Hmmm… My hair stylist is 5’9”, so extrapolating to my 6’2” frame, being even higher together with farther forward wouldn’t be great. Maybe—and this is if the ’62 doesn’t materialize—I could design a 7075-T6 cantilever that would mirror the seat tee I posted a photo of above. But it could extend farther back, so as to position the saddle in a similar position in a fore-aft dimension to where I’m sitting now…?

 

You could do that but may need heavier springs.

 

Yeah, maybe I should just lobby our city leaders to keep the roads in better repair...

 

The way most governments work, you'd have a better chance with the seat..

 

No kidding…

I am thinking perhaps my best bet would be to make the setup I’d pondered a while back. That is, attach the nose pivot of my existing Rich Phillips saddle’s sliding mount to the pogo stick’s ear. Somewhere, I have an email from Pacific Mike with a measurement of how much I need to leave intact so it won’t bottom out (but that’s unlikely as part of a three-point suspension.

Then, for the shimmy from those twin rear springs, I could maybe fashion some sleeve guides to prevent lateral movement that would somehow affix to my platform mount, shown here (springs shown are shorties that bottomed out on hard bumps). But I’d probably have to use different springs that didn’t have that tapered barrel shape. I guess they’d go inside the outer sleeve, which could be aluminum and polished.

I can see my kitchen remodel getting booted further down the road…

 

So, I am reminded by the below video of when I originally installed these S&S heads—well, that is, the second time, after the ‘ready to run’ heads seized and damaged the valves due to S&S reaming the guides too tightly at the bottom end of the spec.

Anyway, I had installed new Kibblewhite Black Diamond valves, recut the seats (the sealing angle was too narrow), reamed the exhaust guides farther out at roughly 60% of the way toward the loose end of the spec (intakes smack in the middle of the spec), and had no issues thereafter.

However - when installing the valve stem seals—which are high-quality James seals—I am 99% certain that I ensured what the guy talks about in the below video: namely, that they did not rest directly against the lower spring retainers, which should rotate freely. I had zero issues with oil fouling and deposits building up on the plugs for the 3,000+ miles on that top end.

At any rate, I am still getting significant oil into no. 1 cylinder, and as I said the PO reported that when driving behind me there was oil smoke coming out of the lower (no. 1) pipe—but not no. 2. I speculated that due to the oil starvation the bike had suffered, the front intake seal might have grabbed onto the bone dry stem and gotten lifted off the guide. I’m pretty sure that’s what happened at this point—but may go ahead and wait until the 500-mile oil change to pull the front head to investigate and correct that issue if confirmed upon inspection.

The only other possibilities are a bad head gasket and improperly installed oil control ring assembly. I have ruled out the head gasket because it’s a Cometic and is not leaking a drop (the oil return hole is outboard and downhill from the cylinder’s lip extending up into the head, and compression would force oil outward onto the cooling fins IMHO). I seriously doubt that the oil control ring assembly was improperly installed because I positioned the gaps methodically, double-checking the positioning on each cylinder. So, I’ll bet a cheeseburger that a displaced intake stem seal is the culprit here.

Really, this isn’t a big deal: a long morning and $40 for a pair of .040” Cometic head gaskets (unless I can buy one individually), and frankly the biggest thing making me not want to do the job is wrestling with the intake manifold seals (I’ve got extra rocker box seals). But if I run it for very long like this, the front combustion chamber is going to load up with baked-on oil deposits, and the bike will be harder to start due to oil on the plug. Right now, if I stick my finger into no. 1 muffler’s tip, my fingers come out like the Tar Baby: wet, black residue.

 

Hope you are right on the stem seal. If I were closer or going to be in your area I'd take you up on the burger, but just to sit down and visit with you.

Paul

 

I hope so, though even if it turned out that I fell into a narcoleptic stupor midway through installing no. 1 cylinder, and rotated the oil control assembly’s rings out of proper skewed alignment (right after I'd dialed them in), I’ll have another head gasket left over from the new set. So, I would be only looking at $2.00 for another James base gasket, a schmear of ultra gray, and yet another long morning R&Ring no. 1 cylinder…

Well, that’d be nice and I’d be happy to pay up. There are some really pleasant, sub-70 mph rides to excellent burger joints around here. Seems like most of the Harley riders in the area don’t appreciate these old bikes, if they even know what they are. So the hobby—as I experience it, anyway—is kind of monastic most days.

 

I’m trying out a regular old rubber kicker pedal. That brass job the PO had on her is pretty but kind of slippery. The rubber is more confidence-inspiring under my boot and seems well made. A little 3-in-1 on the bearing and she spins great.

I also sprung for one of those thumb wheel idle screws. It looks like it’s contacting the enrichener from this angle but no—just close. So close, in fact, that the screwdriver slot is useless, at least with this aftermarket style enrichener. But easy to turn with your fingers, so no biggie.

Cometic head gasket en route; found the James valve stem seals in my box ‘o parts. So, next week I hope to have eliminated the introduction of oil into no. 1 cylinder and finish racking up the 500 miles for the second oil change. Then, time to crack that throttle open a little!

 

FWIW - I found Johnjzjz’s post elsewhere from a decade ago re: shovelheads and adding valve stem seals (yes or no):


“...my take - 2 different guide seals were used on the early bike like yours, and it takes the .562 seal it comes in the short type made of tin with a teflon wiper - and a rubber type with an external spring to keep it round all its life -

"while i prefer the rubber seal you need to do some checking in both cases when using seals -- REASON -- rowe went out of business and that company made most of the guides and valve parts for lots of different company's in private label, and they had set the standard for seal height so the valve travel ( seal top to the lower center of the top retainer would not hit each other ) OEM harley guides were longer as was said and a seal install would damage the guide and the valve if not machined correctly - rowe fix that —

"Today the guides are all over the place in under the springs, the heights ( guide tops ) and must be checked not to damage what you have - and yes we install seals on everything as it extends the engine top end life 3 times over no seals NOTE - ( the carbon from the oil passing down the guide causes the seats to badly pit and the valve to chew itself and the valve guide bottoms up badly when it turns to burnt carbon and it does…” [bold font added]


I think what Johnjzjz says at the end (bolded) makes a lot of sense with these modernized, high-flow, early shovel-style S&S castings, which I believe had seals installed out of the box. Since I have to R&R the springs on no. 1 head to get at the seals, I’ll scrutinize the seats I had re-cut—though I’ve only got 260 miles on this refresh. So, seems unlikely that enough carbon has built up sufficiently to damage my fresh valve job—but we will see.

A fitment ‘note’ of my own. If memory serves, James # JGI-18000-48-10, first pic below, which The Usual Suspects call out for a ’66 Shovelhead, did not fit the guides in my S&S heads: their I.D. was too large to grab the guides and they just rotated loosely. Those look identical to what Cometic includes in its top end kit, and indeed all four of the latter are in the leftovers from when I repaired these ‘ready to run’ heads.

Also supporting this: I found an order confirmation email right around the time I did that work, which was for James # JGI-18001-83-A, second pic below. So, I’ve ordered a set of the latter just in case (and can always return them if wrong), so I won’t be dead in the water if my memory is correct—not something I’d bet a cheeseburger on, but... We’ll soon see.

Finally: I will for sure abide Johnjzjz’s warning re: clearance over the seal to the above video’s emphasis on clearance between it and the lower spring retainer. Essentially, I guess we don’t want any contact from either above or below.