Engine Builder in Philadelphia Area

[PAM]

Pan rebuild

Ray

Sorry for the late reply,refrences Mike Ceddia(slink)3 rebuilds
Fred Craft,myself 53 FLE,41 ULH,Jack Murray 41WLD.Shop condition clean and orderly.
reguards pete

[Don P]

Pan Rebuilds

Glad it all worked out for you. Just trying to lend some insight

[Don Gardner]

I strongly disagree with one of the previous posts on the "Sunnen line bore of the cases". After the new main races are installed, the cases should be line lapped with the tool designed for this, not line bored. This tool should be the Harley factory tool or Jim's copy of it. The cam cover should be installed and the cam cover crank bushing line should be lapped parallel with the bore too. The cases should be decked parallel with the bore centerline and the mounts refaced. There are many other detailed operations in the proper rebuild of these old motors. I don't think that being a graduate of MMI is a requirement to do a rebuild. MMI came along years after many of the quality machine shops started business. I really don't think that you can amass years of experience in the short span of that course, but it is an excellent starting point. I have my machining done by John at Lakeside Machine in Upton, MA and I do my own assemby.

[T. Cotten]

Mr. Perry may have used the wrong word when he wrote "line bore", but he was perfectly correct in his demand for something better than crude lapping.

A machine grinder (such as a Sunnen, Petersen, etc.) provides a better line-hone of the mains than even the best old hand with a lapp could hope for. Lapps were developed for "field repairs", and cannot correct for mis-alignment the way a honing machine will. Only the most experienced hands can prevent them from belling the mouth of races, and they can embed the abrasive into the parent metal. The mill profile when finished is poor compared to a honed finish, and will not distribute the lubricant like a controlled cross-hatch.

A honing machine can also allow for fitting opposite mains with different sizes of rollers, thus saving you much $$$. And if your shop charges by the hour, consider that it takes all afternoon to properly lapp a set of cases, whereas it takes about 90 minutes of flatrate to crank them out on a proper machine.

As Mr. Perry implied, if your service shop does not have a honing machine such as a Sunnen, then they are poorly equipt to perform the rest of the precision fits in your powerplant as well.

Does anyone actually believe that the Factory depended upon hand lapps for production? Barnyard tools make for barnyard motors.

[k.perry]

Yes, line hone...not line bore. Thomas has described what I couldn't. Not all machine shops are qualified to build early Harley motors because somewhere in the process, the machinist might want to put his "ideas" of what "Harley should have done" into the mix. While there are many people that can have their machining done by a shop and rebuild their own motors, if you do one thing wrong, then you or your "mechanic" are building future junk. Tools are God and with early Harley motors Sunnen is God. I think any un-qualified mechanic who leads a customer on and builds motors that are beyond the mechanics knowledge and tools, should be taken out in the street and horse-whipped for all the misery he is creating.

[Don Gardner]

I was surprised at the misuse of the word "bore" by a person that has recently written a book on "Panhead Repair". Honing and lapping are stone based operations, while a boring is a tool cutting operation. What we are trying to accomplish is to get perfect alignment from one side of the case all the way through to the other side INCLUDING the cam cover. On the stock old harley motors, after years of use, the cylinder decks are also never parrallel with the bore. The cases should be redecked to make them parrallel with the cases and the mounts should also be resurfaced. A proper balancing job is necessary too. A good rebuilder will know that. Mr Cotton has an interesting article on static balancing on his website.
If I go into a building and see a plunger in someones office I do not assume that he is a plumber as anyone should not assume that someone with a Sunnen and a MMI certificate is a GOOD rebuilder. I think that MMI is the starting point for new mechanics. The field experience is necessary too. There are too many new repair shops that are being set up by "newly graduated students".
I have been rebuilding Harley motors and transmissions, for myself, for thirty years and feel sorry for the people that must rely on some of the poor mechanics that are out there. I understand your frustration of wanting to "horse whip" them. It takes me a long time to trust anyone machining ANY of my parts. When I was a kid the local triumph dealer used to get a beating at least once a year from "clubbers" for ripping people off. Unfortunately the wrong people would go to jail for that today.

[k.perry]

Whatever is said in the book is correct. When I write on these posts, sometimes I'm not looking at the book, and words like hone and bore get used and overlooked. We welcome any mistakes brought to our attention. A government engineer found that I used the words "90 degrees to the fastener, when I meant to use 90 degrees to the tool". But that's one of the 7 corrections. That, and don't remove the "dent" from the battery plate. The "dent" was for strength and was/is "a mechanical mountain of work to replicate", I was told by the replicators, after the book was printed, as a "howdy do" and just rewards for "claiming" to know something about my subject. But then, there's the photo of a mechanic putting the rear cylinder on backwards (oil channel is on the left side of the motor, not the right) in the 1959-1969 H-D Service Manual (pg. 3C-6, Fig. 3C-15), and the lucky pup got to remain nameless.

[Don Gardner]

I've never bought or read your "Repair Manual", that you constantly refer to, and I've never refered it's contents. Where does the information in this manual come from? You say that you have to look at the information in the book to get your posts right. I've also never mentioned tappet decks. I don't know how you got headed off in that direction??? I think that it might be that in my first sentence I said cylinder decks but in the second sentence I said "case to case" instead of saying "cylinder decks to crank centerline should be parallel".

[k.perry]

amazon.com>books>kirk perry. On sale now for $40.00 plus ship, while amazon is out-of-stock. Read the table of contents first. It's not a complete "service manual". I only know a little more than is written in the book. The info came from Stett and other mentioned reliable sources. I added some tips. I can float between two trades because the Knuckle and Pans are very similar to plumbing. (Most plumbing foundry brass is, or was, cast and finished (casted, coredrilled, threaded, seat threaded, seated, in Milwaukee. Most plumbing mfg. began in Milwaukee. American Standard, (The "Motor Co." of plumbing, now used mostly in foreign commercial construction, [i.e; Italy: Ideal Standard", and worldwide names with the word "Standard" in them, etc.])... part numbers end, or begin, with a "-94" or the year it was produced as a designed part. The compression fittings on Harley manifolds use the same ferrule and straight alignment arrangement and drain venting. The Knuckle is really a plumbers bike, from this plumbers point of view, and PPG® automotive paint specialist Len Savage said it best, when he replied, "Nobody... knows it all". Getting headed-off in another direction in the conversation however, is probably un-diagnosed AADD (Adult Attention Deficient Disorder).

[T. Cotten]

Let's all relax before we make the the Forums' first flame.

Agreeing to disagree,... we have just been hashing semantics anyway.

The bottom line is that we all expect a lot for our money, and we desire state of the art techniques on internals where it counts.

Either the enthusiast seeks out a pricey rebuilder as he would a personal physician,

or you all get sensible, and just cobble crap together yerself and giggle if it blows at the end of the season: Remember when old bikes were fun?

[Hrdly-Dangrs]

Somebody tell a joke.......Hrdly-Dangrs

[T. Cotten]

limeric was here -oh well....

Back to subject:
A quick search of my shop references showed next to no conventional auto-shop honing machine that covers the spectrum of even an obsolete Sunnen. So Mr. Perry is even more on the money that I suspected. Still, a published author would do best to watch his choice of words, as this tiny cyberworld might leave him exposed.

And Mr. Gardener's perspective has it's merits as well, although a lapp is not a "stone based" operation. (Unless you stretch a silicon carbide grinding compound into a 'stone')

Whether our motor mains are preferred to be lapped, or to be stone-honed, we are still ultimately at the mercy of the hands upon the tooling.

[k.perry]

It's Knucklehead's my friends. Dripless- Replica Knuckleheads will save mechanical mankind.

[T. Cotten]

I am forced to agree with Mr. Gardener that this thread now needs moderating.

It would be disrespectful to this Forum to reply to unprovoked and incoherent personal attacks; I stand firm upon my previous posts.

[B. Rodencal]

Wow Tom, I'm impressed! good answer! As yoda would say... "The Force is strong in this one, it is." The only thing I learned from Don's post is his Dentist friend should get a new accountant, and Don should find a dentist with a bit more common sense! FatDog