Windy City Weapons

[4thcoast]

Hello all, my name is Stephanie Fansler and I am a student of Mark’s. I learned a few months ago that I would be a part of the Henderson rebuild team, and have since been acquainted with and cultivating my affection for Henderson(s). These past several months have been my inception into, what I consider, a new world. With no background in mechanics, just a yearning “to know”, I had just bid farewell to four years of music school, where I had been wrapping my mind around the theory behind why a secondary dominant built on the fourth degree of a C major scale alludes to the key of B flat major, and wrapping my hands around my Stradivarius, B-flat, piston-valved trumpet. Let’s just say the words, “piston” and “valve”, have obtained quite a new significance.
Now versed in reading a micrometer, and getting the swing of snap gauges, I get to practice my precision measuring skills, which are essential if this engine is to be repaired and mended to it’s utmost potential. Here we go. Valve guides numbered, “ 1 E, 1 I, 2 E…”. Check. Cylinders lined up nice and neat on the workbench, valves standing at attention in two columns of four; four intake, four exhaust. Mr. Hill points out that holding the valve so as to view it from the top of the stem, you can see the subtle difference in stem diameter, the exhaust diameter being larger, (.344”) and the intake smaller, (.312”). I notice that the old valve stems have a pinhole where a .125” (1/8”) pin is inserted, and the new stems don’t. We get to make these holes for the spring retention pin. I think, “Sweet!” I get to spend some extra time in the machine shop, watching Mr. Miller and Mr. Hill gently drill a hole at the top of the valve stem that begins .1406” (9/64”) from the top surface of the valve stem. We go right down the line measuring their external diameters, which have to be machined “down” by the process of turning on Mr. Miller’s HAAS CNC lathes up the hall. With the original valve guide O.D reading .565” we get a consistent reading of .584” for the whole lot. Considering the .001” interference fit into the .500” valve guide orifice, which is necessary in the reassembly of these components, this means that we need to turn .018” from the valve guide(s), leaving the diameter of the guide at .566”, (pretty damn close the original, huh?) or .001” larger than the diameter of the guide orifice. In order for this to all go down, Mr. Hills says, someone needs to draw up a print for Mr. Miller to read. I’m thinking to myself how great it is to be practicing for my machine class in engine power & transmission class, and that this “crossover” is conveniently supplementary. As time elapses and new knowledge saturates, the true understanding of how frustrating it would be to grasp and become engaged in this project if I wasn’t taking my machine processes class…well? Saturates. Alright, last few measurements. Valve stem to valve guide clearance. Eight measurements total; 4 intake, 4 exhaust. From measuring the O.D of the valve stems and the I.D of the valve guides, we calculate out a consistent .004” clearance for the exhaust, and an unvarying .003” clearance for the intake. I write my numbers down, and start to put the Henderson’s organs back on the cart.
March 12th, we are several weeks into the semester, buckling down in Engine Power & Transmission lab, where the ambition of the Henderson project finally emerges, and valves guide the way.

[gww]

all you folks are doing a heck of a job. pretty impressive. thanks for sharing with us. 5 months to go..

[gww]

all you folks are doing a heck of a job. pretty impressive. thanks for sharing with us. 5 months to go..

[Jerry Wieland]

Stephanie I have one question - why are you using bronze composition valve guides. Years ago when lead first went out of gasoline, bronze guides were one of the first 'quick fixes' that came out. While they worked good and stopped the stuck valve thing they were incredibly short lifed. On HD knuckleheads we were redoing the head almost every year if it even made a year. On one occasion I totally wore out the bronze guides in 6000 miles. We now use cast iron and they last 100,000 miles or more. I know of one knucklehead bike with over 200,000 on the top end.

Thanks Jerry

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Another thing while I am at it. The valves I originally used 30 years or more ago were cut down from Manley stainless 427 Ford Nascar valves (OEM were sodium filled - Manley not). Now Rowe makes them for us. The only problem was a soft stem where the rocker pushed on the top. I got around that by using panhead lash caps/rotators.

I also think you guys are doing a great job but I will be on a Harley JD come September.

Jerry

[4thcoast]

A couple months back we removed the flywheel from the crankshaft and dissected it. Going by Mr. Hill's, “heat is our friend” adage, Jesse freed up the locktight helping adhere the spring plate with a butane torch. Next, the clutch flywheel plate came off. Once these plates were removed, the wear on the components was evident. The old springs had warpage marks from the intense pressure of being bent in the pressure plate spring cup, and they all got tossed. New springs, compliments of Mark Hill & Steve Huntzinger; new spring plate, compliments of David Molnar from IMPAX manufacturing. Sporting a multiple disc wet plate clutch intrical to the engine, the original steel-on-steel clutch plates had a tendency to bind because of the presence of oil, (“surface tension”). We could notice the wear between the semi-hard clutch plate notches and the clutch flywheel pins, which are complimentary components to one another. The notches, being a semi-hard metal, have worn, but the flywheel pins have worn even more so, as they are a softer metal. The original clutch plates are being replaced with modern Kevlar soft clutch plates, which will reduce spring pressure because the coefficient of friction, or the static friction that exists between two surfaces, is higher.

- Stephanie

[4thcoast]

More shots...

[4thcoast]

[quote='Jerry Wieland' pid='2334' dateline='1332625064']
Stephanie I have one question - why are you using bronze composition valve guides. Years ago when lead first went out of gasoline, bronze guides were one of the first 'quick fixes' that came out. While they worked good and stopped the stuck valve thing they were incredibly short lifed. On HD knuckleheads we were redoing the head almost every year if it even made a year. On one occasion I totally wore out the bronze guides in 6000 miles. We now use cast iron and they last 100,000 miles or more. I know of one knucklehead bike with over 200,000 on the top end.

Thanks Jerry

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Another thing while I am at it. The valves I originally used 30 years or more ago were cut down from Manley stainless 427 Ford Nascar valves (OEM were sodium filled - Manley not). Now Rowe makes them for us. The only problem was a soft stem where the rocker pushed on the top. I got around that by using panhead lash caps/rotators.

I also think you guys are doing a great job but I will be on a Harley JD come September.

Jerry

Hey Jerry, this is Mark. I'm helping Stephanie respond with this post. She types much better than I do. Let's start with the material we're using for valve guides. We're using Moldstar 90, it comes from the "injection mold" world. The company that sells it is Performance Alloys in Germantown, Wisconsin. Slo-Jo ran this stuff in the Grey Ghost in the 2010 Cannonball, and upon disassembly in his engine, found no valve guide wear. He only ran it on the intakes, and was real happy with his results. This company's name came up time and time again when I was speaking with valve manufacturers, so I decided to give them a try. For what it's worth, the original '28 Deluxe Henderson's ran bronze valve guides, as did the '29 Henderson KJ. I don't think we'll get the guide wear that you did with your Knucklehead, as the guide is "straight-up", (not sitting at an angle). As for clearances, this is gonna sound big, but we're going to run a loose .003" on the intake, and .004" on the exhaust. Our valves were also made by Manley. We chose a stainless steel valve with a hard chrome stem for the intake, and we chose an Inconel exhaust valve, also a hard chrome stem; extreme duty. Obviously you know the Deluxe is run with no lubrication on the valves... just hangin' out there in the wind. We're going to use Belray Engine Assembly paste- basically Molybdenum disulfide, a dry lubricant, and we're going to paste the valves every morning. As for your question about sodium-filled valves, I had wanted to use sodium filled stems SO bad, I researched it to the nines. The problem is the cylinders we're working with, because there's no oil/coolants pulling heat from the guide area(s), the sodium, (starting out as a solid) would then transfer to a liquid, but with our application we'd go right past the liquid state and transfer into a gas, loosing any cooling effect a sodium-filled valve would have in moving the heat from the head of the valve to the valve guide area. Trust me, Jerry... I tried. I wanted to use sodium valves really bad to save valve seat area. This is one of the great things about the Cannonball; it gets people thinking. Steph's going to post final pictures of guide diameter machining, and pressing of guides-into-cylinder. For what it's worth, we ran .0005" interference fit on the intake and .001" on the exhaust. Any of you Deluxe people out there doing this, DO NOT go over a .001" press on the guides! It can get awful tight around the .001" mark. Stock guide diameter is .5625". We used machinist dowel pins, ("go, no-go" gauges) to pick up our valve guide holes, as they could be all over the place. Some of those boys that did the Chi-town machining must've been hanging out at Capone's speakeasy's.

- Mark & Stephanie

[4thcoast]

Finished guides...

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More...

[Tom Lovejoy]

Very cool stuff, go Henderson! Looking forward to seeing those Deluxes roar by :-) Keep at it, looking good.