we're not even close to done. It's now time to get down to some detail work.

To properly support the carb, we need some brackets. a typical 64CH would come with a bracket from the carb to the case. Simply put, O ring style manifolds aren't meant to seal AND support the carb. So, we need the bracket to help prevent airleaks.

First step was to mount the manifold, plug it, and check for leaks. There were none -- so yeah, we have a correct assembly. Now, we have to support it.

Because this is a magneto bike and we are converting it to the 1965-69 style retardable magneto base -- we have to install the mag and work around all the clearances.

Then, the carb goes on to roughly check routing.

In this case, we wanted to make sure everything fits and then start looking for the cleanest cable routing possible. None of these parts are factory -- so we can get down to ideal routing not necessarily correct routing. By having a minimum of bends, the "feel" through the internal throttle/ignition controls can be FANTASTIC, especially if you use guy wire instead of solid wire.

We started with the magneto and decided to not route it all the way down the left side and behind the rear cylinder. It just looked weird and out of place. So, we made it short and more direct on the right side of the bike. Keep in mind the mag only moves about 1/4 inch so it doesn't have to have perfect geometry to work well.

With that done, we got down to the carb supports. The first support is a simple piece of flat stock from the center case bolt to the lower manifold bolt. When the manifold is level and square -- there is a 1/8 gap between that flat stock and the manifold. You "can" fill this with a shim or stacked washers -- or you can make a throttle cable support. In keeping with our alloy theme, we made up a simple cable support with a set screw that grabs the outer coil.

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Please excuse the ugly half finished welds. I'm working on that this evening. Anyways, you can see the front and rear views. This set up tucks the throttle cable in tightly and gives it two gentle arcs. The result is a throttle that opens and closes very easily whether at full lock or straight ahead.

We now have 1/2 of the support brackets done.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

The other carb support bracket is from the cases to the air cleaner. Because the L series carb is so big and heavy -- you sorta need a good brace to prevent air leaks. The commerical units are just bent flat stock and too ugly. So, we made our own.

In this case, we used 3/8 solid rod and bent it on a radius tool to match what we were after. It attaches from the front inlet tappet block to the rear of the air cleaner. I made it deliberatly short so that I could custom shim the height at the tappet block to fit different combinations in the future.

The air cleaner portion attaches with two 1/4-28 bolts. In these photos they are plain nuts, but will be nylocs in the final install. The heads of the bolts are under the seal of the air cleaner element and therefore cannot work loose and find their way into the carb. Little details. The magneto can also rotate to full advance and full retard with a solid 1/16th clearance at all times. Nice, hidden bracket, plenty of strength, and plenty of clearance.

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[chuckthebeatertruck]

But, there is no free lunch.

By re routing the throttle cable, we placed it at the bottom of the manifold. Originally, this would have been at the top of the manifold.

As a result, the throttle arm was too short to actuate the butterfly with good control. To deal with it, we welded an extension on to an existing arm and started reshaping it.

In the following photos, you're seeing the throttle arm go from full closed to full open. The first photo shows it closed and you'll see a weird arc in the control wire. This is deliberate. That slight bit of tension helps keep it positively closed Remember, we have no return spring and a silky throttle. Something needs to help us. The second photo is 1/2 open and you see it straightens out. The third is WFO and the pull is dead true meaning I won't have hang up at full throttle. please excuse the half done cotter pin and the ugly unfinished nature of the arm. These are just test fits.

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And, just to be sure, we installed some ignition wires and checked all the positions:

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[chuckthebeatertruck]

With all that done, we made sure to test fit the exhaust system. These are all reproduction items from the Gasbox (formerly Dennis Corso) and the fit was great.

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Notice I'm checking the kicker clearance . . . don't want to find out there's an issue once it is all together!

[chuckthebeatertruck]

And with that, we have most of the bike done

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[chuckthebeatertruck]

The last thing we dinked with the other day was converting the magneto base.

In 1965, HD introduced the moveable/adjustable magneto base. This allowed the rider to retard the magneto to make starting easier. We are adding this system to the 64 to ease starting on the stroker.

But, HD didn't really update the seal system at the time. Instead, they continued to use a square profile "oring" in the case bore and added a counterbore with a second o ring and a flat washer just below the magneto body. But sloppiness in the system ensured these started to leak with mileage. In response, HD updated the design in 1968 to use a true oil seal. At the same time, they eliminated the counter bore and second o ring.

But the two systems don't interchange.

So, what changed?

Well, first, the original moveable mount had a shank length in the case of .395-.400. The updated part has a shank length of .250 to make room for the seal. Second, we just lost 1/8 of an inch of shaft support by making the shank shorter -- so HD eliminated the now redundant second seal and bored the piece straight through. We're gonna mimic that design.

Here are the two types of seals. On the left are the updated oil seals on the right the original stuff.

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To get this all done, our first step is to face the original part to .250 length, adding the correct bevels to the OD and ID of the part.

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Now, we have to fill the counterbore.

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This has to be both a press fit AND maintain the same .001 bore to shaft clearance as the original part. This means you need to bore true to the OD which registers in the case.

But first, we need to cut a sleeve and press it into place. The bore is .625 to provide clearance for our boring bar.

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[chuckthebeatertruck]

with the counterbore filled, we remount the piece and it's time to face the whole assembly dead true and then bore to within .001 of our target. I then took it over to the hone and finished the fit slip fit. We now have a very nice .001 fit between the magneto shaft and the base, with a true oil seal in the bore. This should go a long way to slowing or stopping leaks from this spot.

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[chuckthebeatertruck]

with the counterbore filled, we remount the piece and it's time to face the whole assembly dead true and then bore to within .001 of our target. I then took it over to the hone and finished the fit slip fit. We now have a very nice .001 fit between the magneto shaft and the base, with a true oil seal in the bore. This should go a long way to slowing or stopping leaks from this spot.

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[chuckthebeatertruck]

As a quick update, my "wonderful" idea for rerouting the magneto control cable did not work. Well, it worked, but very poorly. I could consistently get advance, but the retard function was just too much for the cable to handle. And, it seems silly to me to spend a bunch of time to have a "somewhat" functional system. So, I reverted back to the original HD system of routing the cable along the left side of the motor and around the back of the rear cylinder. Suddenly, it works.

But, of course I have the "wrong" throttle spiral -- so I grabbed two others off the shelf and they are all -53 spirals. Argh. So I had to order a -58 this morning to make it all work. Let's see if COVID will keep my parts delivery at bay.

While I was at it, I also bought some new grips. I really didn't like the plain ones that I tossed on there. . . so back to HD style we go.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

So, we got everything mounted up and the body work in primer. Right now, we are just waiting on the c-ratio clutch gear to come back from grinding and we will put the transmission together.

In the mean time, I went through the top end of my 59 XLH and pulled the two beasts out for a few photos.

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