Harley Ohlins shock upgrade & ride report

[sinfull]

Yes I have done a few cranks,should have been steel by then (93 on) but considering the age of the bike it could have had a crank rebuild by now and somebody could have put alloy cages back in but I dont think it would have got past the filter the mystery deepens.

Got reminded today that in most motors there is always a bypass if the filter becomes blocked (but in no way did it looked blocked), though i did check the pump i didn't pull the bypass apart (so will have to check for swarf), So yes, still has me stumped ! Almost had the crank out last night and mains checked, but the lack of the right puller (cam gear shaft) made us open a box instead, so threw a sheet over it ! today, I went in one direction for parts ($$$$$) and the block went in another, for dissasembly and crank rebuild ! Should know of any (if any) collapsed bearings morra i hope !

Hey Bill.........Wasn't that engine replaced with an S&S about 5-6 years ago?

Cases were Al yeah, 50 odd clicks ago, so the way Ted is the crank might have been done then but hey, if it was sound, it may have been dropped in the new cases as is. The big end still looks and feels strong as, but turning the crank in the block up on the bench, we could hear a slight rasping noise coming from the charging (?) side, big spool of copper etc lol (must learn this terminoligy), but that was three cans into the box so the sheet was the best option !
Hope to hear some closure tommorow cause it's done, it's a poe tae toe, poe tae toe no more !
Come a week or so it'll be more poe poe toe tae tae poe poe toe poe, if it idles at all !

Goose is gonna be workin his magic with his dremill and seat cutters, and a few grenade bits are on order !

[sinfull]

Well i now have a well handling bike, that goes friggin nowhere (for a few weeks at least !)

Merry bloody xmas to me, "here, have a very expensive ashtray"








But as a wise man said, could have been alot worse if i hadn't done the oil change when i did (but cant help think, i'm rebuilding the friggin lot apart from pinion gears and oil pump, or maybe i should) could have had the crank land in my lap i guess !
Can only laugh, dust off the triumph and suck it in, the gut that is lol, not quite the same as riding an armchair are they !

[Owl]

Holy shit!

That's nasty Bill, but a little heavy for an ashtray. It does look very expensive though Was that failure a freak of nature, low quality bearing, badly assembled?

If you're going to be dusting off the Trumpy, I won't ask to borrow parts to fix mine

Keep us informed and good luck!

[sinfull]

, badly assembled

:

Unfortunately yes, Crank had 12 thou run out one side and 8 the other, surprised it's lasted this long !

But i can pinpoint the BIG missed gear that finished the job !

Can move the bearing housing in the case by hand and see it move, simply fucking amazing the motor wasn't trying to leap out of the frame.... oh wait thats normal !

[Owl]

While that sucks for you, it's good to know you can pinpoint it to human error. I know who did it and I'm somewhat dubious about their skill, after seeing a Buell chain conversion this person performed. Downright fucking dangerous it was.

[BIG DOUG]

I had a very good engineer friend of mine repair my STD shovel cases 6mths ago and have been thashing it since,the thing with mine where that both sides were f**ked he is an old school engineer and bloody fussy and has fixed vincent cases so I think he no's what he is doing.Is your crank flywheels the one piece design or do they have replacable shafts I can ask him if you need to get them repaired.

[sinfull]

I had a very good engineer friend of mine repair my STD shovel cases 6mths ago and have been thashing it since,the thing with mine where that both sides were f**ked he is an old school engineer and bloody fussy and has fixed vincent cases so I think he no's what he is doing.Is your crank flywheels the one piece design or do they have replacable shafts I can ask him if you need to get them repaired.

Thats what i'm looking for Doug, opinions and experience !
Pretty sure its the replacable shaft crank thats pressed together, why there was so much run out, someone didn't spend enough time on it !

While the boys at Harley Speed are saying a repair could be done they're dubious as to the reliability of it !
Was gonna go talk to a few old alloy welders and engineers like the one ya mentioned above to get some opinions before spending the 2 k on new cases
Could you get in touch with this guy ya know and ask if he's interested to have a look ? Was gonna go talk to colliers in levin morra and another alloy welder i been put onto who's suppose to be old school and a genious ! Thought i might spend this week gettin a few opinions, cause sure as hell aint gonna get it done prior to xmas !

Ya can see the corrogations that look to have the alloy moulded around em





Was told on the phone today by one guy the S & S cases are machined out of a block of billet and the bushes are pressed in (looking at mine i'd say bollocks to machined billet lol).
And the more i look at them the more i believe the bush to be pressed into a keeper that could be of a material that must handle the heat of casting, but whether that material could be alloy welded is another story lol
And if so, how true it could be done as the whole lot's moving around now by hand and quite a few thou rattle i'd say, so the alloy's been stressed inhumanely

(speaking of stressed where's my bourbon)

[BIG DOUG]

Pretty sure the s+s cases are cast 356-t6 alloy,and they cast the races into them to stop them moving the pinion race is replaceable according to my s+s book,I will try and get a hold of john tomorrow if I dont forget lol so it might be alright as long as the cast in race isn't moving.normally s+s case's have a good rep but any hamfisted person who built the crank could wreck a good set of case's.

[sinfull]

Pretty sure the s+s cases are cast 356-t6 alloy,and they cast the races into them to stop them moving the pinion race is replaceable according to my s+s book,I will try and get a hold of john tomorrow if I dont forget lol so it might be alright as long as the cast in race isn't moving.normally s+s case's have a good rep but any hamfisted person who built the crank could wreck a good set of case's.

Doh !! Yeah i can see the race moving a few thou when i force it Doug, damn ! Sure wont be the race thats flogged out then will it

Only hope would be pinning the race some how maybe !

[Owl]

Would the original stock case be of any use to you Bill? It needs welding apparently, but can't be worse than what you have.

[BIG DOUG]

They do do oversize races,it would have to be line honed for the new race but if you saw my shovel cases you would of told me to throw them away and that mtr has just been to invercargill + back sitting on 65-80mph and in a hardtail to.

[sinfull]

While that sucks for you, it's good to know you can pinpoint it to human error. :

Heard a couple of stories today of HD cranks twisting and ending up with some wicked run out, due to the way they're a two piece with pin set up and the shear size of em making them flex with torque, one was from brand new and the replacement was tigged in place once trued up (now there's a thought), this guy was racing it and pinpointed the change down during hard braking (see next comment)
So there still lies the possiblity that the big missed gear, talking 5th to 3rd and sparks flyin out my arse type of missed gear, could lay blame squarely back on my heavy wrist !
One reconditioner/engineer i talked to even suggested that the keeper (which is cast in the cases when they're made) should not have flogged out the way it did, unless it was a little LOOSE from new and that would/could have untrued the crank wobbling around after 50 clicks, or in other words hehe whats that S & S email addy again

Would the original stock case be of any use to you Bill? It needs welding apparently, but can't be worse than what you have.

Love them, but i'd lie if i said i'd put them in this bike !

sitting on 65-80mph and in a hardtail to.

More to the point, how's ya bloody back never mind the motor !

Had two options come up with by engineers i visited today

A/ to machine the lot out and replace the Keeper(for the lack of the proper name), it won't have that corrogation the oem has, but the term they used ummm (ya shrink one and when it expands etc etc) might work, then put the oversised race or even one the same size and as ya say line hone the cases

B/ press the race out, machine some alloy out in places (drill) and pin the keeper with grub screws, but there aint that much meat there so that'd be dodgy maybe

Combo of the two might work with a meatier keeper (but as one of the above pics shows, the keeper would lose some of it's strength, it will have a bite taken out for the cam gear and bearing beside it)

But both opinions were, whatever is done to fix it, won't make it better than the original design and if you plan on keeping it, the best option unfortunately is the most expensive

[BIG DOUG]

I have punted my dyna twin cam around manfield a few times and when I pulled the mtr down the crank was out 8 thou one end and 10 the other so I got a good low milage crank but it has now started to get a bad vibe at 3-3-1/2 rpm so I suspect this crank is out now to (the bike has done 170,000km's)so I have another crank which I have trued and tigged the pin so hopefully this ends the problem mind you twin cams are a straight press pin like a two stroke,and as for my back ask the guy's I rode with they said it just sits on the road and doesn't move around at all it has a mountain bike shock under the seat but the seat only has about a 1/4" of foam in it so your ass gets sore not your back lol.

[sinfull]

Went out for a bit of a scoot today, nothing too serious, just a little excursion of 300 clicks, all gentle like for the first 150 odd, then started adding variety !
Bit of Highway stuff, a fair share of windy stuff, up and down the rev range (which meant the boys with me, didn't know if i was coming or going) one minute i'm doing 90 k next i'm doing 120 then 100 plus a couple of "stretch the legs" toward the end of the day !
Although they soon learnt that come the sweepers, i wasn't there to see how it handles at 65k (don't know if any have read "the pace") and although i wasn't caneing it by any means, the two big twins i was riding with would have been behaving horrendously had they been taken through at the same pace !
You may have read the beginning of this thread, where the rear shocks had to be seen to and Robert Taylor of CKT did himself proud there, as well as trying some emulators in the forks, well i decided that while the bike was off the road the one last thing that needed to be done, to give me the best an HD can give handling wise, (that being new swing arm clevblocks and associated bits, the other mounts had been done) may as well be fucking done !!




The FXR has always been "harmonious" at 120 in top, so under that it felt like it was labouring and it's still the same ! So it has/is being run in harmoniously on the straights, gently and unlaboured on the hills and progressively on the slopes, corners aint an issue anymore !

Enough of the words ya say, show us some pics of the shiny bits !!!
Well hate to dissapoint ya too much, but this is about all ya get in the way of new shiny bits ya can see !
I'm not one for bling, more about what makes it go round and round !!! To the point not a buff was lifted !~



But internally hmmmm lets see........ New bloody cases OBVIOUSLY, same old crank but new pin and rollers, ballanced to .001 i am assured.



Rebored barrels +10, high comp pistons, new valve guides, ported heads, 3 cut seats, new valve springs, lifters ummmmmm will think of more i'm sure ! Awww yeah an EV51 cam hehehehe.
Cant count things like air filters throttle cables etc cause you know they should have been done ages ago.




Now Nick turning up in my life to buy my race bike was an absolute blessing hahaha, things that go round and round don't come cheap !!

Some cheeky MoD might remember changing the title of a thread i posted about this bike not long after i bought it, well he weren't far wrong !!!

But i do have to... no I want to chuck a plug in here for a couple of buisnesses
1st being S&S These guys were Fuckin amazing, even with only the slightest chance of product failure they came to the party and gave me a wicked deal on a new set of cases !

2nd Being Bruce Telford for doing the spanner work quickly, efficiantly and at a bloody good rate, No favours, just a bloody good rate ! No i cant fix engines, I just fuck em !



The first fire up was on saturday afternoon, ran it for a minute to get some heat going on and shut her down to shrink up a bit, did have a few misses and farts, as to be expected as it's prob a whole new start and warm up proceedure i'm gonna have to get used to i was thinkin, but GRRRRR it sounded crisp and mean !!! Then he tells me to fuck off, and come get it in the morning as he still had a couple things to tweek to finish it, NOW THAT WAS MEAN @@@@ Had a 50th to go to by that time so MEH !!!

Sunday morning and Goose rings me nice and early (on ya) to tell me he's taken it for it's maiden voyage around the block and it's running sweet !
SO i'm pretty sure i made it to his place by 10 am and fixed him up, threw the gear on and RODE AROUND THE BLOCK.
Yeah working bee at the land so it couldn't be done, but by fuck it looked good parked at the club again !!!!
Did manage a 30 odd k jaunt up to levin for a feed at one of the boys joints that evening, before i had to put it away to run the lovely Heidi home !

Monday it was shit so i resisted the temptation to JFDI and waited for the brilliant day forecast for today !
Yeah was it ever Brilliant !!! Lil screw driver in my pocket was all that was needed today apart from gas money ETC
Had a couple of popping and idling issues to sort with feul mixtures etc, but by the time i got home it idled sweetly and snarled when i twisted the throttle !!!


Would add more pictures but Ya cant add more than 6 and me camera just died lol but it handles like a dream, sounds lumpier and fuckin snarles, that's all that matters !

I'm wrapped ! Chrome don't get ya home but i got me a feeling that this thing will !

[shafty]

KA CHING!

Didn't you have a story to tell about a Sporty you bought new, many moons ago?

Anyway, Ön ya"- enjoy!

Shafty