22JD Tear down!

[Tommo]

I've got a little stash of NOS ones of those washers so let me know your address and I'll post one to you.

People other than Robert this does not mean a free for all on these washers so please don't ask.

[Robert Luland]

Thanks Peter, I am very appreciative of your generous offer and utmost kind gesture. I will wait till i'm at that point and then contact you should I need it - Thanks so much for that courtesy. My brother-in-law lives in Oamaru, is that any where near you? (he is not a motor head at all, he's a sheep head. !!) Thanks again, Bob L

[Tommo]

Robert
I'm about as far south in the North Island as he is south in the South Island and that bit of water between the two islands is very expensive to cross. I'd guess about 450 miles apart
We've got what is being forecast as one of the worst southerly storms for many years hitting his area right now and it is expected to travel up the country over the next few days. They're talking snow to sea level in many places. I hope he's got shelter for his ewes and lambs because it looks as if it could be real bad if the weather forecasters are to be believed.

[Buzz Kanter]

Gotta love those fun and simple J motors.

[Robert Luland]

Buzz, I really can’t say this has been simple do to the fact that I have no clue of what I’m doing. Every time I touch that motor I’m walking on egg shells. Sometimes I just stand there staring at it for an hour planning my next safe stage of attack but it has been fun. The up side is I get to play with tools, other toys and 90 year old dinosaur poop. Bob L

[Robert Luland]

Tip: A TRW universal steering pump puller fits a JD generator gear perfectly and what is even better is that the tip that makes contact with the shaft has a ball bearing in it so the contact point doesn’t turn doing damage to the threads. I knew if I kept looking in that tool tower, I find something.

Now for the next dumb question on this thread.

Was the intake manifold on a 22JD nickel plated? I want to give one small piece to my chromer to see how he does with it. Yea, I know. No polishing. Next question has to do with the barrels. The intake nipples are too far gone to save as Pete had suggested leaving them be. I’ll keep soaking them for a few more days and little heat. Push comes to shove, I’ll cut them and crush them, a job I’m not looking forward to. I can’t get the exhaust guides to move at all. Anyone have an idea on this one. When you nickel plate the cylinders, how do you plug them. I mean I can put silicon on the thread surfaces to protect them but what about the bore? Thanks guys, Bob L

[rwm]

nail polish on the threads rubber stoppers in the small holes. home depot has the rubber stoppers. the guy doing your nickle work should have some paint called stop off. you can plate the cylinder upside down then you don't need to plug the bore. just make sure all your holes are air tight(that don't sound so good). you may not get the valve guides out.
with your intake nipple plug it up and pour your liquid in the bore. that will let it sit against the threads.i have some pretty sh#$y cylinders and the all have the nipples out and no thread damage don't use a hammer.

[Robert Luland]

Rob, never thought about the upside down thing. I got coffee can of rubber plugs (widgets.com) including a set I use on Panhead barrels to plug them off. Do you know the tolerances for the exhaust valve guide off hand? There was no wear on the valve stems when I pulled them out. Maybe there’s no reason to pull them out. As far as the intake nipples go, I have a 1.750 impact socket for the old gun. I was thinking the same thing this afternoon. Put a plug in the nipple and pool the Kroil from the inside of the barrel. The reason I stayed away from the idea was that a intake nipple mates up against the end of its respective bore and I really didn’t think it was going to do much. Bob L

[Chris Haynes]

Now for the next dumb question on this thread.

Was the intake manifold on a 22JD nickel plated?

NO! It was electro-less nickle washed.

[Tom Lovejoy]

Thanks for posting, very interesting - good reading watching the progress. The knowledge on this site is awesome!

[Robert Luland]

NO! It was electro-less nickle washed.

Care to fill me in on what that is Chris?

[exeric]

NO! It was electro-less nickle washed.

Electroless nickel plating was invented in 1944. I've heard of flash nickel, but never nickel wash. When Harley refers to nickel, they mean real electro-chemical nickel plating over copper.

[Tommo]

I'd have thought that 1922 would have had a parkerised manifold and nuts. 1919 was the first year of the painted handlebars and I'm pretty sure that is when the parkerised manifold came in as well.
I've got more than one set of NOS cylinders and the finish on them is what I call a dull nickel finish (please bear in mind we're talking 20's cylinders here and not teens) and there is no sign of copper under the plating.
When plating cylinders, especially used ones, the biggest difficulity electro-platers have is getting the nickel to take in the small cavities and at the base of the fins.
Electro-less nickel is a phosphating process very much like parkerising and so long as the cylinder is turned in the solution to let any trapped air escape, will give you a finish that is so close to what my NOS cylinders look like that I don't think you will tell the difference between the two.
Surely there's a chemist or electro-plater among this group that can explain this better than me.

[exeric]

I've had all of my Henderson and Indian cylinders electroless plated as that process gets the nickel deep into the fins. I had a set of Excelsior cylinders plated via the electro-chemical process and had trouble with rust. I've never seen copper under nickel on cylinders, and I know you wouldn't want that. I was referring to H-D's description of their plating for handlebars, shift gates, etc. Platers have told me that prior to WW2, they didn't have brightners in their nickel plating solutions, so nickel had to be buffed to be reflective. I've seen early engineering drawings of Excelsior parts that stated the finish should be "white nickel". I've also heard it called "gray nickel". Most all NOS hardware, and fasteners I've seen has been nickel only, and rarely over copper.

[Tommo]

We use electroless nickel on our rebuilt Scheblers and the first photo shows just that.
The second photo shows NOS Harley J model cylinders and I'm pretty sure you can see that the finish is not bright nickel.
My money for the best results for these types of cylinders would be electroless nickel and one other benefit is that the cost of this process is very reasonable.