Just another leather clad Tinkerbell.
The Wanker on the Fucking Harley is going for a ride!
I was a mechanic at a Harley dealership when the Evo came out.
The Evo was a late shovel with a new top end
Just like a shovel was a pan with a new top end
and a pan was a knuckle with a new top end.
The main problem with the late shovels was a noisy top end, topend oil leaks, pistons, guides and valves that wore themselves out in short order, crap lifters and blocks
The Evo top end addressed most of these problems with the bonus of more power and even more power easily attained..
Of course the inevitable happened, people started using this power and problems started showing up.
Lots of bottom end problems, loose main bearing inserts, cracked and broken crankcases, broken crankshafts, porous castings, oil system problems, all these weren't uncommon. Everytime they got one thing fixed something else would shit itself. The Evo was in a continuous state of catchup break/fix repair throughout its whole life
20 yrs later I was a service manager at a HD dealership and tore my first twin cam down. Pretty much everything we whinged and moaned about as mechanics working on evos they had fixed by building a completely new engine and not just tarting up some old piece of crap, giving it a new name and pretending its the answer.
Sure the TC has had a few problems but in 10 yrs nowhere near what the Evo went through in its first 10 yrs.
Most of the problems the Evo had were due to inherent design flaws which not a lot could be done about because they were stuck with a basic design that originated with the Knucklehead.
The TC problems to date generally speaking aren't inherent design flaws but more manufacturing problems. eg twisting cranks on hi horsepower TC 96 based engines, no need to redesign the crank just put it together differently. Cam bearing problem, change the bearing.
I may not be an engineer or a technician, just a mechanic, but over the years I have gained a practical appreciation of what works and what doesn't, what is good design and what is poor design, from my point of view an Evo is a piece of junk compared to the TC
Before the TC came along the best engine Harley built was the Sportster
Another way of telling how reliable the TC is compared to Evos and Shovels
pre TC when I was a mechanic we always had broken (and I mean broken busted and sucked a kumara) engines to fix/rebuild
post TC in a dealership pretty much all the Technicians do is change oil and fit chrome things. Occasionally they will fit a set of cams or a big bore kit.
I actually felt sorry for them
At least the biggest customer complaint now is rust spots in their chrome rather than a broken crankcase letting all the oil out
PS I may think Knuckles, Pans, Shovels, Evos, are piles of junk, but they are cool piles of junk and I still like them.
When did they peak. I imagine there are more Corolla's sold now than ever...........you have to be careful reading into what the stats say. We may have 100's of Mazda 3's and 6's here......but has the humble corolla dissappeared? Nope.
One of the biggest reality check I had was finding out that one of VW biggest selling vehicles was one I had never hear of before. And you know what was scarier......there was more of this model sold currently than Corolla's, 6(26), camry's.....
The car IS the VW Santana. Technically you could say the world wants box cars with poor technology.
But if that were the case - we all would own this or a volvo. But while we don't - China does.
So to put this into comparison. If you really thing the XV650 is the biggest selling cruiser.......google how many GN125's are sold.
As mentioned earlier. Harley are targeting people who want to own a harley. They are happy with that segmentation strategy. They don't have to extend the reach, they make good money and they remain a dominant brand name. This is the same as what Triumph have done also, but Triumph also like to 'test the waters' with models slightly outside this range.
I am a Yamaha fan, for the last 7 years I have only owned yamahas. Their strategy is quite broken though. They separate the bike division up and have to rename everything........STAR is their cruiser line.......and for many years it was shit. Its good to see with the XV650 and the V-Max they seemed to get the formula right for once. But even they would be wise to not believe they have "captured the market".
Reactor Online. Sensors Online. Weapons Online. All Systems Nominal.
GN125 aint a cruiser by anyone's definition.
The statistic was for the XV650 2010 model bikes sold during 2010, not for total number of XV650 sold since they were first released on the market compared to total sales of other bikes from other companies.
But I agree with the few posts above, about knuckles etc being junk but cool junk. We ran an article last year to celebrate the knuckleheads 75th anniversary, and I had some correspondence with Barry Wardlaw of Accurate Engineering. Great guy, and he absolutely loves knuckles.
And as Flip says, nothing wrong with "Harley people" enjoying their Harleys. They should, as should anyone buying any product would hopefully do.
Find out more at www.unluckyones.co.nz
Yes it is - a slow cruiser though. Also a farm bike... http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/moto...-314228127.htmGN125 aint a cruiser by anyone's definition.
The best way to forget all your troubles is to wear tight underpants.
Find out more at www.unluckyones.co.nz
Only for touring the farm. You cruise between farms....![]()
The best way to forget all your troubles is to wear tight underpants.
I ride my xr 1200 to work everyday,just about to click over 50k and the only thing that has gone wrong is the headlight wire broke just oil,filter tyres and brake pads.I am now just stripping down my 1951 panhead mtr and it is so like an evo it ain't funny apart from the dizzy,and being a 51 the crank is setup very much like a tc96 setup it is that similar and yea I love old shit and will make this as reliable as my shovel has been and it will get ridden all over the country as well.
There is a lot of history that has been buried, the kawasaki AMF connection is one of them, just like how the famous HUGO BOSS mens wear brand that also designed the NAZI uniforms, and Henry Ford (yes the car maker)was the first foregin Nazi member, all interesting stuff.
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