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"You can try annealing the copper washers as they were likely work hardened when stamped out."
Max Headflow, did just that. 12 hours now and still not leaking...finally...I hope. Not sure what is in the crush washers, but before turning bright red, they were on fire for a few.
And thanks for the info on the teflon washers. Gonna hang on to the info.
I would not be surprised if they had some sort of lacquer on them.. Come to think of it, the copper might have been rolled out to thickness before stamping. That would be another thing to make them hard.
I annell everything copper related on bike. Old habit from the brit days. Some flame flash isn't uncommon as max mentioned sheet copper sometimes gets a thin lacquer coat to keep the green at bay. Old gas does it too.
This reminds me of what this forum was like long ago. guys helping each other not like today where bitching about something is the priority.
I do not stray very often outside of the Panhead and Shovelhead sections of this forum. Have to say that for the most part, folks who post and offer advise in these two sections seem to have no attitudes and are very helpful.
Well after 25 years of silence, the 65 is actually a real motorcycle again. Couple weeks back Dan (Twizted) came down and we got the bike running. Got the heat cycles completed and no leaks. Only issue was that I could not get the bike to go smoothly into third gear. So, disassembled the gear box took out the 3+R and went back to the 4-speed. 'Course Murphy stepped in just because and the gasket leaked between the kicker cover and the case. Finally fixed that issue and then installed the NOS mufflers.
Only things left, paint tank badges, paint modified right side fiberglass bag (bags I am using are 66-69 smooth side type; couldn't bring myself to cutting up the right side bag on the indent type used on 63-65 Panhead), install hardware, and find some OEM floorboards that are in good shape. I had some aftermarket ones that looked pretty but found out quickly how ill-fit they were. Picked up some floorboard extensions from Strange Bird Products (nicely made). They worked fine with my OEM floorboards but would absolutely not work with the aftermarket ones. The moldings on the underside of the aftermarket ones were taller and sized differently so the brackets could not be installed. For now I have the OEM ones on the bike. Dixon AMCA meet is coming up in a couple of weeks so that is the main goal.
Couple of pics.
Floorboard bracket extensions from Strange Bird
Last edited by panz4ever; Jun 4, 2026 at 11:44 AM.
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