Bought for parts!

Originally this Sportster was bought for parts in preperation of my first 75 Sportster rebuild!

As this Sportster was originally bought for parts. I didn't think it was necessary to transfer the title imediately and I never thought I would ever have to register it. And so I began to dismantle it and inventory the parts. Boy was this a BIG MISTAKE!

When I finally did go to the California DMV to transfer the title, I was told that:

1. A title transfer was supposed to be done within 10 days of the sale₁, (uh-oh), AND
2. To transfer the title required that the bike be checked by the California Highway Patrol which required that the bike be assembled!

Oh wonderful!

I could go into all of the reasons that make these 'requirements' absurd, but what's the point? The government is not interested.

As it truned out not many of the parts where needed to rebuild the first Sporty and those parts that were needed where often in too poor a condition to use. So what to do with this albatross?

It is clear that I will have to reassemble the bike before I deal with the government. So I decided to rebuild the bike but as a hardtail chopper.

This site is atempting to document the project.

Disassembly: Getting Started...

The bike actually ran when it arrived, but it was obvious that it had had a hard life and was in need of a lot of TLC if it were ever going to be an Ironhead again. As the bike was being dismantled, it became clear that it had been in a collision and the impact had been on the left front side of the frame. This was obvious because getting the engine out of the chassis was a difficult task. The front of the frame was out of alignment and was binding the front motor mount bolts so tightly that they had to be cut in the center (using an angle grinder) to relieve enough tension for the bolt pieces to be extracted.

Engine Inspection...what's that smell?

Once out and cracked open, the engine emitted a rotten smell as if it had been submerged in stagnant water for a time. The rear of the cases was covered in an oily gooey mess.

The crankshaft was removed and along with cylinders and heads were sent to teddcycle (V-Twin) contracted by Retrocycle for rebuild and valve job $$$!

Note: I may be a   stable genious   but I'm not stupid enough to try boring cylinders or doing a valve job myself.

The cylinders were bored with new pistons purchased.

The Cases...

Gear Case

      Gear Case Cover

Primary Case

The valve heads were not 'decked' the same and were made to match (wow, can't do that again).

Reassembled with new main bearings...

Rebuilding the Rocker Boxes

The rocker boxes on this engine were of poor quality and even after sanding and polishing them, the result was not what I was hoping for. The deep pitting and gouges were just too deep (click the images to get a better view).

Front

Rear

But they would have to do right?. Well when I began to rebuild them with new rocker arms and shafts I was suprised to find that the new rocker arms would not fit without some grinding on them! Something that I was not too keen on. I thought that maybe I had ordered the wrong rockers but I hadn't. I compaired the original rocker arms with the new ones but could not see any obvious differences. However, it seems that while a lot of parts claim to fit several years of Sportsters, many of them leave out the year 1975! So I began to think that this Sportster might have unusual boxes and decided to just replace them. Ha ha ha...

I found out that buying new rocker boxes was out of the question. All the vendors were 'out of stock' and 'Don't know when they will be avaible'. So down the eBay rabbit hole I go...

Replacing the Grossly Pitted Rocker Boxes

In an attempt to replace the rocker arms, I discovered that there are several, (ever so slight), differences in rocker arms (or boxes?) over the (vintage) years.

Every set of 71-85 rocker arms I bought failed to fit into my rocker covers! Especially the front exhaust.

I began to suspect that 1975 rocker arms or covers were somehow different than other years. Since the rocker covers were grossly pitted, I decided to buy replacements for the parts, #17514-71 (front) and #17515-71 (rear), listed in the HD parts catalog for 1954 to 1978 Sportsters. Having no luck finding any aftermarket replacements in stock anywhere, I began looking for OEM's on eBay...I should have known better than to trust anyone on eBay to know what they were selling...

I bought these covers (listed as Harley Ironhead 1000cc Rocker Boxes With Arms Set 17512-71 Used As Is) with the idea of testing the rocker arms for fit in my original grossly pitted covers. But what I got was another set of questions...

The pictures show that these two covers are NOT from the same vintage. It is hard to see in the photos, but the pictures of the rocker shafts show differences in the end cap and O-rings. Note the flat O-ring used on the front shafts (above or right) as opposed to the round O-ring for the rear shafts (below or left). What these pictures cannot show is that the diameter of the threaded ends of the front shafts are 1/16"(?) smaller than the rear shafts! Results from Googling the part number 17512-71 seem to indicate that this rocker cover is for 1972 Sportster. However my parts catalog (for 1954-1978 Sportsters) does not include that part number. Regardless, the front cover will not accept any other shaft in my possession.

So after a long pause I decided to take a chance and, (with fingers crossed), bore the shaft holes at the threaded ends of the box to fit the shafts that I have. While the shafts seem to fit well, only time will tell if this modification was successful...

After Polishing

After hours (and hours and hours) of filing, sanding, and polishing, I am ready to assemble the replacement rocker boxes!