My Sportster-Project

10-Finished!!!!!

2010-04-02T19:17:00.016+02:00

After working on the project and looking for new parts for so long, the bike came together surprisingly well and quick. Two minor problems with the electric were solved within a couple of days and the timing of the ignition had to be changed a little bit. Okay, this is the result of last winters project. I named it the "Black Witch Project". First reason is the very limited budget I worked on like in the movie "blair witch project". The second reason is the black colour scheme I painted the whole bike in:

09-Back to the bike

2010-02-28T17:01:00.010+01:00

After I carried the half complete engine to the bike (man, that thing is heavy!) I put it inside the frame and fixed it to the motor mounts. Forward controls were added and new pistons with pins, retainers and rings were installed as well.

The generator was also screwed to the crankcase

The freshly painted, bored and honed cylinders (oversize +0,050) were installed together with the paper gaskets on the bottom and the copper gaskets on top.

Looks nice, ehh?

After that the pre-installed cylinder heads were mounted to the cylinders.

08-There we go!

2010-02-28T15:26:00.013+01:00

Before I began putting main parts of the engine back together, I checked the starter motor. Since it was totally disassembled and the brushes were not labeled, I had to find out how to put them bac together. This is what I came up with:

I connected the main terminal to the Plus-Terminal of a battery and the Minus-Terminal of the battery to the housing of the starter motor. And ..... it started rotating!
The pins of the crankshaft bearings were still good, so I started putting the crankcases back together. Left side:

And the rigth side with new bearings:

To make it a little easier working on the engine I made an engine stand out of wood. Yeah, I know, it does not look professional. But I did not see why I should pay a lot of money on something that I could make myself. So I put the two parts of the crankcase back together:

The oil pump went in and the cam gears were put in. The gears are marked and there is only one right way to put them together. The marks on the gears all have to line up.

Switchin over to the other side, the clutch was put in, as well as the primary chain and the sprockets.

Finally the end shaft play of the cam gears was checked throught the holes for the push rods.

Then the starter went in as well as the drive chain sprocket

07-Detail work

2010-02-04T20:20:00.010+01:00

While I rewired the bike, I also took some notes to make myself a wiring schematic from my bike. The biggest piece of "paper" was a piece of wallpaper. That worked out just fine.

After that I started working on the flywheel assembly. Since I got new pistons, pistoin rings and connecting rods (with new weights), I figured balancing the flywheel assembly might be worth it. First step was to weigh everything that would be important to balance the flywheels. Second step was to calculate what would be rotating weight and what parts would be reciprocating weight. I decided to chose a balance factor of about 60% since I will not use that bike as a sports bike. Indians usually have much higher balance factors and sport bikes usually have smaller ones. This is the results I came up with from my calculations:

That would mean I need a bobweight of around 1673 g for balancing the flywheel. Since I do not have a lathe, I tried to find an easier way to get a bobweigth. I took a water bottle and some duct tape to get the desired weight.

The flywheel assembly would have to be mounted on an even edge with as little contact as possible. That would ensure the flywheel assembly to rotate without resistance.

After doing all this I worked on the flywheel until the flywheels stood still at any possible position.

The next step would be a check of the wear on the crankpin and the match of crankpin and new connecting rods. Again some math:

That meant that the rollers, the crankpin and the connecting rods would pretty much match each other, which was good.

06-Finally!!

2010-01-23T21:22:00.009+01:00

I finally got back the engine parts from sand-blasting. It took a while, but.... they do look a lot better than before. So I figure it was worth the while.

Now that I have to parts back (and no further excuse to not work on them) I might as well start to make them look good again.

The second half of the crankcase I brought to a Harley dealer to get the last part of the flywheels out, that is hydraulically pressed into the crankcase.

I also ordered the last major parts I need for the rebuild, a set of Hastings piston rings. I chose the ones with the hard-chrome on the edges. They are supposed to cause less friction and therefore less wear to the cylinder walls.

05-Little Steps

2009-10-19T21:26:00.001+02:00

Still waiting on my "friend" with the sandblasting. I guess he got sidetracked with his friends (or girlfriend?). Need to talk to him for one more time.

I used the spare time to get more parts. Except for the piston rings and some minor things and fluids, I pretty much have the needed parts together.

I also completely redid the electrical system. All the cables, connectors and the cable routing is new. It will be great to watch it working at the first start. Or it will be no fun at all if it does not work. Finding the mistake will not be a pleasure since all the new cables are black! :-)

The tank and the fenders got spray-painted in black. I chose to paint only part of the tank in black. The rest of it stayed as it was - dark purple metallic. I am not sure about this look. I might have to do some more painting. Also got some airbrush patterns. We will see - I have to think a little more about that.

Meanwhile my second bike (sports bike Yamaha FZR600R) had to go. You can see - I am still in a positive mood to get the sportster completed and runnig sometime in the near future. Otherwise there will be one more biker without a runnig bike in Germany!
It was fun driving the Yamaha for more than 15 years. Made it up to 245 km/h with that baby on the autobahn a couple of times, which is equivalent to a little more than 150 mph. But the last couple of years riding a sports bike would hurt my lower arms and hands.

04-Slow progress

2009-08-09T11:08:00.007+02:00

Currently I am waiting on a friend to do the sand blasting of the crankcase and cylinder heads. The parts are equipped with some wood in the areas where I do not want the sand blaster to do damage. I also decided to sandblast the cylinders as well although I am not sure to use them again. But once it is done, it is done.

The frame is almost entirely stripped down. Next thing to do is to think about a frame stand to make assembling a little easier.

While waiting on things I decided to start with electrics on the handlebars. I want to exchange the handlebar anyhow because it is not wide enough and does not feel good when sitting on the bike. So that will be my next task to be described in the next post.

03-Getting down to the problem

2009-07-02T21:08:00.007+02:00

Okay, here you can see more pictures. I now completely disassembled the whole engine to get down to the real problem. I took apart the flywheel assembly so I could get to the connecting rods. Does not look too bad. Now I need to start looking for spare parts.

When I took apart the transmission I noticed another damaged part. The main gear shaft of the third gear shows pitting and broken teeth. Well, add it to the list!

At least I now know what exactly is broken and that there is "only" these parts that need replacement. I think I touched every single screw of the engine. Better get to know them before I start putting it back together.

:-)

More Infos to come. The next couple of weeks (months?) I will probably be busy with cleaning parts and looking for spare parts. But I will get back to you - promised!!

02-The first two weeks

2009-06-25T21:27:00.009+02:00

This is how the bike looks after two weeks of dissassembling (an hour here and there in the evenings). I took out most of the engine. The electric cables, oil and brake lines are also taken apart. Cables are labeled so I later know where to put everything.

After taking apart more and more parts, I probably got down all the way to the initial failure for the breakdown. The hole for the bolt for the rear piston does not look good at all. That way the piston was most probably not working very accurate and the postion of the piston were not exact during operation.
.

The more or less "swimming" piston then hit the valves and the mess started. Here you can see how the valve hit the piston surface.

Not a good piston at all! The piston diameter is already 0,030 larger than standard (as well as the cylinders) so I am currently thinking about putting a bushing inside the cylinders to bring them back to the original diameter as well as getting some brand new pistons.

That is a pisture of one of the rocker arm shafts. As you can see part of the steel has just fallen off. That will need replacement as well.

After I did some more disassemling I figured out another surprise. The body and the gear shaft of the oil pump are broken big time. I wonder what the previous owner did to the motorcycle to break all these pieces at once!

Gear Shaft of oil pump. See the cracks and how it is bent? Unbelievable right?

01-Start of project - A piece of trash

2009-06-25T21:13:00.005+02:00

Exactly two weeks ago I bought this "project" to fill my spare time! :-)
I saw the bike on the Internet and called the guy to make an appointment. All I knew was that it had clean papers and an engine that was damaged quite a bit. When I got there, I decided that it was bad. But the price the owner was asking for was not too high, so I bought it.
The bike also had some nice extras like a Fat Bob tank, a wide glide fork as well as bigger tires than normal (which are still pretty narrow).