The Bike

Guess what I've been doing again. Finally. It has taken a long time to get the energy, the desire, the drive to finish this project after the last set back. Go on, take a guess.

 

 Pistons connected

 

 

 

Jugs installed

 

 

 

Heads, intake and carb intalled

 

 

 

By the way, those are 700 lb. springs with titanium keepers

 

Front rocker box installed

 

 

Working on the back rocker box

 

 

Assembled!

Now I need to install the exhaust, gas tanks, and seat. Then comes the good part, firing this beast up. Finally! Thanks to a good friend of mine this is getting done. More pictures to come.

Well Crap!

Yesterday I cleaned out the garage in preparation for tearing down the Harley AGAIN. I completely rebuilt the engine of my HD this winter. Started putting the break in miles on it and the damn rear cylinder base gasket started leaking again. This is what started the whole rebuild off. So, I made space in the garage to actually move around and stuff and started the topend tear down. My mechanic buddy showed up about half way through the work, with him on one side and me on the other it made for quick work. It's a good this thing I'm doing this. After I opened the rocker boxes I found two bolts had the locktite fail and had backed out enough they were finger tight. So one catastrophe averted. When we pulled the cylinders is when things got interesting. The front cylinder has a deep score that goes from top to bottom. Now these are brand new jugs mounted to a bored out case, with a brand new set of flywheel inside. The case was cleaned before assembly. So what got between the cylinder wall and the piston skirt? We can only imagine that there was piece of machining junk stuck to a flywheel that came off under load. We matched up the piston with the scar in the cylinder and close examination revealed a scuff on the skirt and a tiny burr that had been raised on the bottom of the skirt. We are going to try honing the cylinder and see if that will fix it. If not, I will have to have both of the NEW big bore cylinders bored bigger, get a new set of pistons and a new set of base and head gaskets. It looks like it will run around 500 bucks to fix this if the honing doesn't. To top it off my sole source of income, mowing the yard of a friend has dried up. I went over to check the yard and noticed soot on the front door. Looking further, the back of the house was burned badly. I spoke with their neighbor and he said a lamp cord started the fire and it'll be 3 months for the repairs. Fucking great. These folks are very kind and like most people they are hard up. So with a big deductible to pay and other unknown expenses I don't know if they'll be able to pay for the mowing. The real problem is in this town unemployment is so high,there is a myriad of people mowing yards. As as result prices have dropped dramatically on lawn maintenance. Last summer I bid a yard, small front and large rear yards. Mowing and trimming around a lot of flowers and trees. I called it 40 bucks. Wasn't even close. The winning bidder did it for 25. So guys are low balling work just to make a few dollars. So I'll have to post some flyers at the local stores and see what I can turn up.

What kind Of Interface? Or A Tale of Two Leaks

After Yesterday's cold front passed and the rain moved on we have a cool, clear blue sky morning.
We are living in a house that we bought at foreclosure. It needed a lot of work but I'm pretty handy and the price was CHEAP. The two main concerns with a house that needs a lot of work are the foundation and the roof. Both are big money items that can cause a large dent in the account. With the exception of a small place on the roof both items appeared good. We had several rains last spring and summer and they revealed a roof leak that terminated in the houses entry. Great. We spent quite a while chasing the leak and finally found a roof vent that had a really crappy installation. Last Sunday I pulled some shingles off, tore out the roof vent, replaced some roof decking, installed a new roof vent and re-shingled the area. Good to go. Last night the rains moved in, light sprinkles followed by a drizzle of several hours. The repairs I made proved rain tight, however, the rain revealed other leaks. Now we had several rains earlier in the year and these places showed up but we applied some roofing tar to the roof/chimney interface (how do you like that phrase) and that leak stopped. So last night the rci started leaking again. Like it has never done before. Towels, buckets and tubs were all employed in catching the intruding rain water. So, here we are in the first week of November. There won't be many good roofing days to come. So, the first warm day we have, I'm climbing back up on the roof with a 5 gallon bucket of sealant and plastering the living shit out of the that damn thing. If that gets us through the winter( remember that song " If We Make It Through December") I'll tear off everything around the chimney and start fresh. Oh, to add fuel to my internal fire, after my ride yesterday morning I found that the base gaskets supplied with the cylinders I installed on my Harley are CRAP. So this winter I get to remove the top end of the motor and install new base gaskets. A blown base gasket is what started this whole rebuild in the first place. Of course, I wasn't in the best of moods last night, but we have a whole new day before us.

The Hold Up. Riding The Storm Out.

After getting off to a running start on the Harley rebuild, I have come to an abrupt stop. It seems the machinist used high quality S&S shafts when he built the crank assembly. S&S uses the older style of the stronger Shovelhead shaft design. Needless to say, I didn't have any Shovelhead parts laying around. And neither do any of the several Harley shops in the KC region. I finally contacted my machinist, lo and behold, he has the part I need. A hundred miles later the missing link was laying next to the motor. I managed to get the rest of the parts from a catalog company called J&P Cycles. So after being shot down for the last several days I will resume the build on Monday. More to come on this subject.

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Riding The Storm Out.....

My son and daughter- in- law live in the coastal Virginia area. They are looking at their yard filling with water at this time. Most all of their neighbors elected to ride out the storm. Thankfully the storm has been downgraded to a catagory 1 with winds of 85 mph. That's quite a bit better than the one hundred mph winds they were expecting as late as yesterday. I spoke with my son a couple days ago about steps they needed to take. They have done very well. In a short time their storm supplies grew to include spare water, 3 types of light, propane, a generator hooked to the existing transfer switch, many more canned goods , tarps for the roof and many other things. They have put all important papers in a .30 caliber ammo can and filled all the cars and gas cans. They also have cash on hand. All good and wise steps to take. Now as long as his wife doesn't go into labor during the storm all will be well.