Dads Sport Scout

[T. Cotten]

I don’t have a compressor, just a tire pump. Got it up over 20psi with 3 pumps, no bubbles. I think it’s good.

I hope you're lucky, Joseph!

But I hope nobody else thinks that's the bubble-test.

It ain't.

....Cotten

[PaulCDF]

Cotten;

I was thinking about this;
For those without access to a decent compressor:
IF one got a portable air tank or a spare tire that could be filled at the local gas station.
Then connected the tank/spare to the test manifold with an in-line regulator set at 20 psi;
That should/would work or No?

[T. Cotten]

Cotten;

I was thinking about this;
For those without access to a decent compressor:
IF one got a portable air tank or a spare tire that could be filled at the local gas station.
Then connected the tank/spare to the test manifold with an in-line regulator set at 20 psi;
That should/would work or No?

Yes Paul!

A long as the storage tank supplies a regulator for enough time while you jump around the bike with a flashlight.

If you have to fidget with things, you will probably need a refill.
Once again, fifteen psi is more than enough, as one atmosphere at sea level is about 14.7; More than that only begins to crack open the intake valves.

What is most important is patience and careful observation.
Here is a Chief manifold that displayed in a very hard place to see....

POROSITY.jpg
Without bubbles to locate such a diabolical leak for repair, the motor could never be tuned to its true character and capacity, and nobody would ever know why..


.....Cotten
PS: Joseph!
Was by any chance your manifold "ported" like the one on the left?

portedss.jpg

[FLFD7]

Cotten,
I posted this previously, yes the manifold was modified.

CDCDB57B-0B54-415C-80B8-5225D8D74113.jpegF4474E7A-531A-45A8-987F-D5A50C7C17EB.jpegBC3A2BE1-ACCA-41AE-BC36-B6482464071E.jpeg

the manifold from this bike is on the bottom of the first picture, standard Sport Scout on top.

[FLFD7]

Adjusted the valves, will go through the distributor this week.

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[FLFD7]

Gonna clean up this dirty distributor

A059B69A-C62B-46DB-A399-4733EA677031.jpeg 6ADF80D6-C9FD-4A15-8126-DE7EA66D63F0.jpeg
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Needed some paint....

[FLFD7]

A little paint, some new hardware, new set of points and a new condenser.....

E429AFE0-FEF3-42C6-92FE-B38A647185BA.jpeg723D2438-01AE-4271-98BE-5DA17EAFF7AD.jpegF706B015-96FB-4B9D-BC97-A9E9E5726CAE.jpeg

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ok, looks good, now to time it and get the heads done.

[pisten-bully]

I've noticed before that these distributors have a drain hole in the base, and there was a small steel cup clipped into the hole with a sawtooth edge to act as a screen (I guess). My Autolite has this cup/screen but a friend's distributor was missing it....neither one of us were able to source a replacement. Wonder how many are out there missing this small, small detail?

[FLFD7]

Pisten,

I have both styles. Maybe they were used for different applications? The one on this bike just has a weep hole.

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[tfburke3]

A little paint, some new hardware, new set of points and a new condenser.....

E429AFE0-FEF3-42C6-92FE-B38A647185BA.jpeg723D2438-01AE-4271-98BE-5DA17EAFF7AD.jpegF706B015-96FB-4B9D-BC97-A9E9E5726CAE.jpeg

A71800E5-9E51-4FA0-9E39-9E22E1FE2DE6.jpeg2F58E3D6-90DF-4108-9959-286F339372FF.jpeg

ok, looks good, now to time it and get the heads done.

It looks your advance plate spring is a coil instead of the thin spring washer that allows the nut to be tightened.
Tom

[FLFD7]

Tom,
that’s like a shoulder bolt with a pretty long shoulder. It originally had just a couple of thick flat washers under it, the shoulder is like 5/16 and the thread is 1/4-28, so the shoulder butts up against the bottom collar piece and the advance arm swings thru the shoulder part, the spring washer just creates a drag on the advance arm, but since the shoulder is pretty tall I just stacked 3 o-rings and a flat washer to push against the advance arm, seems to have the right amount of tension on it, not loose at all but not too tough to move.
Joe

[FLFD7]

Well progress has been sporadic this last month or so, life has a way of catching up with you. I went about timing the engine, but was a bit stumped. I remember when I broke the engine down I checked to see how it was timed but it wasn’t what I expected. For some reason I didn’t write down what I found, or misplaced it, and thought I’d just figure it out later. I looked around to find a value before tdc to set the piston at, the manual has values for standard and Bonneville scouts, but I couldn’t find anything for strokers. So I contacted Jim Mosher at performanceindian.com and had a real nice phone conversation with him. On his website he had a table (that I didn’t see when I was googling around) of the piston location before tdc for different values of advance.

53B9ADAD-9647-41A4-AD1C-821E6ED2D65C.jpeg

Shown here. For all scouts he recommended 30 degrees advance (stock is 38 degrees advance). So for a 57” stroker it should be .376”. I told him I was statically timing it with gauge blocks and a continuity tester, which he didn’t like, he wanted me to install a timing plug and mark the flywheel and use a timing light. I agree that is a better method but quite frankly this is not my motorcycle, and I can’t see myself drilling and tapping my fathers original big base cases, he’d **** a pickle. So I set timing at .375 btdc on the front cylinder ( I had always timed off the rear cylinder but he insisted I use the front, I don’t see the difference but whatever).

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What I noticed when I checked the rear cylinder it was off by like .100. I didn’t like that, and Jim Mosher thought it could be a worn distributor cam. I tried another distributor

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And now the front and rear cylinders were within about .040” of each other, I figured good enough, I can always rotate the distributor while it’s running and fine tune it that way.

with that out of the way now to finish up the heads.

[FLFD7]

The original front head on this bike was messed up, the spark plug insert had become one with the spark plug, so it needed to be replaced. I ordered some from Greer but they must be meant for Chiefs cause they are too long, plus they have a hex to install them, but that means the plug would not be down as far as the rear cylinder, so I should probably put a new plug insert in the rear but I just didn’t want to do it, all that machining work, cause you know, I’m like not a machinist. So I happened to have a set of Bonneville heads I picked up many years ago. The front head spark plug insert was fine, but the fins were pretty messed up.

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Not only that but someone had notched out the front of the cylinder

0B93C8B1-6009-4E97-AB6A-411B0431572E.jpeg

They cylinder on the left is notched by the front bolt hole, compare to the original cylinder on the right. I figure this was done by a racer. My friend Jules used to race big base scouts back in the 50’s and he told me he used to cut the top motor mount in half so it was easy to get the heads off. I can see if you needed to slide these heads off you’d want more clearance so it wouldn’t hit the frame down tube and you could wiggle it out, and I guess that’s what someone did. It doesn’t interfere with the gasket mating surface, so I’m going to use it. Just gotta fix the fins up a little.

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Here are the heads after a little smoothing with a dremel tool. They don’t look bad, better then before. Most of it is hidden under the gas tanks anyway

[FLFD7]

I had to go thru the head bolts and washers cause this engine had a mixture of hardware that was messed up. According to Greer each cylinder should have 5 head bolts 1 7/8” long and 2 at 1 11/16” long. This bike had almost all short bolts for some reason. I went thru my junk and found enough of the longer bolts to work. I mounted the gasket and heads to make sure the bolts were all good (someone in the past put in much too long bolts and cracked some fins below the hole), but I wasn’t happy with the bolts nearest the intake manifold. The threaded hole here is blind and not too deep, it seemed to me the bolt would be close to bottoming out, so I decided to use the shorter bolts here as well just to be on the safe side.

74D53EF0-575C-422A-9B65-E9A14ADF614F.jpegSo while I was getting my hardware straightened out I wanted to check out how the front frame section would mate up.

3DCE783D-936B-4515-804F-0E6DC443115B.jpeg

Everything looks good with the top motor mount (I will not be following Jules advice and cutting the mount in half, I’ll leave as is).

next couple of days I’ll get a coat of paint on the hardware and bolt everything up.

[joe fxs fxr]

Looking good! Thanks for posting