Jules’ favorite bike 1928 101 Scout

[Steve Slocombe]

I'm doing a '28 as well, as seen earlier. I bought a pack of five of those left hand pinion shaft screws from Eastern Parts, so have some left over if you need them.

I also found bronze 37 inch flywheels in the bike, weighing as much as the steel flywheels for the 45 inch versions. Does anyone have any insights? Again, this is an early 1928 101 with a serial number in the 400s.

[FLFD7]

Hey Steve,
Yeah I can use one of those screws. Problem is you’re in England and I don’t do PayPal or Venmo and I don’t think a check in American dollars is going to work for you. You wouldn’t happen to be going to the Oley meet this year? If so I could get it from you there.
Joe

[T. Cotten]

....I also found bronze 37 inch flywheels in the bike, weighing as much as the steel flywheels for the 45 inch versions. Does anyone have any insights?....

Bronze is a noble material, Steve,...

But probably a poor choice for flywheel tapers; Do they have markings like other Wigwam productions?

Are they "see-through" wheels?

I would suspect they bulge about the crankpin much more than cast iron.

....Cotten

[Steve Slocombe]

Here is a picture of the bronze flywheels. They are made for a 37 inch stroke bike but weigh the same as the 45 cubic inch ones, 4.7 kg or 10.3 pounds each. They are the spoked style and I don't see any factory markings.
101bronzeflywheels.JPG

[T. Cotten]

Those are impressive, Steve!

Note that the balancing holes imply a very high factor, and the casting is relieved further; Any idea what the original factor for 101s should be?

Note also they are right where the flywheels bulge most:
FLYBULGE.jpg
(Displayed by sliding the wheel on a sheet of emery.)

....Cotten

[Steve Slocombe]

Ah, balance factor! That discussion might run and run. The early literature, and the 101 Shop Manual, imply a 50% factor by halving various weights. I'be been using 46% on the VLs and understand modern Harleys use around 58% for low end grunt. On the VLs the flywheels are heavy and tend to drown out small changes in balance factor. In a 1934 Shop Dope Harley says it is 'not strictly necessary' to rebalance the flywheels when changing from iron VL pistons to aluminium, as long as both are changed. Yikes!

[T. Cotten]

Think how much we could have learned, Steve,...

If builders had thrown cranks on knife-edges and calculated their existing factors before splitting them.

..Cotten

[FLFD7]

Continuing with the bottom end got both cases cleaned up with lacquer thinner and elbow grease

IMG_2704.jpeg IMG_2705.jpeg

Flywheels cleaned up as well. Thought I would check how true they were running so put them on the stand. According to the 101 R&O manual they should be true to within .001, but looking in my army manual they say between .0015 and .002

IMG_2702.jpeg IMG_2703.jpeg

On the pinion side they look to be about .001 out, but on the drive side they look to be a little over .002 out, let’s say .0025. Now, I really hesitate to mess with the flywheels cause they are the original cast iron open wheels and I read horror stories where, even though they only go to I think 60 lb-ft torque on the nuts they can still crack, which would be a huge setback. So should I risk cracking the wheel for that extra .0005? I’m not going to risk it, I’ll run them as is.
Since I won’t be splitting the wheels the last thing I needed to check is if the oil passage from the pinion shaft to the big end of the connecting rods was clear. I filled a little squeeze bottle with lacquer thinner and shot it down the pinion shaft and it came out of the big end, a little dirty at first but then clear so I know that oil will go through there.

IMG_2707.jpeg

So making progress, hope to button it up by next weekend.

[FLFD7]

Moving along got some stuff done on the cases, I had to shorten some 1/4” x 1” pins to 1/2” for use as locating pins for the transmission case.

IMG_2716.jpeg IMG_2717.jpeg

I also wanted to send a shout out to Steve Slocombe for sending me a new pinion shaft pinion screw to replace my chewed up and spit out original screw.

IMG_2715.jpeg

You sir are a gentleman, and somehow I’ll return the favor..

Cheers, Joe

[FLFD7]

Getting ready to close up the cases so sorting out the hardware…

IMG_2749.jpeg IMG_2750.jpeg

IMG_2752.jpeg IMG_2751.jpeg

Next up I’ll put it together without Yamabond to check the end play…

[FLFD7]

A little bit of oil and away we go….

IMG_2755.jpeg IMG_2756.jpeg
IMG_2758.jpeg

According to the 101 R&O book want about .010 to .020 play.

IMG_2761.jpeg
IMG_2763.jpeg .588 to .605 so .017 play, the Yamabond add another .003 or so, I’d say that’s good to go.

[FLFD7]

I need to get a new cork seal for the back of the drive gear (drive pinion). The one in this pinion fell apart

IMG_2775.jpeg

And another one I have seems very brittle

IMG_2774.jpeg

Greer doesn’t have one listed under 101 parts, so I’m wondering if anyone knows if it’s the same cork used on the later Chiefs

IMG_2773.jpeg IMG_2769.jpeg

The 1.313 ID seems right, the groove on the back of the drive pinion is about .145 deep and the Greer cork is .187 thick, does this seem right ?

Joe

Drawing credits to Jerry Greer

[FLFD7]

While I’m waiting for a new cork seal let’s move on to the transmission

IMG_2782.jpeg

needs some TLC

IMG_2796.jpeg

OK, all apart, gotta clean.

Some of Jules welding on the case…

IMG_2799.jpeg IMG_2797.jpeg IMG_2798.jpeg

Gonna do a little test fitting first

[FLFD7]

Test fitting the trans case ran into a problem straight away, my fault I used a bolt and nut instead of the double ended stud and it was too wide for the recess in the trans case…dooh!

IMG_2801.jpeg

So I had to update the hardware

IMG_2806.jpeg

That’ll work

IMG_2803.jpeg

yep. Once bolted to the case I wanted to check the fit in the frame, since Jules had welded on the mounts I would guess he checked it himself but you never know.

IMG_2804.jpeg IMG_2805.jpeg

No worries, went right in, I’m happy.

[FLFD7]

Going thru the transmission I think I’m going to replace the gear set. I found a slider gear that was in better shape…
IMG_2834.jpeg
The one in the back was in the trans, I’ll use the one in front.

As for the cluster gear the one Jules put in had a shim, but I found one with teeth in as good as shape but it had a shoulder cast on the flank of the first gear
IMG_2835.jpeg IMG_2836.jpeg

And that shoulder is the same thickness as the shim Jules used

IMG_2837.jpeg

Looking at the diagram on Jerry Greers website the shoulder is pictured in their diagram

IMG_2838.jpeg

image credit to Jerry Greer.

I’ll go with the cluster with the shoulder, if anything it’ll be easier to install without having to use a shim.