excelsior oil

[likemall]

I have rebuilt a 1918 series 19 excelsior. I used ul pistons with oil control rings and didn't remove baffles. My question is how much oil should i run in crankcase?

[danf19]

cant help answer your question but im doing the same rebuild. Any advice ? did you lighten your flywheel ??
PM Sent
Thanks
Dan

[gharper]

Start with the crankcase empty. Disconnect the oil line from the hand oil pump. Pump one FULL pump of oil and measure that volume. Reconnect the oil line. Pump in 3 FULL pumps of oil into the crankcase, which may be a bit much. Take a 5 mile ride or so, drain and measure the oil. Should be 3 x what the pump stroke volume is. If it's less, then reset the level using 3 pumps and try again. Continue this process and increase distance between checks. The engine will seek out it's own level of oil, if too high, it will blow it out. So if it consistently ends with about 2 pump fulls of oil, that's where it wants to be. This is the best way to know, non scientific but it's a place to start. From there, you will need to adjust the mechanical oiler to maintain that level.

[likemall]

That's the information i was looking for. thanks

[gharper]

Tell me more about your UL piston fitting, no issues I assume?

Also, I'm very curious about the balancing, did you change anything? The UL pistons are quite a bit lighter! I'll be doing the same thing soon on my 24 X.

Gene Harper

[likemall]

I did not rebalance . I rode the bike for the first time over the weekend and did not notice much vibration. Smoother than i expected.

Removed .050 from bottom of pistons for clearance and installed at .004

[gharper]

Did you just bore the X rod bushing to fit the larger HD wrist pin, or somehow fit a smaller pin in the piston?

I plan to use EL pistons and bore / hone the bushing to fit the new pin. The UL pistons will give the same compression ratio of about 4.5/1. EL will raise it to about 5.45/1.

Gene

[likemall]

I bored X rod bushing for HD pin and also cut bushing width to fit UL pistons. Interesting about EL pistons, the rods scare me at 4.5/1

[gharper]

I agree, the rods are spindly! I'm waiting to get my new rods from Phil Schack in CA. 10 x stronger than the originals!