1925 JD Cannonball Bike

[Jerry Wieland]

Today my special tap (5/8" x 14tpi) arrived so I was able to make the rest of my steering dampner conversion. Here is the stock stem.



I made a threaded insert that accepts a WL type thread. and pressed it in to the stem. I then proceeded to tig weld it in to the top of the neck.



I dressed to off clean with a fine grit sander and should be ready to make the rod next.



Jerry

[Jerry Wieland]

I have been working on a variety of things the last few day. I finally got enough good gears to fill the transmission. It took me 5 JD/VL gearboxes to get it done however. Sadly the last transmission I bought which was a 1925 transmission I bought at Fremont Nebraska was by far the best one and probably would have been all I needed if only I had bought it first.

Here is a picture of 3 main drive gears. The 2 on the left are out of 1925 JD transmissions and the one on the right is out of a 1931 VL tranny. What gives with the difference in the inner bearing race?



Jerry

[MMasa]

Jerry
If you're talking about the one on the left, that's just the sprocket spacer and you will need to use it regardless of which gear you end up using. If you mean the bushing on the inside of the gear on the right, that was a change introduced in 1931 (along with a new mainshaft) It is the same bushing used on knucklehead main drive gears except for the length, which you can easily cut down. I would use the later setup since the new style mainshaft doesn't use the split bushing. If one of your earlier gears is in better shape, you can hard bore the earlier gear with ceramic inserts to accept the bushing.
What do your slider and cluster gears look like?
Mark Masa

[duffeycycles]

Great thread Jerry.Sorting thru the changes can be fun![IMG][/IMG]

[Jerry Wieland]

Mark After I cleaned up the gear I see that the hi gear outer race and spacer are one unit and might have been homemade - just assumed that maybe HD did it. I am somewhat familiar with the hi gear inner race and mainshaft.

Is there any downside to running the early split bushing that is soldered to the mainshaft?

Jerry

[Jerry Wieland]

Here is what I have been doing to the tranny case which sadly had it left side cut off as you can see in the first photo. A little machining and welding and we are back in business. I still have a little dress up welding to do yet.













The steel piece in the 4th picture is just a spud I turned out on the lathe to locate the extension piece in the exact place that it needed to go. The boss in the last picture will be the drain when I am finished.

Jerry

[MMasa]

Mark After I cleaned up the gear I see that the hi gear outer race and spacer are one unit and might have been homemade - just assumed that maybe HD did it. I am somewhat familiar with the hi gear inner race and mainshaft.

Is there any downside to running the early split bushing that is soldered to the mainshaft?

Jerry

Not really outside of the fact that the split bushing is almost always partially or completely loose from the mainshaft. Reproductions are not available as far as I know and it's a bit of a pain to solder them back on being careful to not put too much heat into the mainshaft. I've read that there were problems with the mainshafts breaking at the step that the bushing sets in, but I have NEVER seen a mainshaft broken in that way. The later setup is just easier.
Mark Masa

[darrylri]

Jerry, I have been following your thread avidly -- thanks for putting it up and taking all the great photos! You are a wizard with a welder.

Do you have problems with the old aluminum weeping oil when you try to weld it? As you may know, I'm riding the small BMW R52 500cc bike in the Cannonball, and any welding repairs I've had to have done were real problems because of the oil that has soaked into the castings over the decades.

[Jerry Wieland]

Darrylri That is kind of the nature of sand castings. When I got done with the welding on this case it was blackish with oil soot - cheated and cleaned it before I took a picture. Sometimes an oil pocket will actually spit at you. Sometimes I heat it numerous times before the actual welding and clean it often. I am lucky and work in a glass foundry and can set it up by the furnace to let it heat for hours or days if need be. Surprising how much oil a casting can hold and there is also sand inpregnation from the original casting process.

Jerry

[Jerry Wieland]

Darry Take a look at what my spare case looked like after a bit of welding. This case was cleaned with solvent and glass bead when I started on it.



I had to stop welding on it due to the oil pouring out of the pores.

Here it is after I cleaned it up again.



Jerry

[darrylri]

That is much more like what I've seen with the local specialist welder I use. He says you can never get all the oil out.

[Jerry Wieland]

Darryl That about sums it up. You just have to get it to a tolerable level. Jerry

[Jerry Wieland]

It might seem like I am jumping all over but I have a huge amount of stuff to do in a short time. Took a good look at my foot controls tonight. Brake side should be easy.

Here are my before photo shots. 5/8" shoulder bolt was heavily worn tapered small to the outside edges. Center was .617" and the edges were as small as .570" . The hole in the petal was extremely worn on the side toward the bike. Biggest diameter was almost .700". There was no bushing in the pedal and it was fit metal to metal which I guess is alright as long as you keep it greased.





I fixtured the pedal up in the mill and used a .750 end mill and took the hole to clean metal. I tried 11/16" first but that did not quite get the job done. I probably will order a bushing to fit as 3/4" od and 5/8" id is a real common size. The pedal seems to have enough strength left.





The rocker clutch side is not quite going to be so easy. I did not get to it tonight. Today was 11th day in a row of 10 hours or more of work plus the bike and I am beat.

Jerry

[Jerry Wieland]

I have also been working on the transmission and I have found one thing that concerns me. I have been removing main drive gear case races in an attempt to find a good one. So far I have removed 4 races (2 from trannys I plan to build and 2 from junk cases) and I have noticed one thing that kind of has me wondering. These next 2 pictures show a typical race that I have been removing.






It appears that the race is not seating in 100% of the circumference and I am wondering why and how to deal with it. I have not really been able to detect much out-of-roundness with either the races or the cases. Anybody have any ideas or seen this before. I have been contemplating using a retaining fluid to hold them in which is something I usually do not do.

Jerry

[gww]

evening Jerry, again thanks for sharing all your labors an talents.
cant say about your concerns cause never been in that particular case. has the race spun in bore? have used green lock in fuller rear housings and a few others to secure races before with good results. but had to have bored and bushed if they had spun or rattled in the bore. what kind of meat is in that area? what would be press fit in new cases? .003-.005? good your way. gary