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Machining Harley Cases

Arnold

Plastic
Joined
Jul 16, 2005
I'm trying to find someone responable that is able, capable, and is set up to line bore a set of 1956 Harley Davidson cases. These cases can not be replaced.They cracked and were sent to Wisconsin to be welded, and the heat of the welding through the line off the right and left sides of the crank bearing. My guess is that the bearing I.D. will have to welded to be able to be bored with a clean diameter. There's three I.D.'s that have to maintained. You can reply to this post or e-mail me.
I'm going out of town, we'll be back in a couple of days. [email protected]
 
Have you asked the local H-D dealers who does their machine work? Since you're located in ?????, it should be easy to find a local shop capable of doing this type of work.

If you cannot find anyone close, contact Randy Torgeson at Hyperformance:

http://kingofcubes.com/

He regularly works on H-D motors that sell for $20,000 plus (motor only, bike not included). Nice guy, tons of experience, well equipped shop.
 
Arnold, try STD out in California. I just had them do some similar machine work on my '56 Pan cases. They did a fine job, but they're not cheap.
 
Dont screw around, have me do it.
509 522 9488 keep trying Iam swamped, my answer machine is on the blink, but I can get to it, and understand the value and your concern. Its going to take more than line boring. the case halfs need to be Wohlhaupter faced on a jig borer.

Don
 
Dang, this nice fellow got a hold of me. If he decides to go ahead and ship it to wally walla, I will post a pic or two of the repair work, if it can be done.
Sounds like a challenge, others apparently gave up on it.
Turns out its an XLCH model :eek:
 
If this is an actual XLCH, of late 50's vintage, this would be a very VERY early sportster, like number #75 or there abouts. No doubt a very valuable collectors piece, probably why so many people have passed on the project. NO pressure ;)
 
Yes it is a very rare early model. The 56 flathead K model was still in production for its last year.
Most all 56 overhead valve bikes were factory race bikes.The race bikes had ball bearing mains.
Aparently this has extensive weld repair and the expected unavoidable warpage.
The factory line lap tool wont clean up the right case main roller bearing race.
 
Precision works, cant simply tig the right case main bearing hole up and rebore, because of the cast into the aluminum, cast iron sleeve that the hard steel main bearing race presses into. Instead an oversize OD main bearing race is the ticket.
scphantm, the Merch 120" heads are no longer availible. I was able to salvage the head, because of the generous amount of material in the heads, then reworked the other head to match.
Anyway, never seen such a perfectly centered vave as this.
http://www.clubchopper.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=21699&password=&sort=1&cat=500&page=1
 
They shipped this engine to me, it arived yesterday. Turns out its is a 56 Kmodel.
It for sure has alignment problems. A quick test with the Kent Moore case lapping tool revealed that the lapping tool doesnt want to enter the right main bearing. Both case halfs appear to have extensive but good looking welds.
Laying a strait edge across the face of each case half shows around .007" warp in both case halfs, where they are high in the middle and the straight ege teeter totters.
My first move will be to use a test bar insered into each cases main bearing and with screw jacks , clamps and shims, posistion the case half so the main bearing is true to the jigborer and cut the case mating faces. It will take more than that, but that is a starting point.
I will post some pictures of hopefull progress on this project.

Don
 
I have began working the cases, they have been extensivly welded to repair possibly more than one major failure.
The welding looks very good.
The welding distorted the cases so they had to be faced true perpindicular to each case half removing a total of ,024"total off both case halves, sgeezing the crancase together .024" making it nessesary to open the cases cylinder holes so the protruding sleeve on the bottom of the cylinder will slide into the assembled cases. And relieving the inside right crankase half the same, for crank clearance
One case half was clamped down on the jigborer table, the main bearing was zeroed in, the the other case half was set on top and its dowl pins and most of the bolts installed. Then, that cases main bearing was zeroed. The offset is pulled up on the DRO. The cases were misaligned .014 in one direction and .003 in another. So I zeroed in the dowl pin locations and moved them over to compensate the mainbearing missalignment.The dowl pins are 1/4", so after moving to the corrected position, I sunk a 5/16 endmill into the case and then made 2 dowl pins both with 1/4" and 5/16" ends.
This brought the main bearings within .001" alignmet making it then possible to line lap the cases right main roller bearing bore true.
The cylinder mounting surfaces on top of the case halves are distorted and will be faced and trued to the center line of the crankshaft.
The tranmission area being part of the engine cases wil have to be delt with using much of the same.
I will have some photo links soon of the Moore jig borer. Putting life back into a vintage motorcycle engine.
 
damn donnie, those cases were screwed. if they weren't k model's i would have probably told him to find a new motor.

repositioning the trans gear cluster is going to be fun.

you set up to do a triumph T100 unit? if the lawyers don't bleed me dry i may have one coming soon that needs redone.
 
Here is a couple of shots of the basic setup. The first is how the cases were trued to the machine with a test bar through each main bearing. then the cases were mounted to a rotary table and fixture holding them by the trued up main bearing bores. The cylinder mount sufaces were dusted off with a Wohlhaupter facing heads and the cases cylinder bores were opened back up to allow the cylinders to slip in. There is enough slop in the clinders base holes so they went in with out hanging on the studs.
I can do any crankcases that will fit on the machine.
I used a Brideport for years doing this, but the Moore Jig borer is alot better.
The jigborers spindle head is rapidly moved to any position with out loss of center or level, More errors creep in with a vertical mill because of moving the knee. But a good job can be done on a mill, just more effort required.
Wow I got a job off the PM site!

http://www.clubchopper.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=35055&password=&sort=1&cat=500&page=1

http://www.clubchopper.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=35056&password=&sort=1&cat=500&page=1
 








 
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