I'm having problems with my primary, loose everytime I go for service, and they claim(the dealer) that to adjust it they have to remove the cover and that operation cost 80.00 each time. My manual is not specific on adjustment and I need to know the procedure to avoid costly repairs at the dealership. Can you tell me the simple technique? And why do they feel the need to take the whole cover off each time?
Suds sez:Tony, Need to know the make & model of your bike. Sportsters are different than Big Twins and there's 2 styles of Big Twins. There is only an inspection cover to remove for adjustment. The whole cover has to be removed for replacement. Let me know the specifics on your bike and I can help you.
fr
03' 1200C. It just finished a trip from Huntsville Alabama to Wichita Falls Texas and the dealer serviced my bike before I left and when I told them I was about due for my next service the service manager told me, "With that kinda miles the primary chain will have to be serviced again" and I asked him if everybodys bike was like this or just mine he said everybody gets theirs done at every 3000 miles. I just don't think I want to pay him $80.00 for something I can do myself. I am a CAT tech, but I just don't want to screw the goose.
Suds sez:
Tony... ok, got it now.. assuming it is a 1200 CC Sporty, then there should be a round plug in the upper center of your primary cover. With a Chevrolet bow-tie lookin emblem in the middle of it. This is your inspection plug. You will have to use a 1/2 inch drive rachet and maybe a short extension and insert it into the square part of that emblem. Break it loose and rotate it counter-clockwise to remove it. This will allow you to stick your finger in the hole and feel your primary chain. You should have approximately 1/4 inch free travel in your chain tension. Just stick your finger under it and wiggle it up and down to determine this (engine not running of course).
If you have more slack than that then look directly underneath, on the bottom side of your primary (not the cover). You should see a hex-head lock-nut with an allen-head set screw in the middle of it. This is your primary chain adjuster. If you have this set up, then you need to break loose the lock-nut and turn the allen set-screw clockwise while feeling the tension of your chain. The chain will get less slack in it the more you turn the set-screw. The way this works is that set-screw pushes on the bottom of an anvil shaped part that's on a hinge with a spring tension and it has a teflon block on top of it that puts pressure against your primary chain. It's really a simple procedure, but caution yourself not to over-tighten the chain. This will cause premature wear of the chain, sprockets and/or bearings. Especially the transmission input shaft bearing. Hope this helps. Let me know either way. Also, if your chain keeps stretching sooner than it should then chances are your sprockets are mis-aligned, provided you operate your machine under normal operating conditions (i.e. not drag racing light to light, etc).
from Tony:
I got my chain adjusted,it took 4 complete rounds. If it loosens up again I'm gonna take it to the shop and tell them to replace the chain and tensioner because theres no reason for it to loosen up. I ride it like it was a baby. I do have another problem the guys at the dealership says the only fix is to do the Stage 2 kit. My bike backfires through the carb everytime I stop, sometimes quits and I have to restart, you got any ideas? Thanks for your help. B.F.C Tony
Suds sez:
Tony... the number one reason for a primary chain to wear prematurely (providing of course there is plenty of oil in the primary case) is for the engine sprocket and clutch sprocket to be mis-aligned.
If this is the case, then the engine sprocket needs to be shimmed out to meet the plane of the clutch sprocket. This is usually done with the primary chain off, using a straight edge until you add enough shims behind the engine sprocket to evenly touch off on the straight edge as it is touching the outer edge of the clutch sprocket.
Now for problem number two... if your baffles in your mufflers are worn or punched out, or if you went to drag pipes, you changed the back pressure your engine was tuned to. This creates an extremely lean condition for your carburator. If you have a CV Carb.... to my knowledge there is no mixture adjustment on the idle circuit. Therefore, the stage 2 kit may be necessary to correct the problem. This should be larger jet and should richen up your idle and low speed. The only other solution is to get a totally tunable carburator such as an S and S Super E Series Carb or a Bendix Adjustable Main Jet Carb. The S and S still seems to have a spit problem on 9 out of 10 bikes.
The Bendix is not known for gas mileage or high performance but it is damn dependable.
A bro of mine was having trouble with his bike making a terrible grinding noise like his tranny was trying to go into gear by itself when the engine was running. It even sounded worse when he was going down the road. I found that the noise was coming from inside his primary case. He has recently taken his bike into a so called reputable bike shop to have his clutch basket replaced. It seems that his starter ring gear had shattered into about five pieces.
The bike is an '87 FXR with a 5 speed. this meant that he had a diaphram spring type clutch. With the oil drained, we removed the outer primary cover. The first thing I noticed, is that the last mechanic to be in this cover had omitted the starter shaft thrust washer. This alone could be enough to let the starter bendix travel over enough to try and engage the starter ring gear while the engine is running. Any Harley mechanic worth his salt would not leave this part out even if it came in his shop without one.
We checked the clearance between the bendix and the ring gear with the starter jackshaft all the way over wher it should be with the thrust washer in place. There still wasn't enough clearance. the next step would be to remove the clutch basket and compensator sprocket along with the primary chain and adjuster. It all comes off together or it don't come off. Once this was out of the way we could get at the starter bendix/jackshaft assembly.
On these models, there is a 1/4"NPT allen head pipe plug in the top of the inner primary case, that holds the solenoid yoke pin in place. To remove the yoke (this one's aluminum), the solenoid pushrod had to be disconnected. This is done by pushing in the spring and the cupped retainer washer until a small rollpin is exposed, and at this point should fall out if it is virticle. At any rate, it is easily removed. Then the yoke pivot pin can be removed by sliding it upward out of the hole using a narrow pair of needle nosed pliers and some careful finiggling (is that a word?) by holding your progress and getting another hold with the pliers. Then the starter bendix/jackshaft assembly should pull right out of it's hole.
Once out, it was time to disassemble it. there is a nut on the outer end of it with two flats milled off of opposite sides to fit a wrench on it. this nut has a left hand thread. After disassembly, we found out that the spacer that is supposed to be there, wasn't. This meant that we would have to grind some off of the back of the bendix instead. There is a groove ring that is held on the back of the bendix via an external snapring. This meant that we couldn't grind off too much, for fear of not leaving enough meat for the snapring to hold properly.
We ground off as much as we felt comfortable with and slid it back on the starter jackshaft. The temporary assembly was then seated back in the hole and just the clutch basket & ring gear was put back on the tranny input shaft. Nothing was tightened down, but we could get an idea using guesstimation of where everything wouuld be when it was seated and tightened down.
Still not satisfied with the clearance, this meant only one thing. The differenc would have to be taken off of the face of the starter bendix gear. Using a bench grinder, the gear was carefully spun by hand and ground on the teeth area only. Enough of the face had to remain in order that the gear would not travel too far over and totally pass the starter ring gear.
One more false assembly, and we dicide that we had enough clearance. Then everything was reassembled and properly torqued. Since the clutch adjustment screw was never loosened and ther was nothing wrong with the adjustment prior to teardown. it was not necessary to do any adjustment on it during reassembly. With a new thrust washer installed and new primary chaincase oil added, we were now ready to test our work. It operated smoothly with no hangups and no unsettling noises coming from the primary case anymore. Problem solved.. the proof was in the smile on my bro's face when he pulled up from the test ride.
Having problems with your scoot? Need thechnical support? Send your Questions to Hawg Help at sudsnbuttrfly@aol.com . You won't have to wait to read it here..I'll get back to ya as soon as I receive your email. Y'all Stay Safe and Ride Trouble-Free....~Suds back to top of page
Master Cylinders...
Lately I've been running into a rash of problems with master cylinders not wanting to pump fluid down to the brake calipers correctly. some of the symptoms include a spongy brake that won't quite pump up, and when you try to bleed the air out of the line, the problem gets worse. This problem can be frustrating even to a longtime pro.
The problem I have been mainly seeing is with the 1980's HD models. Disc brakes use DOT 5 brake fluid which is silicone based. This stuff breaks down over a period of time when it gets rubber particles mixed with it from normal seal wear. If you pop the cover off the top of the master cylinder and see a dark murky looking substance at the bottom, while the rest of the fluid looks fairly normal, then this is a sign of fluid breakdown.
When the fluid breaks down, it seems to coagulate (stick together) with the solid particles from the worn seals. It can and will plug or severely restrict the inlet port for the piston chamber.
What this means is, that no matter how frantically you pump the brake, only a minimal amount of fluid comes out of the port that the brake line hooks up to. It also means it's time to disassemble the master cylinder.
This is a fairly easy task. Precautions must be taken to protect your paint from any brake fluid that might be spilled. Brake fluid will eat paint. After the master cylinder is removed, dump any fluid out in a drain pan. Look inside of the end where the lever/pushrod assembly goes in and remove the snap-ring. Once this is done, then you should be able to pop the plunger and spring out by pushing it inward against the spring pressure by using a Phillips head screwdriver inserted in the pushrod hole, and then rapidly releasing it. You may have to repeat this process a few times before it actually comes out. Pay attention as to what order the components come out, as it will have to be reassembled in the same order.
Now that it is apart, clean out all chambers with carburetor cleaner. Then shine a light down inside the piston chamber and look through the reservoir chamber at the small ports in the bottom of it. You should be able to see the light through all of them. If not, then the carburetor cleaner did not remove all of the debris.
If this is the case, then try using compressed air through the end where the piston assembly while blocking the outlet port with your thumb. This should dislodge the debris. Now repeat the process with the flashlight.
If the port still isn't clear, then use a "torch tip cleaner", starting with the smallest bit, and rod out the port. A stiff piece of guitar string (fourth and fifth strings) works really well for this also. Once again, repeat the flashlight trick. Now your port should be clear.
Just for the sake of insurance, blow carburetor cleaner through the ports using the little straw that comes with it. Let the carb cleaner completely evaporate. Inspect your piston seals and look for cracks, splits or rough edges. Also check the flexibility of the cup seal. If it seems hard, then it's time to replace your seals.
If you're ready to reassemble your master cylinder, It goes like this: First the spring goes in. Then the cup seal goes in. Put a light coat of DOT 5 brake fluid on it and make sure the cup part faces inward, because as your brake pressure builds, the sides of the cup flare out against the cylinder wall to get a tighter seal. Next is the spool that pushes against the backside of the cup seal. The O-ring on the spool should be flexible also, and it should also recieve a light coat of brake fluid prior to insertion. Now the dust seal with the lip facing inward, and finally the snapring.
While the master cylinder is still off of the bike, fill the reservoir about 1/4 full. Hold your thumb over the outlet port, and work the piston in and out with a Phillips head screwdriver. You should feel a suction as you let the spring return. You should also start seeing the fluid lever getting lower, and then brake fluid should start pushing your thumb away.
If the pressure is strong and it seems to be moving a substantial amount of fluid (use good judgment) is being moved, then your master cylinder should be ready for installation.
Once the master cylinder is back on the bike with the brake line reconnected, fill the reservoir with fresh DOT 5 brake fluid. put the cover back on and start the bleeding process.
Bleeding brakes is done by cracking open the bleeder valve on the caliper or wheel cylinder (drum brake models), while depressing the brake lever or pedal. Be sure and hold it in until the bleeder valve is closed. Then release the lever (pedal) and depress it again repeating the afore mentioned process.
Do this until all of the air bubbles are gone and fresh fluid is coming out of the bleeder valve. Be sure and keep an eye on the fluid level in your reservoir. If it falls below the inlet ports, you will have air in your brake system again and it will have to be bled out. Once all of the air is out and new fluid is coming out, you are ready to pump up your brakes. Leave the bleeder valve closed and rapidly pump the brake lever or pedal. Each time you depress the lever, you should notice the resistance increase and your pedal/lever gets higher so to speak. Double check to make sure there is no fluid leaking out of the back side of the master cylinder where the piston assembly goes. If it is, then the O-ring on the spool was cut or was bad on the spool and will need replaced. Hope this helps anyone with brake troubles.
DO NOT mix DOT 3 with DOT 5 Brake Fluid ! DOT 3 can cause DOT 5 to break down and gel. I've seen little BBs throughout the brake system as a result of mixing these two fluids.
I have run across more than a few problems that are a direct result from frequent use of high-pressure car washes. There are a few parts on Harley's and other makes that those little jet-streams of water can wreak havoc on.
Take for instance wheel bearings. While the wheel bearing seals do a wonderful job of keeping grease in the wheel bearing where it is needed, they were not designed to keep high pressure water out. Most wheel bearing grease is lithium-based, which is a type of soap base. Over time, water can and will mix with it, thus causing the grease compound to break down. I don't have to tell you that this is not good.
While we're talking about wheels, ever notice how the inside center of spoke rims start rusting underneath the rubber band? It's the same thing. The rubber band does it's job by protecting the inner-tube from the spokes, but a water seal it ain't. Contrary to popular belief, stainless steel and aluminum will corrode too. The only thing I've seen do worse things to the inside of a rim is the use of a soap/water solution to mount a tire. This is not limited to spoke rims.
The other thing I've seen greatly affected by car wash usage is on 4-speed and early 5-speed trannys. These models have a long arm bolted onto a shaft that goes thru the right outer tranny cover. This acuates your clutch mechanisms. Soap and water can and will get down into where this shaft rides inside a bushing and wash out/dilute any lubrication this mechanism needs to operate smoothly. I have seen a few of these get unneccesarily stiff in operation and even be sluggish in releasing.
One case where the clutch stuck in and wouldn't engage. We thought the clutch cable had broken at first.
If you are a regular car wash user, these few tips of maintenance could save you a few bucks, or even some road rash.
Every time a tire is changed, the wheel bearings should be checked for evidence of water mixing with the wheel bearing grease. This is usually indicated by a milky coloration of the grease. Wheel bearing seals are cheap and easy enough to change, and so is the wheel bearing grease. I have a bro who procrastinated in this and one sunny day he was cruisin thru town when his front wheel locked up and down he went at 30mph. Lots of road rash on him and his scoot. He also had to replace his axle. Fortunately we were able to salvage his hub.
This is also a good time to check under the rubber band on spoke rims (while the tires off) for any rusting/corrosion. Nothing like the spoke heads pulling thru their holes one day while on a cross-country tour. I will caution you not to use anything petroleum based to try and protect the metal. Petroleum will break down and rot rubber compounds. Use a silicon-based lubricant.
While it may seem a little far-fetched that your inner tube will rot and one day start leaking or worse, it can cause the rubber band to rot and break. Then the spoke heads may be exposed enough to wear into your inner-tube.
The clutch arm shaft can be a trick. A little monthly maintenance of a few drops of good machine oil should do the trick. It does take a little time to let gravity do it's thing, and you may have to wipe off the excess a few times. For more extreme cases of negligence, it will require taking the cover and arm assembly off for a thorough disassembly, cleaning and lubing.
Also, don't forget to lube your clutch and throttle cables. I always say that if you take care of your machine, your machine will take care of you. Ya'l have a safe and happy New Year ~Suds
Nothing sounds better than a well tuned Harley goin down the road, except maybe a whole bunch of well tuned Harleys. We who ride all know that those sweet exhaust notes are subject to change at any given moment. Nobody likes to be jammin' down the road and your engine suddenly starts cuttin out and backfirin' out of the exhaust pipes. Experienced riders immediately start rackin' their brains for possible causes of the sour notes they're now hearing. Un-experienced riders on the other hand usually don't have the basic knowledge for this and start thinking about who they can call or how much towing is gonna cost since their HOG membership just ran out. This usually happens out in the middle of nowhere and not a gas station in sight. Anybody remember the pre-cellphone era?
Backfiring can be caused by one or more of several malfunctions. It's not always true, but the rule of thumb usually is that if it's backfiring outta the pipes, it's electrical. If it's backfiring outta the carb, it's generally a fuel problem. The most common culprit is usually something wrong with the ignition system. That being said, there are two main types of ignition systems; electronic and breaker-points. Another type is magneto, but I won't touch too much on this one.
Starting with one common denominator, Harleys vibrate. Vibration means things will eventually work loose. I've seen it many times over on both types of ignition systems. Usually the problem here will be a wire terminal that has vibrated loose due to a loose screw on the ignition switch or loose nut on the coil, or in some cases, make that coils. In any case, they have to have electricity to function. Older ignition switches that mount on the dash between the tanks are notorious for vibrating the rivets that hold the contacts in place loose. The first time I encountered this problem was on my old shovelhead. I was at my ropes end and had checked every electrical connection between the battery and the coil.
The way I finally found it was waiting till dark, then starting my bike with all the covers (including the dash) removed and revving up the engine. When the engine started cutting out, I noticed that sparks were coming out from under the ignition switch. After I started wiggling wires, I found the terminal that feeds power to the coil was loose and losing contact at a certain rpm range (vibration). I was able to repair the switch by disassembling it and peening the rivet with a center punch.
Unless you have enough experience to have a good idea what to check, then the first thing to check is how much voltage your battery is emitting. On most 12 volt ignition systems, it takes a minimum of 9 volts for your coil to fire. Any thing drawing energy away from this base voltage can greatly effect how your coil operates. You need to check your connections to make sure they are tight and corrosion free. Always check the ground cable where it bolts onto your frame or engine. A short in your lighting system can also draw away from your voltage supply.
Next in line is where you pick up voltage from the positive side of the battery to the hot side of your ignition switch. Later models usually pick up the hot wire at the connection where your battery cable bolts on to your starter solenoid. Older models had the main breaker coming straight off of the positive terminal on your battery. In either case, there will be a main breaker or fuse. If you have a test light or a voltmeter, you should read the same voltage from both terminals to ground as across the battery terminals. The hot wire generally goes from there to the input terminal on your ignition switch. After the ignition switch, the hot wire will either go to the kill switch and then to the coil, or it will go straight to the coil.
On breaker points ignition systems, the wire coming off of the other side of the coil will go down to the points. The condition and operation of the breaker points is critical. The gap should be checked on the small lobe of the point cam and should be set at 0.018 thousands of an inch. If you don't have a feeler gauge, then tear a piece of notebook paper and fold it twice. this should be close enough to get you home. The other sometimes troublesome component found in this same area is called the condenser.
The condenser is actually a capacitor that stores the excess energy backed up after the points have opened. It keeps the spark from trying to jump the point gap to the grounded side of the contacts. Ever water yer yard with one of them squeeze nozzles? Notice the way your hose jumps if you let your fingers slip off of the trigger? It's because the flow was abruptly shut off and all them molecules travelin at high velocity had trouble stoppin' in time and rear-ended all of the molecules in front that did stop. (sound like rush hour?) All of that energy has to go somewhere, so yer garden hose absorbed and contained all of that energy.
A condenser absorbs electrical energy in much the same way. You see, if the condenser doesn't do it's job, and the spark does jump across the point gap, then your coil has lost it's charge it built up. In short, ya want the coil to fire outta the spark plug wires instead of across the points gap. Condensers can go out all at once or be intermittent. When in doubt, try a new one. You may have to try two, because you can easily get a bad one right outta the box. Your condenser also has to be grounded good via the mounting screw. If all of this checks out and the points are opening and closing properly, then you should be getting a nice blue spark to ground outta both posts of your coil when the points open.
If the spark is reddish out of one of the posts, then you may have a weak coil. If the spark is reddish out of both posts, you may have a weak coil or low voltage. If you only get a spark of one post, then it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you have a bad coil. Keep in mind that we are talking about a stock 3ohm dual post ignition coil. Single fire ignition is a horse of another color, which I will cover under electronic ignitions in the next issue. In the meantime, if you have any questions, just email me. Always glad to help out a bro or sister stay in the wind. Till next issue, y'all keep the rubber side down...~Suds
Last issue we discussed at great length the way breaker point ignition works and malfunctions that can cause backfires/misfires. This issue, we'll be talking about various types of electronic ignition systems.
The first style of electronic ignition system on a Harley I ever laid eyes on was a '79 Shovelhead. It was basic and had the trigger & "brain" both down where the points used to be. In fact' it used the same flyweight type mechanical advance mechanism as points did. It was fairly reliable and just as easy to set the timing. Since there were no points to wear down, the engine staid in time. The only thing was, the flyweights would wear down the tits that move what used to be the point cam.
When this happens, your timing becomes retarded and can cause sluggish acceleration, slower idle speed, and even a spit-back through the carb. The coil on this system has the same Ohm rating as the one for points. Just as with points it should emit a nice blue spark to ground when the engine is spun over with the ignition switch in the on position.
It is wired the same way as the breaker point ignition all the way down to the coil. From there, it picks up voltage from the hot wire feeding the coil. This wire then goes down to the micro-module on what used to be the "breaker plate". This powers a coil called an "exciter coil".
This coil is magnetized by the voltage, and when the tit on the "rotor" (what used to be the point cam) passes by this coil's core, it excites the magnetic field. The voltage variation causes a transistor in the module to work like a switch opening up, thus taking place of points opening up. The wire on going back to the other terminal of your coil operates the same way as the one that used to connect on the points and condenser.
Electronic ignition has made a few changes over the years. It basically operates on the same principles, it's just designed differently. The point is to eliminate as many mechanically moving parts as possible. In theory, it's supposed to be more reliable and maintenance free.
The next type of ignition HD started using had a larger module that had several features. It was programmed to advance the timing according to engine rpm (no flyweights), the engine made 2 full revolutions before it allowed the coil to fire (this was supposed to eliminate starter kickback and save your starter components), and had a rev limiter that started shutting off the spark at intervals so that it would go unnoticed as a misfire. This feature is supposed to eliminate the possibility of over-revving the engine and throwing a rod through the bottom of the cases.
Now there are many aftermarket manufacturers that have totally tunable modules. These enable one to set the advance rates to get the spark to the combustion chamber when the piston is at it's peak power point. They generally come from the factory with a good ballpark setting, but the only way it will be totally efficient for your engine will be to tune it on a Dyno machine.
The Dyno machine puts the engine under a load at a given rpm range. It is best to tune these with the grade of fuel you will be running most of the time. The thing to remember about fuel grade, is that the higher the octane rating, the slower it burns. If you set the timing while running the highest octane available at the pumps, then your engine could ping and knock (sounds like a bag of marbles has been turned loose in your engine) during heavy acceleration if you switch to the lower octane.
The next ignition system to hit the scene was Single Fire Ignition. The title alone is self- descriptive. In all of the previously mentioned systems, both spark plugs fired at the same time, just on different piston strokes, i.e. one spark is emitted on the power stroke, and the other on the exhaust stroke. Single fire emits a spark to each cylinder only on the power stroke.
It is a popular belief that one spark will always be hotter than the other with the old style 2 post coils, and to a degree this will be true as electricity always takes the path of least resistance. The same thing could be true with Single fire if one of the coils is weaker than the other. Either condition could result in inter-mitten misfiring.
SingleFire ignition has 2 separate ignition coils and 2 separate exciter coils. The module controls the timing advance rate on both of them. These have been fairly reliable systems in the past. At first there were problems with the coil shorting out internally, but the manufacturer got that straightened out.
The only other problems that I have experience with these systems has been vibration related, i.e. nuts loosening at the coil connections. Oh yeah, once a bro of mine rode his bike about 80 miles and when he got to where he was going he laid his bike down on the right side in a gravel parking lot. He couldn't get his bike started again, and sometimes it would backfire. After a lot of cussing and some troubleshooting, we discovered that the rotor retainer bolt had worked loose, and when he laid the bike down on it's right side, the rotor fell out of the keyed cam that it bolts into.
He said that his bike felt like it was cutting out every now and then during the trip, but since it wasn't backfiring, he thought he had gotten some bad gas. Apparently what had been happening was that the rotor had been free-floating between the exciter coils but managed to stay in the keyway that keeps it in time. Since the rotor was made out of high carbon plastic, it did not damage the exciter coils or the rotor.
After talking with him he said that since the rotor was made out of plastic, he was afraid to tighten it too tight for fear of breaking the rotor. No problem. A couple of drops of blue Lock-tite did the trick, and as far as I know, he hasn't had any more problems with his ignition.
In any case, the majority of problems with either points or electronic ignition will be loose connections. In case I forgot to mention it, don't overlook the possibility of the kill switch connections.
Nest issue I'll go over magneto ignitions.
In the meantime, Keep the rubber side down, and yer motor runnin. ~Suds back to top of page...
Keepin' Yer Spark In Time (Magneto Ignition)
The last 2 issues, we've been covering variouse types of ignition systems and what could go wrong with them to cause your engine to misfire. The one type of electronic ignition system I didn't cover is the new style that herley is using on the twin cam models. This system uses a proximity switch more commonly known as a "crank trigger". The flywheel is notched so as the flywheel spins, the prox switch senses these notches and sends pulses back to the module. The module counts these pulses, and tells the coil when to fire your sparkplugs. Modern automobiles are set up the same way. So far they seem quite reliable, but time and miles will tell.
Perhaps the oldest type of ingnition system used on production motorcycles is the magneto ignition. Many people still prefer this type of ignition system for the simple fact that it generates it's own electricity and will provide a fat blue spark even if your battery is stone dead, provided you have some way to spin your engine over. Magnetos have a permanent magnets imbeded in a rotor that spins past a coil that breaks up the magnetic feild. This induces a voltage that builds up in the primary windings of the coil. This "stored" voltage is also induced into the secondary winding and the energy is released when the points open up, simply because it has no place else to go. This is what fires your spark plugs. Oh yeah, the voltage is also magnified while it is storing in the secondary winding.
Yeah, magnetos have points and a condenser, and therefore require maintenance. Another drawback for the riders who don't like to tinker is the fact that most magnetos don't have an auto advance mechanism. Some of them do. Most of the magnetos on the market were designed to run at a constant speed above 1500 rpm's, at which your ignition timing should be fully advanced anyway. However, leaving it at this setting would shatter your ankle (kickstarting) or destroy your starter bendix because of the kickback this would cause. So, the manufacturers have provided a "retard mechanism", so that starting your machine is easier.
If you've watched someone start their machine who runs a mag, you've probably seen the little ritual they go through everytime they start their bike. There is a spring that works on a fulcrum point to hold it either in the advanced or retarded position according to whichever direction the operator flips it. So the operator will flip it to the retard position to start the machine, and once it is running, will flip it to the advance position.
I had a friend that used to have an old Panhead chopper that was running a Morris mag. One wintery Saturday nite we were partying into the wee hours of the morning (where does the time go?) when he starts bragging on how reliable his old pan is. As time goes by the brag gets bigger and he has everybody going on how his old pan will fire on the first kick every time. By this time, it had been sleeting off and on outside for about 6 hrs, and we had all been there for about nine. So we immeadiately start tellin him how full of it we think he really is when he invites us all outside to prove it. Naturaly we took him up on it so we could watch him break a sweat jumpin' up and down on the kickstarter.
We all get outside and it's colder'n a witches tit in a brass bra. There's ice on top of the gas tank an seat. We're all starting to snicker already when ol' Sam breaks the throttle loose from the ice and turns on the gas. Then he sticks this little key in the side of his magneto and turns it on, then flips it into the retard position. He gave the throttle about 3 twists and set the choke on full. He flipped the kickstart pedal out and spun the engine over till he brought one of the cylinders up on the compression stroke. He paused just long enough to grin at us, and jumped down on the kicker. We were all set to start laughin'and givin him hard time, but that old panhead roared to life. Our chins dropped down to about knee level, and if Sam's grin hadda got any bigger, I think the top of his head woulda fell off. After much crow eating by the rest of us, Sam said he attributed it mostly to the magneto. Made a believer out of us.
There are 2 main brand names of magnetos that have been popular with Harley riders for a long time. They would be Joe Hunt and Morris magnetos. Both now offer an auto advance mechanism. How about that. No more reaching down to retard yer timing so ya can kickstart the bike with out going over the handlebars. Both manufacturers have been around for a long time. The Joe Hunt name is well known on the racetracks for both cars and bikes. Morris is known mostly among motorcycle riders/racers. Morris mags have a spring that winds up under the drive to set the fixed permanent magnet generator that lets the rotor spin faster to deliver the spark no matter how slow yer engine spins. Both would seemingly guarantee that you get spark to your combustion chamber on demand.
If you choose to get a magneto, installation can be very tricky. Unless you're having it installed professionally, it is imperative that you follow instructions to a tee. Once your timing is set then it's only a matter of regular maintenance with keeping the point gap set and regular tuneups. If I ever get a Twin Cam 88, I'l probably run a morris mag, simply because I like to keep things basic. I do not like the idea of having a machine that can (and probably will) break down and I can't repair it on the side of the road. That's it for now, and as always, feel free to e-mail me with any questions. In the meantime, Y'all ride free....~Suds back to top of page
Chrome Don’t Get Ya Home
I met this guy named “ Chrome Whore”. His bike has just about everything imaginable chromed except for his engine. Don’t get me wrong, he does have a dam good looking ride and she sounds as good as she looks. One night he couldn’t get her started because of a bad battery, and me being the smart-ass that I am, I couldn’t resist quoting that old adage, “chrome don’t get ya home” bro. To which he retorted, “Yeah, but it will get ya laid”.
Personally I’ve never needed chrome to get laid, but that brings me to some trial and error experiences I’ve seen with fancy chrome bolt on goodies. Nowadays you can get just about anything chromed ya want off the shelf for yer bike. Take for instance them cool looking coil covers.
Even the stock rectangular one will give ya problems sooner or later. After a few times of not mattering how many times I repositioned it and retightened the bolts, it always wound up back to where it was shorting out my ignition wires at a certain RPM range where the most vibration occurred (Usually, during heavy acceleration). I even tried lining the dam thing with everything with everything from a cut up piece of inner tube to several layers of electrical tape. Frustrated to no end, I finally made a dam fine ash tray outta mine.
Guess I’m more into “Go” than “show”, because I like to ride my bike more than 80 miles away from home, and I like to have easy access to essential components that make my engine fire correctly.
There are a lot of chrome goodies that look good and won’t effect the possibilities of a breakdown or misfire, so if you’re into that scene, don’t let me discourage you. There may even be a chrome coil cover out there that won’t cause ya any grief, but I’ve never found one, especially if ya ride frequently in the rain. If ya live in Texas and ride every day, that is inevitable (Which reminds me, Anybody got any pontoons for sale?).
The most recent go-around I’ve had with chrome gadget was on a bro of mines scoot. He had one of them chromed billet aluminum stator wire retainers on his FXR. It seems that the bolt-hole had wallowed out over time, and while the bolt seemed tight (it was actually bottomed out in the hole), it just sat there on top of the connector and looked good.
He was on his way back to Dallas from Austin, when his headlight went dim and his engine started blappin’ out. He thought his stator was out, so he found a shop that replaced his old one. This got him back home, but a couple of days later, the same thing started happening. I guess this was enough time for the new plug to wallow out and start losin’ contact.
He brought the bike to me, and after reading his voltage output with a meter, experience taught me to take nothing for granted even if it was new. After some tinkering and wiggling of wires my voltmeter suddenly jumped in the output reading and I realized that it was a bad connection.
Further inspection revealed the problem with the loose retainer. The bike shop mechanic should have found this problem, but could have been fooled by the bolt appearing to be tight because it bottomed out in the hole. We wound up making one out of a chrome (yes, I said chrome) wire fuel line guide. It worked just dandy, along with a good coat of Dielectric grease on the terminals. I highly recommend this silicone based substance on any electrical connection that is prone to moisture. It may take a couple of times plugging and unplugging, but when it does make contact, you can rest assured that it will keep on making contact.
See y’all in the wind, and keep the rubber side down…~Suds back to top of page
Bad Bearing Boogie
Nothing like a tranny bearing siezing up to ruin a good ride, not to mention a good pair of jeans. Fortunately for my bro Phil, the bad tranny bearing was discovered before any dammage was done to body or bike.
Phil was riding '85 Softail custom a couple of days ago when he started hearing a whining noise that wasn't normal. He says he thought it was his rear belt drive whistling. He stoped to check his belt tension, and when he pushed in on his rear belt, he heard a clunk and had way too much slack. This indicated that his output shaft bearings had gone south.
Phil is a fair wrench himself, but he only has one arm left (Had a head on while riding his old pan). He doesn't like to ask for help, but when he needs a hand, he means just that, so let the games begin.
Lots of stuff had to come off. Exhaust system, inner and outter primary covers, oil tank, starter, etc.... before we could even get to the tranny. All work on it was performed with the tranny case still bolted to the bike.
Once the drive pulley was removed, it was fairly simple to tear down (especially compared to an old ratchet top). The top cover had to come off first, then the grooved drum assembly. It was only 4 bolts. then all we did was take the side trap door loose. Then we were able to tap on the main shaft to drive it through the main output shaft.
There is a race that rides inside of the bearing that is mounted inside the inner primary cover. This one was as stubborn as a mule. we used a propane torch to warm it up just enough to swell slightly. even so, I had to get a bigger hammer to drive the maim shaft out.
The gear cluster and shaft came out as an assembly attached to the drap door. Then we were able to remove the main output shaft. Then we found the problem. The main bearing that the output shaft rides in had a plastic retainer that keeps all of those ball bearings spaced evenly apart.
This had backed out of the bearing, which allowed all of the ball bearings to fall over to one side of the race. Since this caused a loose-tight-loose-tight operation, it also caused the inner needle roller bearings inside of the output shaft to wear out prematurely.
New bearings were installed, and the reassembly was just pretty much the same as disassmbly, only reversed. There is a massive intermal snap-ring that holds the main bearing in place that will add a few choice words to your vocabulary after about the 3rd attempt to put it back in ti's place.
Careful attention must be placed as to the position of the race that rides inside the carrier bearing for the mainshaft. It's easy to bottom it out, but there is supposed to be a gap of approxamately 0.099" between it and the main output shaft. These two shafts rotate at divverent speeds, and if the race touches it there will be heat causing friction. Also, it will not ride inside the carrier bearing correctly.
If you bottom it out, don't freak out. All that needs to be done is to loosen the trap door screws and drive the main shaft through, just like you did when you were tearing the tranny down. Pay attention, and only move it just enough to place it where it belongs.
While everything was apart, it was an opportune time to take care of a few other maintenance problems that were put off because of having to remove the oil tank to get at. Phil now has a neutral light again.
After the bike was completely reassembled and adjusted, it was time for a test ride. The grin that phill came back with waid it all. No more noises, and it even shifted smoother.
If This collumn helps someone to tackle a problem they're experiencing with their own bike, or If you just enjoy reading it, we'd love to hear about it. I can be reached via e-mail at sudsnbutterfly@aol.com or Skunk can relay the message. In the meantime, Keep the rubber side down...~Suds back to top of page
Keepin Yer Spokes In Tune
If you’ve ever heard the term “ Tuning Spokes”, it’s no myth. It’s as simple as tapping a wrench on each individual spoke and listening to the tone it emits. They all should be fairly close, so it you should happen across one that sounds dead, it’s too loose. It one sounds too much higher than the others, it’s too tight. It left unattended, this could cause your rim to warp.
I usually check mine after I’ve been on a long haul down some less than desirable roadways that lurk in most every state. I actually like these type of highways because they usually offer the best scenery. If I’ve just been doing everyday riding, I usually check them monthly or right before a weekend run. Word of warning, If you live in the city and like to do heavy acceleration after the light turns green, then you need to pay closer attention to your rear wheel. Heavy acceleration on a regular basis puts a pretty good strain on your spokes and could loosen because of stretching. People who run mags don’t have this problem.
The other day a friend of mine named Big Kid sent me an article and asked me to share it with y’all. It’s pretty important safety-wise, so please read it and share it. Chances are, even if you don’t run spoke wheels, chances are, you know someone who does.
From Big Kid (Gryphons MC & DFW C.O.C.) - bigkid@airmail.net
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 7, 2003
"SuperSpoke" Trade-Up Program
In September of 2002, American Wire Wheel, Inc out of Denton, TX sold off its assets and we purchased some of those assets. The new motorcycle wheel line now goes by the name American Wire Wheel, LLC of Dayton, OH and we are currently in production of 80 and 100 spoke custom spoke laced motorcycle wheels.
The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) began a preliminary investigation into the "SuperSpoke" wheel design (built by American Wire Wheel, Inc of Denton, TX) in October of 2002. The case has now been closed with no official declaration of defect, or mandated recall by the actual manufacturer.
Although we are very concerned about this issue, please note that we did not build the "SuperSpoke" wheels, we did not sell the "SuperSpoke" wheels, and we will not be building wheels using this design in the future. Furthermore, we will not perform repair services on "SuperSpoke" wheels.
Please e-mail inquiries to info@americanwire.com regarding orders and questions.
That’s all for this month. If you have any questions about what keeps your Hawg runnin’, you can email me at sudsnbuttrfly@aol.com . In the meantime, keep the rubber side down. ~Suds back to top of page
Getting Mixed Signals
I’ve been working on a bros scooter for the last few weeks. It’s coming along great. Lots of hand-made custom parts. Had to do alot of re-wiring and such. Anyways, we’ve been hearin’ about how much more durable LED lights are as compared to standard incandescent bulbs.
Once I tried one of them dual stage LED bulbs that fit into the stock taillight socket. I immediately removed it because it wasn’t bright at all. I had mixed feelings about them every since, because I’d seen some of the LED taillights that were LED all the way across the taillight and it seemed plenty bright.
To get more to the point, my bro, “Guardrail” decides to score some of them billet mirrors with the LED running/turn signal built right in. Good looking too. Seemed simple enough to wire. Three wires coming from each of them. The ground wire was obvious, so it was just a matter of hookin’ up the other 2 one at a time to see which one was brighter than the other. Simple… The white one was the running light (dimmer), and the red one was the signal (brighter).
Solderin’ iron in hand, I went to work. The stock wire cable sheath is a gray color, and didn’t go with the theme, since everything else was black. Thanks to a little invention called shrink tubing, that situation was quickly remedied.
Soon, everything was soldered in place and a new light duty flasher was installed. Test time. The key on and turn signal button pushed, the rear one lit up. The front one however, disappeared. After lots of head scratchin, I busted out the trusted voltmeter and started tracing wires. Got juice all the way to the LED lights. Ground wires checked good too. More head scratchin.
Next thing I tried was a last resort. Since this is a ’84 Ironhead Sporty, the stock wiring system allows both turn signals to be activated at the same time. ( WARNING: If ya have a weak flasher with the stock turn signals, you could blow the little contacts inside of it). There you have it, the flasher started makin all 4 lights flash. Simple, (we thought) we need a lighter duty flasher.
Research…Well whadayaknow…we already got the lightest duty flasher made. More research, more head scratchin’, a few choice words…Aha..
Jira Parts catalog to the rescue…It seems that there is this little electronic device that’s called a voltage equalizer. Time to call it a night.
Next day, Guardrail comes up with one of these little devices, included was a wiring diagram that anyone could understand. Apparently this device increases the load by creating enough resistance to ground to fool the flasher into thinking it’s still got regular bulbs wired into it’s system. Worked like a charm.
This one had 3 wires. The black one was to be connected to ground. The brown one was for the right turn signal, and the purple (violet) wire was for the left turn signal. It came with the necessary terminals to wire it in, so a crimp tool was needed to finalize the installation. The diagram showed to connect the black wire to the negative battery post, but I just hooked it up to the nearest ¼” bolt anchored to the frame. Next, I used the little splice connectors to connect to the wires feeding the rear turn signals.
Hope this helps anybody that was planning on switchin over to LED turn signals. Any questions about keeping yer hawg runnin, I can be reached via email at SudsnButtrfly@aol.com.
I had a bro e-mail me last week looking for a set of Shovelheads, or a rear one for a ’79 80 incher. Curiosity got the better of me as I used to own a ’79 FLH. Mine dropped a valve in the rear cylinder one evening on the way home from an A.B.A.T.E. meeting. Trashed the piston and trashed the head, not to mention scatterin aluminum pieces throughout my lower case and timed breather. Naturally I assumed that he’d done the same, so I e-mailed him to see if this was indeed the case. I wasn’t even in the ballpark.
It turns out that he was experiencing a common problem that pretty much all aluminum heads with the 5-bolt pattern are susceptible to. This would be where the combusted gasses eat away at a weak spot in the castings. This could start with a low spot where the head was dropped or something dropped on it causing a ding. It doesn’t look like it’ll hurt anything, so most people will slap the head on anyway with new gaskets.
New gaskets will seal and your bike will run, but someday you’ll be riding along and all of a sudden lose power in a cylinder. Ya think, “Oh well, gotta go buy some new gaskets. Time to fix that oil leak anyways”. Then when ya get her torn down and inspect yer heads, ya notice there’s a little trail of missing metal.
Another baffling symptom (experience talkin’here) is after doin’ a top end on yer Shovel and everything is running like clockwork when all of a sudden ya start losing power like somebody just shoved a potato up each drag pipe. Ya pull over and she’s idling great. Ya check her out, rev the engine a couple of times and get back on the road. The power band seems all right until ya just get into top gear, then she starts bogging down again. No misfire, no backfire, just power loss.
By this time, yer brain is really puzzled. Ya start thinking ya ain’t got no oil pressure, or ya must be running outta fuel in the carbs bowl. Maybe yer tranny’s got a bearing getting hot and trying to seize up. Ya check all of this stuff out after pulling over a few more times, and ya just keep coming up even more befuddled than before.
The culprit, as it turns out is a pathway eaten out of yer head and gasket over to the oil drain passage. What happens is the combusted gasses bleed over and down yer oil drain passage and into the crankcase, thus creating more pressure than your timed breather can deal with. This means that even though ya got an explosion pushin’ yer piston down, ya also got pressure on the bottom side that is being compressed at the same time. Kinda like yer engine is working against itself.
Preventive measures to take are to always look at your heads on a flat surface such as a piece of glass windowpane or a mirror. With a light on the other side you need to rotate the head around and look for gaps where the light is shining through. If it is, then you have an uneven head on yer hands.
IF this is indeed the case, some machining is required to make the head surface flat again. Since Shovels and Pans have a lip where the cylinder wall sticks up, then the recess in the head needs to be deepened too. This will ensure a good seal when the head is installed and properly torqued.
Now, back to the other problem. If the erosion is too deep to mill out within just a few thousands of an inch, then it will probably need built up via welding., then machined back down. A lot of people are scared of aluminum, but anybody with a wire welder that has a spool gun attachment and a bottle of pure Argon gas should be able to weld it back up with ease.
One of the main tricks is to have some clean aluminum for the new aluminum to stick to. The best way I’ve found to do this is to use a high-speed air tool called a Die-grinder. Use a good carbide burr in it and whittle away at the corroded aluminum until shiny comes up. Then it’s good to weld. This can also be done with a TIG welder, but a spool gun is a little more forgiving, as it’s feeding new metal in as it melts into the clean metal.
Aluminum is only compatible with aluminum unless it’s in an alloy. Therefore, all ya have to do is thread in an old head-bolt, and the aluminum won’t stick to it, nor will any misguided beads fall down in yer threads. Once this is done, then it’s pretty much the same machining procedure as was mentioned earlier.
The final topic of this article is the head gaskets. First off while I’m thinking about it, you need to consider all of the things involved in getting a good seal. There is also the lip on the cylinder wall I mentioned earlier. If there is a good portion of this missing also, there could be a problem. The best solution I’ve found is to use head gaskets with a “fire ring”.
This is a gasket with a metal band outlining the inside hole. This acts as an extra barrier to stop gasses from eating away at the sealing surface of yer head. The head must be torqued evenly using the star pattern, and torqued to specs. DO NOT forget to re-torque after the initial warm-up on a fresh top end job any time.
The bonus side to shaving yer heads is that it boosts yer compression ratio slightly. The downside is that you may have to increase the octane of yer fuel grade. Another possible is that you may have to worry about valve/piston clearance if you have a high lift cam or a progressive rocker arm ratio.
Hope this helps somebody save some of them old heads, not to mention a few bucks down the road. If ya have any questions about what’s ailin yer scoot, feel free to contact Skunk at Skunk Dots to get a message to me, or ya can e-mail me direct at sudsnbuttrfly@aol.com . Keep the rubber side down…~Suds back to top of page
The Trouble With Tappets
To start off with, the word “tappets” is an old automotive term that refers to the rocker arms and lifters. I can only speculate, but perhaps it has to do with the tapping sound they make when your engine is running. At any rate, if ya have solid lifters, they have to be adjusted every so often. I’m gonna pick mainly on Iron Head Sporty’s this time around mainly because my youngest brother rides one.
The other day I was working on another bros Sporty when my brother dropped by on his ’76 Iron Head. Normally his bike sounds pretty sweet with the fishtails he runs over drag pipes, but this time it sounded like a Briggs & Stratton with a piece of ¾” pipe in place of the muffler. Not good.
He said that he wanted me to look at his points and set them and dial in his carb. No prob, I told him to pop off the cover while I finished up something I was doin’ on the other bike. When I got a look at them, I could see there was quite a bit of metal transfer on his contacts. “Metal transfer” is what occurs over a period of use when your points arc as they open, meaning that some of the metal from one side of the contacts breaks loose from one side and welds to the other side. That’s how you end up with a pit on one contact and a small mountain on the other.
They were still sparking, so I tried to open up the gap to see if I could get his front cylinder hitting again. They were adjusted all the way, and were barely opening. I told him to get down to Auto Zone immediately and ask for a set of points for a ’66 Chevy Nova with a 235 6 cylinder, and to make sure the points had the little grease pill in the box.
Points installed and carb adjusted, it still wouldn’t hit on the front cylinder at idle. I asked him when was the last time he’d adjusted his valves, and he shrugged his shoulders saying, “I haven’t touched them for a long time, ‘cause they’ve been quiet. I told him to go home and put the back wheel in the air and check them valves. About an hour later, he came puttin’ up the drive way soundin’ like he was on different bike than the one he left on. I readjusted the carb and she was thumpin out that sweet rhythm again.
The thing about early Iron Heads is that they weren’t designed for unleaded fuel. Back in their day, they relied on the lead film to provide a cushion film on the valves and seats. Since the heads are made out of cast iron, there are no hardened seats for the valves to seal against. So, that being said, If ya figure that every valve in yer engine opens and shuts once for every 2 revolutions, well, ya don’t have to be a Rocket scientist to figure that them babies open and slam shut a helluva lot of times in a single minute at highway speeds.
The valve to literally beat itself in deeper. That is until all of the available slack is gone in the valve train (cams, lifters, pushrods, rocker arms, valves stem). This will allow the valve to remain open slightly instead of seating off and sealing the combustion chamber on the compression stroke. Why it will fire at a higher rpm than idle is because the compression doesn’t have time to escape. If left unattended, the valve seat will start to pit and burn (otherwise known as a burned valve).
Keeping your valves adjusted (solid lifters) is a fairly simple task. I usually have two ½” open-end wrenches and a 7/16” open-end wrench to do the adjustment. The easiest way is to remove the spark plugs, jack the back wheel off the ground, and put the tranny in high gear. This way you can spin the engine over by turning the back wheel. The next step is to pop the keepers off of the pushrod tubes. Slide the bottom upwards toward the head and clip a clothes hanger on the pushrod under the tube. This will hold it up so you can watch the pushrod action.
It doesn’t matter whether you start with the intakes or the exhausts, but do both of each before you go to the other. Just for the sake of argument, I’m gonna tell ya about the exhaust valves first.
For you beginners out there, the exhaust valves on a Harley V-twin are the outer most valves (closest to the exhaust pipes). The intakes are the inner most two (closest to the carburetor). Anyways, back to the task at hand.
Rotate the rear wheel and make the engine spin in the same direction as it would if you were out riding her. Watch both pushrods and pay attention to whichever one goes up. When it seems like it’s all the way up, stop. Then grab the opposite pushrod and try to spin it with your thumb and forefinger. It should spin free with no up and down movement. If it doesn’t, loosen the locknut and adjust the stem accordingly. Then repeat the process for the other valves.
The reason for adjusting valves in this manner, is that if one valve is all the way open (pushrod up), then the other should be all the way closed. At the very least, your valve adjustment should be checked every time you do a tune-up. By the way, use the same procedure on big twins with solid lifters. Hydraulic lifter adjustment is a whole ‘nuther cam of worms. Hope this helps keep yer hawg makin’ that sweet music. Keep the Rubber side Down…~Suds back to top of page
Bad Battery Blues
There’s nothing like jumping on yer scoot ready for a day of fun and riding and yer starter solenoid starts rattling like one of them wind-up monkeys with a snare drum. Yup, battery’s dead. It could just be a loose connection, but more’n likely it’s a bad battery.
Now, even though I’ve never gotten more’n a couple of years of service out of a Lead/Acid battery, like they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That being said, the first thing that is imperative to a healthy battery is having enough electrolyte acid to cover the top of the plates. Electrolite Acid is cheap enough, and you can pick a small container up at yer local Auto-Zone or O’rileys parts store. If ya ain’t got the money for acid, at least add distilled water. DO NOT use tap water. Tap water is full of minerals which are conductors of electricity. This could cause your battery to short out internally between cells.
I was recently talking with a friend of mine that thought he had charging system problems. At low rpm his charging system was putting out 13-14 volts, but as soon as the rpm went above 1500, the voltage output would drop below 11 volts. He replaced everything from stator to regulator a couple of times , and even bought a complete kit from Spyke. Same story. It was by accident, or lack of anything else to do, that he changed the battery, and it solved his problem. As it turns out, this was a freak thing that was causing a short between 2 cells when the charge rate was more constant with the higher rpm. Go figure.
Back in the Day, there was only the lead/acid type of battery, of course there was also 6volt and 12volt. Nowadays, everything is pretty much 12volt. Modern batteries range from Sealed Lead/Acid, Sealed Gel, and even Dry Cell. I guess if they can do that with coffee (Latte??), Why not batteries. If you happen to have one of these types of batteries, then ya just have to replace the battery when it goes bad. Oh yeah, these also have designer type price tags to go with them.
Personally I like things I can keep an eye on and cheap, just not cheaply made. Some of the better brand names I have had good luck with is Yuasa, Interstate, and Sears Die Hard. Interstate used to be made by Yuasa, but it just didn’t have as much lead on the plates as the one that carried their name. Still a good battery though. I like the Sears Die Hard, because the warranty is good at any Sears store in the continental U.S.
Once I was on my way back from CA and battery decided to develop a dead cell in AZ. I stopped off at the Sears store in Flagstaff and showed them my warranty papers. They didn’t have one in stock, and said it would be there the next day. I asked the guy where it was being shipped from, and he said Albuquerque, NM. I told him to get back on that phone and tell the guy to acid it up and put it on charge, that I’d bee there around noon the next day. The guy confirmed that it would be done, and the next day I rolled into the Sears store of Albuquerque and got my new battery. Because of the fact that I had saved them a shipping charge, they pro-rated it 100% (free).
Anyways, I prefer a battery that has been stored dry and isn’t filled and charged till the day I’m gonna install it. Lead/Acid batteries seem to lose some of their life if they’ve been sitting on the shelf for awhile after being filled and charged.
Charging a battery, new or old should never be done at a rate of over 2 amps, or this will also shorten the life. While a newly filled battery will appear fully charged and usually will start your bike, it isn’t. Running a battery in this condition will shorten the life also. While your bike’s charging system is designed to run all of your electrical goodies and maintain the battery, it isn’t like a car alternator and will not do a good job of fully charging a new battery.
Like I said earlier, the most important thing is the acid level to be maintained. There are a few other important things to keep on top of also. Connections at the battery and cable ends must be kept clean and tight. It also helps to keep your bike well tuned and capable of quick starts. Good connections are also important inside yer starter solenoid. Bad contacts can cause a high amperage draw. Ever spin yer engine over a bunch of times and it won’t fire, then when ya give up and let off of the button and she roars to life? That’s because it takes a minimum of 9Volts to fire the ignition coil, and the starter is drawing too much voltage away to fire the coil. Then when you let off of the button the voltage is restored to the coil and the engine is spinning fast enough to fire. This also will occur if your starter brushes are too worn down.
Now I’m gonna turn ya on to one of the best investments I’ve ever made. It’s a little booster pack I bought at one of them auto parts stores. It has a battery-pack that puts out a lot of cranking amps and all ya have to do is plug it into an extension cord and a wall outlet to keep it charged. It’s got short jumper cables and a cigarette lighter socket so ya can charge yer cell phone or run something else that requires 12 volts DC power. Most of the time, The seat doesn’t have to be removed, you just need to have access to the battery side of your starter solenoid, then ground the other cable to the passenger peg or something. Y’all keep it running, stay safe and ride free…~Suds back to top of page
Keepin' Yer Cables Able
There ain’t nothing like getting all set to ride to work and some malfunction prevents you from getting to do just that. Then it’s #@*%$#. Now I gotta go see if the cage is gonna start. Then ya realize yer overdressed for drivin’ a cage. So it’s off with the leathers (heater works in the cage). All day long, yer mind keeps wandering to the problem with yer scoot. Especially when every time ya poke yer head outside, there ain’t nothing but sunshine.
This scenario happened to me just the other day. In my case, I fired the scoot up to warm up and my throttle hung ½ way open. The engine was screaming bloody murder, and even though I shut her down quick, my neighbors don’t share the same affection for straight fishtails as I do. The moral of this story is if ya wanna ride, ya gotta keep yer cables able to perform their job.
In my case, the cable broke inside and unraveled. Then when cracked the throttle open it wadded up inside the sheath and stuck. Unlike most newer Harleys, I don’t have one of them fancy RETURN cables. I had a spare on the garage wall, so I didn’t have to worry about getting offa work in time to go get another. It pays to keep spares. When I got the old one off, I also noticed that in the bend of the steel elbow, the cable was starting to wear through the top of it too. I’m just glad it happened in my garage instead of out on the road. It can get pretty hairy hangin on in one of them cloverleaf turns to get on the freeway with yer throttle stuck wide open (that’s another story).
Now cables is cables in the sense of they’re made of braided steel wire and slide in and out through an outer sheath which comes in a variety of construction.(with the exception of speedo and tach cables). Motorcycles in general have two basic functioning cables, being the throttle cable/s and the clutch cable. A lot of carbureted models have a choke cable, and some bikes (usually older models) have at least one brake cable.
At any rate, most cables (even speedo & tach cables) don’t have a vinyl or Teflon liner, so they require periodic lubrication for ease of function and longevity. A lot of people are under the illusion that WD-40 is good for any application. Not so. It has its purpose, but it doesn’t stay in place on cables for very long. Especially if you frequent high pressure carwashes and spray your entire engine with that degreaser.
The best cable lube that I’ve found is one with a dry molly based chain/cable lube. Bardahls is the brand I use. There are special adapters that can be purchased to force the lube down the cable, but good ol’ gravity works just fine for me. All ya gotta do is unfasten the high end and hole it with a grease rag wrapped around it and start squirting the lube into the hole around the inner cable. Then when that disappears, repeat the process a few times until ya think you have enough in there to have bled down to the low point.
Now the newer Harley clutch cables have a Teflon liner and don’t have much of a problem with needing frequent lubrication. However, the part that is exposed to the elements which is between the sheath and the clutch lever does need something to keep it preserved (if you will). This will help keep it from fraying prematurely up at that end. Another tip is to make sure that the Teflon bushings for the pivot cable end is in good shape, and that the cable end rotates freely inside it. If it doesn’t, you will probably hear it “popping” as you squeeze in the clutch. This little impact will cause the cable to fray up there faster than anything I can think of (not including hacksaws etc…for some of y’all smart-asses out there).
For all you classic Triumph riders on them beautiful vertical twins (not pre-units), I’m gonna share a little trick I discovered. In case ya haven’t gotten curious on your own and already figured it out, a late style Harley 5-speed clutch cable will screw right into the top of the tranny cover and the little ball will work in the fork of the clutch arm. The only thing is, ya have to run a Harley clutch lever, which was cool with me, ‘cause I run one-inch instead of seven-eighths handlebars on mine.
I hope y’all have lots of trouble free ridin’, and you usually will with a little maintenance. Till next month…~Suds
Nothing will ruin a good time like you’re rubber band breaking half way through your ride. Here are a few tips on maintenance for belts and pulleys.
First off, the rear belt isn’t actually a belt as in fan belt. It is a poly-chain; therefore you tighten it like a chain and not like a fan belt. The specification book calls for about 1/4-inch to 3/8-inch travel with about 10 ft-lbs of upward pressure from the bottom side of the belt. The ft-lb tensioning device also has to be fairly centralized between the front and rear pulleys. I noticed that the new twin-cam FL models have a little gauged window in the bottom belt guard that has notches to make this easy. Each notch is a 1/8-inch increment.
Things that can cause premature wear on belts are over tightening, sand, dirt, rocks etc. You guys that think it looks cool running an open rear belt are in for more headaches down the road, because that guard does a pretty good job of keeping most of the trash out from between the belt and rear pulley. We’ve had a pretty wet year in North Central Texas, and it kind of puts me in mind of a farmhouse I lived in during the early 90’s. It was a very monsoon season and the driveway was dirt. The bike was my only transportation so I rode to work and back in all kinds of weather. I would mud-dog that bike out of the driveway (about the length of 2 football fields) at 5:30 in the morning to head to work.
The point is, that even that stock bottom belt guard would only peel off only so much of that gumbo mud. Some of it got lodged it between my belt and pulleys. At first the mud would mash out evenly so I didn’t notice what was happening, but after the mud got hard-packed in the pulley teeth, some of it flew out, and some of it didn’t. It kind of felt like the tranny was stripping a gear with the back and forth jerking. You get the same sensation when some of the teeth start peeling loose from the inside of the belt, except that is more intermittent.
It was raining hard, so I rode it like that for the 48 miles to work. After work, I spent about 2hrs with a screwdriver digging out hard-packed mud from the teeth of both pulleys. After that, the belt only lasted a few more weeks. Changing the belt involves a helluva lot of work. Ya have to remove the inner and outer primary and either a shock on the drive side, of the centerpiece of the swing arm on softail models. I have it down to just around 4hrs on my ’88 Softail. Eventually I learned that the trick is to keep the back wheel spinning fast enough to keep the mud slung off of the rear wheel.
Another thing poly-chains don’t like is extreme cold weather. Like I said, I had to ride to work in all kinds of weather. It seems the when the temperature reached below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, the belt teeth would tend to get brittle. Then comes that intermittent jerking sensation that I spoke of earlier.
Running your belt too loose will also cause the pulley teeth to wear faster. Most aftermarket pulleys have hard chrome plating over the aluminum, and once that wears off, the softer aluminum wears even faster. All it takes is on piece of gravel getting embedded in the pulley to chip out some of the chrome, and from there, it’s going to progress faster.
Every time you change out your rear tire, you should always inspect the pulleys for wear, along with checking the brake pads and repacking the wheel bearings. Checking the pulleys is easy. First, visually inspect the pulley for anything obvious. Then feel the inside valleys of the teeth to see if a ridge is starting to form on the side where the belt is putting the most pressure on when your riding. If you can feel that it’s starting to wallow out a little, you can either change it out, or keep this in mind and keep a closer eye on it.
Inspect the belt to make sure there isn’t any debris embedded in the belt teeth. This will turn the belt into a kind of grindstone that will wear out the pulleys faster too. The front pulley is a little more difficult (ok, a lot more difficult) to inspect, but however you can get to it, the same procedure goes for it. Use the belt to rotate it.
When you get the rear tire mounted, it is imperative that the pulleys be aligned with each other. There is a margin of error, but if it isn’t relatively close, one side of the pulley will wear faster than the other. By the same token, you don’t want to sacrifice the tracking of your rear tire in relation to the front, because that is definitely more important.
By comparison, a rear belt drive is more vibration free and less maintenance than a chain. That being said, I feel it is important to say that chains stretch unevenly, and sprockets wear. The teeth will slope over like a circular saw blade, and wear down to a nub. I’ve seen people get all they could get out of them. Chains have the same enemies as a belt drive, but the one the chain has that a belt doesn’t, is a master link. Make sure that the open end of the clip on the master link is facing opposite of the direction of rotation. Nothing like flying down the freeway and your chain comes apart because the clip popped off after hitting the chain guard or something.
All for now, Stay safe and keep the rubber side down.. ~Suds
There’s nothing like rolling down the street with the wind in yer hair, listenin to the rumble of yer engine, but one look in yer rearview tells ya that you could contract with the city authorities to be a mosquito fogger. Since you don’t have wings, skywriting is out. Well now… so much for looking cool.
Let’s get to some causes and cures of these symptoms. First off, Let’s define the color of the smoke coming out of your exhaust pipes. If it’s black smoke, then yer problem is with your carburetor dumping more fuel in the engine than it can burn. Blue or white smoke indicates that your engine is burning oil. This can be due to several things.
Number one, you just may have too many miles on yer engine, but I can tell ya first hand that time takes more of a toll than miles do. A complete top end rebuild should cure the problem if this is the case, but be sure to check yer lower end out good before just doing a top end. If your bottom end is worn out too and you get the top end and compression back to where they belong, it could be too much stress on the bottom end. I don’t have to tell ya that the worse case scenario of this isn’t a pretty picture.
Number two; you may do a lot of bumper to fender traffic jams commuting back and forth to work. This is the biggest cause of premature engine wear. Air-cooled engines were just not designed to idle for prolonged periods of time without overheating. I’ve been in a few traffic jams, a couple of toy runs, and a parade that was stop-go-stop-go. During the parade, I thought my engine was going into nuclear meltdown. I could smell the gaskets cooking and every time I accelerated, it was pinging and knocking so bad, it sounded like somebody dropped a dime bag of marbles down my carb.
Replacing the valve guide seals and the top end gaskets can usually cure this. Since you have to remove the valve springs and keepers to replace the valve guide seals, you should always check the valve guides for wear and look at the valve stems for scoring or rough areas that could damage the valve guide or new seal. If excessive wear or scoring is present, this needs to be corrected before reassembly.
A friend of mine has an Iron Head Sporty and had the top end done by a shop. They had put Shovelhead valve guide seals over the valve guides. This caused no lubrication to get to his valve stems, and when his engine warmed up to operating temperature, the valves would stick open resulting in a loss of compression. When the engine cooled back down, it would run fine until it warmed up again. Tight valve guide tolerances on Iron Heads should be sufficient without seals.
Shovels and Evos however require seals. What happens is - if there is too much space between the valve stem and the valve guide and the seal… then when the cylinder is on the intake stroke, oil is sucked into the combustion chamber along with the fuel/air mixture. It takes a lot more heat to ignite oil than it does gasoline, but when it does ignite, it also burns hotter. This in itself could theoretically cause higher engine temperatures and piston meltdown. Therefore, I do NOT recommend using “anti-foul” adapters on yer sparkplugs.
Add this one to yer list of “don’ts” too…
I had a ’79 FLH that I did one of my first top ends on. I was tired of the oil leaks and decided I’d stop them good. I spread RTV black silicone on all of the gaskets from the cylinder base up. It stopped all the oil leaks all right, including the oil return passages in the cylinder. All the oil would pump up to the top in the rocker boxes and had no place else to go. Needless to say, I looked like that proverbial mosquito fogger I mentioned earlier. That crap also ended up in the filter screen for the lifters too. It was a mess that had to be completely taken back down to repair. Another lesson learned.
Last on the list is worn or broken rings, but that would cause enough other problems with the engine’s ability to run that smoking would merely be a side effect.
Till next time, Y’all be safe and keep the rubber side down. ~Suds
