On a crisp autumn day in October 2008, XL Forum member Seven Years of Famine took possession of a 1960 XLH. This was no “ordinary” H. In addition to having a few XLCH bits grafted on over the years – the motor was fitted with Doc Dytch 3.25” cylinders and a KH/KHK crank assembly to make a very nice 76 inch bike. But, it was tired and needed a bit of love. Here’s some “before” photos to show you what he started with.
Sadly, fifty miles after a basic re-ring – the transmission let loose and tear down revealed a bunch of sins and damage to the cases.
This wasn’t the first time the bike had experienced a blow up and the left side case had already been welded up. This damage, plus some wonky handling, had Seven shelving the project for a couple of years. After getting more acquainted with ways to fix the problem via XL Forum – Seven sent his cases off to Tom Shaw at Creekside welding. Prior to Tom’s early passing, Creekside was one of the best Harley case repair shops in the US. These cases were among the very last Tom completed before passing.
Here are a couple of links to Seven’s journey as shared on XL Forum over the years:
http://xlforum.net/forums/showthread.php?t=548671
http://xlforum.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1509630
http://xlforum.net/forums/showthread.php?t=538127
http://xlforum.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1177275
http://xlforum.net/forums/showthread...nion+gear+tool
http://xlforum.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1499792
At this stage, Seven had a completely disassembled bike – and had discovered a host of problems, from a broken frame to a bunch of beat up parts. Like most of us, the sheer scale of what needed correcting plus the fact the bike was in pieces overwhelmed Seven. This isn’t uncommon and it’s actually pretty rare that a bike which is disassembled gets put back together, especially when they need as much work as Seven’s 1960. However, he stuck with the project and over the next few years regularly attended Davenport to hang out with the Old Sportster and K Model Research Group, buy parts, and continue learning about ways to repair his bike. Over the years, Seven came to know several XL Forum members, including Dr. Dick and myself.
Earlier this year, I checked in with Seven to see how his project was coming along – and offered up my shop and tools to help get the project back on track. I also did some serious shopping for Seven at Wauseon where I picked up a new frame and various other bits needed to complete the bike. Seven also contacted Dr. Dick who ground a custom c ratio transmission set, rebushed the timing cover, which also features torringtons, and delivered up a Dr. Dick unbreakable kicker shaft. By the way – I haven’t noticed any noise difference with the Torrington timing cover conversion until you wind it up around 4000 rpm – then it “sings” in a unique way – but not an annoying way.
In late July, Seven showed up with a truck full of parts, a bunch of boxes, and some serious enthusiasm. Over the course of five Saturday sessions in my shop, Seven put in a solid 50 hours wrenching on his bike and helping me do the more delicate work like valve guides and seats. We also raided my hardware supply and spare parts bins for a lot of little things. For my part, I put in about 60 hours on the bike; plus time between our work sessions making parts or completing things like overhauling the magneto.
In reality, the bike gave us very, very few problems going back together. The biggest two challenges we faced were due to not checking parts before assembly.
The first was when I didn’t investigate why the oil pump had k model oil check springs and ball in a 72-76 body. Turns out the threads were destroyed in the end of the pump body and barely hanging on. The k model spring is way weaker and centers around a ball with a spigot on it. By using this set up, the previous owner got one whole thread to be engaged. You can imagine that is not exactly a secure connection and if it comes loose – all your oil ends up on the pavement instead of in the motor. We wound up pulling the motor back out to replace the oil pump body with a spare, which cost us an hour and change.
The other stupid problem was aligning the rear mount. The mount fit incredibly tight to the cases because of all the repairs and we didn’t think to check everything before bolting in the bottom end. As such, this one required we loosen the mount at the case, get it aligned with the frame, and then retighten everything before moving to the front. It all worked out – but five minutes loose checking the bores of the mount to the replacement frame would have shown us what to do instead of 20 minutes of scratching about. We also had to do some surgery on the bottom of the left case to allow the side stand to fully retract and not rub against welds.
The wheels were a straight forward rebuild. To save a few bucks, I simply retrued the wheels and then knocked down the rusty spokes with emery cloth. With that done, they got a coat of rustoleum aluminum (not silver) paint. Applying two thin coats had the formerly ugly spokes looking like fresh cadmium from 5 feet away. Good enough until Seven wears out a set of tires and decides what wheels he really wants on the bike. In the meantime, they are a mix and match of later 900 and 1000 parts. Tires are fresh Metzlers – and I really, really hate spooning on metzlers. I swear they are the stiffest new tires on earth – but they do work well.
The motor itself is straight out of 1965 – with the exception of the carburetor. The pistons are Dytch 10:1 cast two ring pistons (oil control and one compression ring). These cast pistons were made by Jahns (JE) and I did make Teflon buttons for them because the spirolock grooves were damaged by a ham fisted mechanic.
I honed the cylinders and set clearances at .009 front and rear. Don’t laugh at that number – Dytch/Axtell recommended a minimum of .008 and many heavy handed guys NEED .009 or even .010 to stop sticking pistons. The cylinders are over stock length to accommodate the stroke and there is no stroker plate or base gasket on this motor. It is a straight install to case with yamabond for the sealant. Head gaskets are 72-E73 style .015 copper. We annealed and copper coated them before install.
Heads are 1960 and counterbored for the 3.25” dytch cylinders, but with 1.95 intakes and 1.75 exhausts. I replaced the guides with OEM cast iron and I replaced the fubar exhaust valves, but we were able to reuse the intake valves with a bit of cleaning. In reality, we went to replace the valves and the replacements had our installed height too short for reliable operation. So, I cleaned up and reused the old intakes after cutting seats. I’m not sure on the maker of the intakes, but the exhausts are stainless Kibblewhite and held together with Sifton alloy collars and springs – likely from a late 60s or early 70s kit.
Exhaust header and muffler is a straight up -62 style dual and these are OEM bits – both headers and mufflers. The difference is the fit and the thickness. OEM pipes fit tight and are thin wall compared to AM pipes. Mufflers also have slightly different construction from the repos on the market. They were kind of beat up, but Seven convinced me to use them and we just gave them a light polishing on my buffer. They sound and look terrific. The tone is entirely different from the repo -62 mufflers sold by Gasbox.
Clutch is dry – with Raybestos friction plates and OEM steels. The transmission is all Andrews – every gear, every shaft. Because we have a countershaft reinforcement ring, this transmission uses the -73 countershaft first gear and two thrust washers on the left side of the gear. This not only accounts for the reinforcement ring but also allows for more fine tuning of first gear engagement and overall countershaft float. The final ratio is the c ratio – which raises first gear and closes up the 3 to 4 shift. Some builders adore this – others don’t. On this bike – it works extremely well for the type of riding we often have in Illinois which sees you mostly in 3rd and 4th with the need for roll on mid-range power.
Magneto is a straight up Fairbanks Morse. This mag was in excellent condition and really just needed a good cleaning. With a simple point adjustment it was jumping a ¾” gap with a flick of my fingers. Spark plugs are NOS Autolite AT42, gapped currently at .024. It’s a lovely, non-screwed with magneto. It is on a very late 67/69 style base with a real oil seal; but uses a homemade plunger on the left for the magneto retard function. We also wired in a hard switch and a handlebar switch for killing the mag. We did this because it makes priming kicks that much easier. Rather than hold the kill button, you simply flip off the magneto. Prime, flip it back on, and then lay into it. No wasted kicks and if Seven decides he hates the switch, it’s a 1 minute removal.
Carburetor is a later dual cable S&S Super B. Nothing special – just a 31 intermediate and 72 main. I ran it through the ultrasonic cleaner and reassembled. I did make up a 1” air cleaner spacer out of 6061 alloy so as to mount a Bendix round air cleaner that I had on the shelf. That spacer also helps smooth airflow just a bit. No other modifications to the carb and it just flat out runs with zero flat spots anywhere. You can motor down to 30mph in 4th, drop your wrist and the bike just scoots and goes. Do the same at 65mph and it squats, extends the forks and just goes. Because of the extra length cylinders, we are running a #4 S&S manifold.
The cams are factory P cams and actually came out of my ’59 XLH several years ago. Yep, the same “weak” cams you got from the factory are what power this 76” beasty. They are a real mofo to kick over now that the rings are bedded. I have a 78” bike sitting right next to the 1960 in my shop. The 78” bike has Sifton -/- and yep; the siftons are noticeably easier to boot over. BUT, the Ps make for some serious midrange torque at a much lower rpm than the siftons. The end result is a giant dirt bike. Seriously.
Around town this thing is just hilarious because we have it on a 21 tooth sprocket. The end result is a bike that is super, duper easy to ride around town. It’s pure torque and has a really nice sweet spot right at 60/65mph where the revs drop off and you’re right in the heart of the powerband. I’m honestly a bit sad to send this one go home with Seven. It’s a truly nice riding and running old stroker.
If you’ve gotten this far – then you’ve probably figured out that I was doing the break in on this bike for Seven. I truly and completely enjoy breaking in other people’s bikes
In reality, I offered to do the break in because strokers can often throw you some really weird curve balls when you first fire them up. The bigger the motor, the bigger the curve balls.
In this case, we literally can’t replace several of the parts if they get destroyed – so going slow and steady was the name of the game. Except, this bike presented no bad habits from the first heat cycle onwards. We had a few leaks to fight, but those were pretty easily solved. There remains one drip from where the motor plug was welded up due to cracks. It’s hard to tell right now if it is porosity or a bit of pull at the seam. In either event, it is annoying to be dripping, but it’s actually a lot less of a drip than many stock ironheads.
I’ll leave it to Seven to tell you the full saga and share the costs. He probably has additional pictures as well.
It wasn’t as bad as you may think to fix all the sins on this bike and get it back in the wind.
We decided to share this story to show people that with some dedication you can pretty much bring any ironhead back from the dead – even an old stroker – for a significant, but not crazy investment of time and money.
We also wanted to remind people that there are genuine, real world connections made through XL Forum. We may not be posting all the time; but there remains a strong if small group of folks dedicated to these old strokers and continuing to have fun with them on the road.
Special thanks to the Raino Brothers, Dave Carlton, Mom9R, and Dr. Dick for their help and counsel in getting this one back together and rolling smooth. It really is amazing to me just how flexible the ironhead platform can be.
And yes, this 1960 is a one kick big inch, mag fired bike. Just before I typed this up, I took out Seven’s bike for a lunchtime run before prepping it for delivery to him this weekend. It’s a whopping 52 degrees and I actually drained some old gas from another bike to fill his tank. Yet, even with the cool weather, and off gas, the bike lit with three prime kicks and one “live” kick. Some of these bikes just WANT to run and this poor beasty waited 13 years for its day in the sun.
Speed Safely!
1960 XLH Stroker – a 13 year journey
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