Well ladies and gentlemen. . .It is time to introduce you to the 'new' ride. I was thinking about trading, lots of good people convinced me not to at least for the near term. I wanted to do some touring this summer and have the power to pass and pull mountains (hey, its Washington State after all).

I didn't do a running commentary on my build, it's all been done before so didn't see the need to cover old ground. There were some hiccups. The problems were all eventually worked through without too much drama and good lessons learned.

I broke a cam bearing extracting the rear bearing. I lost my mind searching for all the pieces but eventually satisfied myself that it wasn't in the engine. That was a lot of washing out, fishing, washing, fishing, inspecting, washing rinsing, repeating. . .you get the idea. I was taking pictures and kind of stopped at that point. So unfortunately, I didn’t get shots of the cam chest, cams, oil pump, support plate. I was just a little flummoxed by that stray piece of metal and all I could think about was not having to split the cases.

The most of the rest of the project was smooth. No one has inch pound torque wrenches for loan/rent and mine didn’t have the range required. Lowes had one, it worked fine. The new pistons had these new Kramloxx circlips on them. They were a PITA. The tool they provided is just enough to be almost useful but not enough to do the job by itself. The videos look easy, but these were the heavier clips. Not so much. The screwdriver form they show in the Kramloxx videos would have been much better. The FuelMoto instructional videos showed popsicle sticks to stuff the rings into the cylinders. I used chopsticks and bamboo bbq skewers. Same idea but longer and easier to hold onto. I replaced the head breather assemblies with the newest style and used the sponges from the James Gasket kit. I also drilled out the rocker arm support plate oil holes to .125. The gentleman who did my heads told me that he also goes in and reams out the oil passages under the valve spring to remove the casting flash that HD leaves in there. I’m pretty confident I’m not going to drip any oil out of my newly renovated breather by-pass. But it looks neat anyway.

I cycled it with no plugs until the oil pressure came up, checked the plugs installed them and it started on the very first try. With a very loud metallic sounding clacking noise coming from the rear half of the motor. Started second guessing EVERYTHING. Short answer is exhaust leak. I’m not a fan of the thin SE style gaskets with stock head pipes now. Easier to put in, but not by much. The cone gaskets sealed first try.

All together now, running and it rained all day Friday and Saturday so really couldn’t take it out. Taking the Significant Other and Daughter to the airport this morning and it’s stopped raining. I can’t wait till later on!!


The Mods:
98" Big Bore kit from FuelMoto
TW555 Cams
Upgraded Cam plate/oil pump
Big freakin jugs and pistons
Fred's Evil Twin Heads
WO502 12" Apes
Ricks Custom Plating (eBay) Control Housings
Goodridge Platinum Braided Cables.

Check her out here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsk6oQqyn

 

Sounds like all said and done, it was a very fun project. Congrats for your success!


Looking forward to your follow-up on how it runs. Are you going to give it a conservative "break in", or will you just jump on it and go?

 

ride it and report back

 

Enjoy!!!

 

Very nice! You should enjoy that!

 

Warmed it up, 4-5 hard runs 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th with decels after each (loud decel pops too), home change oil and then 4-5 tuning runs per Thundermax directions. 25 miles, varying terrain and throttle positions. Write learned points back to the program. Initial break in is done, I'll get the tuning started this week.
Right now, it tries to pull my arms off and I already found out I'm going to have to change out the clutch spring. I slipped it accelerating up a hill earlier.
It's got a flat spot when you first twist on it but once the RPMs turn up, it tries to jump out from under me! Wow! Just needs time, I think. Wish I had a tach.
Much, much louder, different vibrations and I'm thinking I might wish I'd gone with compression releases.

 

Good for you! Report back on your first long tour next summer. Wrenching can cause some frustration during the process, but the payback when completed is well worth the effort.

 

I remember well when I put a 97" on my 88". It was exponentially louder....at first. That settled down some as everything seated in over a few thousand miles.


I ended up wishing that I had put CR's in my build. I don't have any input as to how to get around the things that can go wrong with frequent hot starts. Maybe someone can chime in on that one.


Good luck to you!