74's & 61's

[partshunt]

Well thats cute!! Timkin cases with knucklehead numbers, for a knuck engine I presume. Thats something like I did to mine. I fit a 69 Timkin side to a 54 right case. Makes for a better bottom end as far as end play control goes. All I need is a 54 ser no, anyone have a good number for my cases?? Possibly damaged cases where the bike has been sold off in pieces. Any help for a registry would be apreciated, thanks in advance...

[Carl N. Olsen]

Robbie,
When I lived in CA I had a riding partner with a cone shovel that had 45 knuckle #s on it. He had blown up the cases on his knuckle and took them into a dealer in 1970 and turned them in and got the cone cases with his old #s on them. He then built a shovel motor around the new cases. He was running his old knuckle title and everything was legit. In 1974 I had a set of blown up 54 pan cases and tried to turn them into the local Harley shop for some new ones, but they only replaced current ones at that time. So it is my theory that Harley quit doing this sometime between 1970 and 1974. Any other stories of legit early #s on later cases.
Carl

[Carl N. Olsen]

Lonnie,
I have built numerous knuckle motors and the 40-41 cases were the most prone to crack just like yours. The reason for this weakness is the in those 2 years the cases had short ribs and no baffle plates, thus causing a weak area from the front thru bolt to the middle of the rear cylinder on top of the case. In Palmers book and a lot of others it states that in 1941 Harley came out with the long rib cases, but in all my years of engine rebuilding, I have never seen a legitimate set of 1941 Harley cases with the long ribs. Factory replacements yes, but never originals. This leads me to believe that the factory did not come out with the long rib left case until 1942. My late 1941 EL with 11,000 actual miles is a short rib case, as have many later 1941 knuckle motors that I have built in the past.
Git er Done,
Carl

[koanes]

When they added the ribs, they added a lot more material, (thicker casting in that area) which probably helped at least as much as the ribs. I always try to add material when repairing this damage, but the 41 models with the larger diameter flywheels don't leave any room to add to the inside, especialy with after market crankpins which are longer than OEM and force you to use thin flywheel endplay thrust washers. I have seen late 41 FL models with the ribs but never an EL. I suppose they wanted to use up the castings they had and thought they would be safe with the EL. If you look at 40-41 models with original cases you will probably see more that have been repaired than not.

[VPH-D]

I do not remember obtaining any cases in the mid/late 70s for any
other than a straight exchange. Meaning no cone shovel cases in exchange for a customer's blown pan set.

The old cases required for the process, and the numbers were applied by the factory. I always assumed the new confidential numbers were recorded in the VIN card cross- index, but I never knew for sure. As I remember, this process took a while, like 4 weeks.

VPH-D

[exeric]

The question came up with a friend about NOS H-D engine cases. The question being, did H-D allow un-marked engine cases to leave the factory ? I have heard on a number of occasions, of someone claiming to have a set of un-marked pan or knucle cases (NOS). I've always understood that H-D kept a very tight reign on things like that. How would someone get a set of blank engine cases ?

[Ohio-Rider]

The MoCo may have kept tight reign on thier cases long ago but in the mid 70's that was not the case. In the mid 70's I was employed as a machinist/machine builder for a company in Cleveland. This company won the bid to build the machine that was to completely machine the side cases for the 78 sportsters.

Part of the contract required our company to test run the completed machine at our shop. The test run involved the machining of 300 side cases in a given period of time without any adjustments required to said machine.

We recieved the blank cases from the MoCo in large open sided bins. It took only forty or so cases to tune the machine into making good parts. I believe there where only 17 stations to machine those cases. The MoCo had sent us well over 500 blank cases to practice with.

Anyway the Harley people came to the shop and watched the machine produce the required 300 cases and signed off on the machine for delievery to their plant. When we asked them what they wanted us to do with the rest of the blank side cases they had sent us. We where told to just scrap them cause it wasn't worth the cost of transporting them back. I'm not at liberty to say what became of those extra cases but I can tell you that everyone of them got machined before going to the scrap yard. -Steve

[Rub]

Not sure when the factory quit selling cases to dealers but the old dealer I used to do lots of business with had several pairs and individual NOS cases, both pan and knuckle. I still have a NOS left side for a '53/'54 pan. He was a dealer from '34 to '65 and an independent after that until the '80s when the shop was finally closed. I recall he once said that when older model parts were discontinued the factory offered them to dealers at a discount to clear the factory. Don't know if that included cases. I am not aware of the real issue of theft and number changing becoming a major problem until the 60's. I know that he regularly changed or stamped numbers on specials that he built up from parts. Robbie

[VPH-D]

Rub,
Your old dealer pal was correct about the factory closing out discontinued parts. I don't remember if cases were offered, but I would think that they were not. The prices were generally 1/2 of normal dealer cost.
VPH-D