OPENING PANDORAS BOX (THE KNUCKLEHEAD)
The November Huntsville Tech Day has come and gone. If you didn’t make it, you missed a pretty interesting meeting. Dorsey, Mike McCloud, Kent, Erik and John Lindberg met for the Huntsville group breakfast at Rolos prior to getting their hands dirty in Erik’s garage. Keith Kizer came to the breakfast meeting as well but was an hour early (did you forget to change your clock? Daylight savings time…) and was gone by the time everyone else showed up. It was chilly in the morning, but the sun was out, and it quickly warmed up for a comfortable time in the garage. The main task was pulling the rear head on my 47 Harley. You might recall this bike developed an intake leak during the Cross Country Chase a couple of months ago. I was able to bandage it on the road and complete the event, but it was time to fix it properly. Intake pipe is in the photo below on the right. It’s not a big piece but if it’s not sealing properly your bike will let you know!
I have also never been into this engine and the last time this bike ran prior to it coming to my house was 1976. So, we pulled the rear head and it was interesting to note that it had a 30 over piston in the rear cylinder, so this engine had been rebuilt in the past. The cylinder looked pretty good and the decision was made not to pull it and run it as is. The valves came out and they looked pretty fair. Since I have the head off, I will go ahead and replace the valves and guides.
We took a late lunch break at Straight to Ale. Afterwards Dorsey and Kent headed home. Mike and I decided to continue working in the garage. We pulled the front head to go ahead and do a valve job on it as well. It also had a 30 over piston and the cylinder was in similar shape. Mike discovered one of the front motor mount bolts was broken and we addressed a few other things that were not quite right. Overall it was a very productive day. So now I am rounding up parts to include a new intake pipe. Turns out the rear intake pipe was really loose, and actually screwed out somewhat. The threads in the head and on the pipe are pretty worn. I have ordered both a standard and oversize intake with the hope one of those can be used without having to have the head threads machined and reworked which would probably be a pretty significant task.
