factory flywheel truing photos

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RooDog
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#16

Post by RooDog »

Those old time craftsmen, many of them from "the Old Country" didn't do things the fast way. Craftsmanship still meant something back then.
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#17

Post by Andygears »

So the crank pin nuts are fully torqued before trueing as consensus here? And side clearance on the rods? Checked before trueing? And if the nuts are tightened extra tight to get the side clearance within spec, so tight that the wheels no longer move when struck, what then?

The reason I question is when I have done wheels, it’s a progressive process, tighten, true, tighten, true, check side clearance, tighten, true till acceptable. I have used a light coat of grease under just the face of the nut, not the threads, in order to get acceptable side clearance by further nut torque. Then disassemble the nut, clean the faces and reassemble with the locks. Recheck in truing stand or lathe. Works for me.

Andygears
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#18

Post by RUBONE »

RooDog wrote: Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:54 pm Those old time craftsmen, many of them from "the Old Country" didn't do things the fast way. Craftsmanship still meant something back then.
Read Howard Wagner's "Harley Davidson Motorcycles 1903-1941, Revolutionary motorcycles and the men who rode them". It is still the definitive work on early H-D history.
Most accounts mention more German was spoken in the factory than English!
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#19

Post by Hubbard »

"Inside Harley Davidson" by Jerry Hatfield is a fine pc. of work too.
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#20

Post by Hubbard »

rubone,1903 or 1930?
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#21

Post by RUBONE »

Hubbard wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:33 am rubone,1903 or 1930?
1930
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#22

Post by RUBONE »

RUBONE wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:34 am
Hubbard wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:33 am rubone,1903 or 1930?
1930
And Herbert, not Howard. Howard is another milestone in the Antique MC culture. And an Indian guy ! :oops:
One of his other books "At the Creation" covers the early years. And H-D doesn't like him one bit!! But they don't like me either... :lol:
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#23

Post by Hubbard »

Just ordered it, thanks for the tip,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#24

Post by nifty »

No personal photos
All photos for early H-D service manuals showing truing stand and soft face hammer were taken in Factory, probably by Pohlmans Milwaukee.

All roller main bearing outboard cranks up to 6 cylinder in-line, were jig pressed then hand trued.

BMW pre 70 were all hand trued, 2 main bearing shafts and 2 crankpins which have to be in phase, fun!.

To true up press-fit Ducati roller cranks any kind of hammer is useless, one has to establish the hit point, raise complete crank way over one's head and slam it, hit-point down onto a solid steel block (I use a foot long piece of 6" round billet on a very strong concrete floor), before re-checking runout. Slamming onto a big ally billet has no effect except to ding the ally, thus absorbing some force which the crank laughs at. Wood splitter wedge and hydraulic press if you have to spread or squeeze. Brute force, but no ignorance.

Speedway cranks are similar, but not quite so hard to shift.

All Jap & euro roller crank singles are hand trued.

WW2 era radial engine cranks were hand trued, but with steel hammers only, the inspectors didn't care about bruised cranks, but they wanted to be very sure no chunks of mashed copper, or lead flew off & ended up inside an engine.

H-D factory assembly were still using truing stands on at least late shovels, one guy had a song & dance routine between whacks with his hammer, his cranks were way off, but they went into bikes...
Don't chase too much rod side clearance especially with cast iron wheels, rods a bit loose on the sides does no harm and is way better than a cracked wheel.
I have a H-D stand, but prefer narrow V stand up close to wheels with dial gauges on extreme ends of shafts (with precision sleeves on threads/splines etc) and no whacking in the stand.

Nifty
Last edited by nifty on Fri Sep 10, 2021 5:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#25

Post by RooDog »

Don't chase too much rod side clearance especially with cast iron wheels, rods a bit loose on the sides does no harm and is way better than a cracked wheel.
I have a H-D stand, but prefer narrow V stand up close to wheels with dial gauges on extreme ends of shafts (with precision sleeves on threads/splines etc) and no whacking in the stand.

Nifty
[/quote]
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#26

Post by Mongrel505558 »

RUBONE wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:02 am
RooDog wrote: Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:54 pm Those old time craftsmen, many of them from "the Old Country" didn't do things the fast way. Craftsmanship still meant something back then.
Read Howard Wagner's "Harley Davidson Motorcycles 1903-1941, Revolutionary motorcycles and the men who rode them". It is still the definitive work on early H-D history.
Most accounts mention more German was spoken in the factory than English!
Guild Guitars used to be made here in Rhode Island (in the town of Westerly). All of the workers were Italian. There were generations of them, and they put out fine quality hand crafted acoustic guitars. Italian was spoken pretty much exclusively on the shop floor there. I was lucky enough to get one of these guitars at a low price because I knew someone there and workers had first dibs at any guitars that didn't pass QC. This one had a slight blemish in the finish, which didn't affect the tone or playability at all.
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#27

Post by Mongrel505558 »

nifty wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 5:15 am one guy had a song & dance routine between whacks with his hammer, his cranks were way off, but they went into bikes...

Nifty
There's always one guy. I would have liked to have seen that (but wouldn't want one of his cranks).
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Re: factory flywheel truing photos

#28

Post by chuckthebeatertruck »

I build and true flywheels, often a few sets a year and for multiple makes.

It takes me a lot longer to balance wheels than it does to true them.

There is a MASSIVE difference between fresh, never together parts and rebuilding a used assembly. Used is a pita.

When fresh, the pinion and sprocket shafts almost always go dead nuts true at 100 foot pounds. They SHOULD do this and if they don't, there's more skill involved than whacking the shaft. Generally rim runout will be less than .001 straight off on each wheel half. This is also true of truett and Osborn wheels and S&S. Generally, the pinion side of the crank also aligns fast so you are only shifting the sprocket side for alignment.

If you use parallel channels and ground rods on the centering holes it is pretty easy to get a brand new assembly running true in minutes without significant splay. How fast? I've never spent more than 30 minutes. Used, 45 minutes. Most of that time is resetting the wheels in the lathe. With a truing stand, it's faster.

And, no, you don't hit the wheels in the stand. That was an old practice that kept appearing in the fsm. If you look at stands at swap meets, you'll see a lot of screwed up centers for this reason. It is much more efficient to support one wheel on a block and strike the other rim. Not to mention, if you damage the centers or your shaft centers, you'll never get an accurate measurement.

Also, if you don't mount your indicators at 90 degrees to pin, you induce challenges.

Splaying is generally pretty easy to deal with and super obvious. I just did a set of S&S stroker wheels and they were splayed. A quick nip in the vice and we ran true. It feels weird to nip them in the vice, but it works. Wedging is just as easy, but seems to require less force.

The other major thing you learn is how to seat tapers. Sounds silly, but often you can torque a fresh assembly, take a hollow drift to the od around the pin nut, and shift the entire assembly. Makes it real handy for correcting excessive rod side play, but also amazing if you've never seen it. So, as a matter of course I seat them right after rough assembly and it really cuts down the time. Not to mention the "shifting" mentioned by roodog is most often on used wheels and for this reason.

Like professional wheelsmiths, it was very easy for a factory worker to do an entire assembly in minutes. The more you do this work, the more you learn what to look for and how to fix it. It only seems a black art until you've done a dozen or so. After that, you fear not and get it done pretty quick.

As for pictures, yes, they exist. They are part of the harley archives and require some leg work via the Museum archivist, but can be found. I'm not aware of any in the internet.

Harley loved photo documentation.
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