Ironhead Another ‘72 IH question

[NP72Iron]

Working on building up the tranny on my ‘72 XLCH and when looking for the countershaft low gear bushing, the parts catalog lists 2, one for 54-early 72 and one for late 72 on.
How do I know if mine is an early or late 72 model?
#42 in the photo.


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[needspeed]

I'm not certain of the answer. Be aware that I'm GUESSING here.

'72 is known to be the last year for transmission driven speedometer drive and '73 is known to be the first year for front wheel speedometer drive.

I've seen some discussion that there may have been some LATE '72s that didn't have the transmission speedo.

So here's my guess. If you've got the speedo drive on first gear assume your '72 is early and use 35787-52.

Here's 2 threads talking about late and early '72s.

http://xlforum.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1705229 Post 1
http://xlforum.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1674762

There are members of the forum that know ironhead history well. I suspect that many that know about ironheads don't pay attention to threads that aren't in the iron head section. I think you'll get more responses from people in the know if you post in the ironhead section, no matter what part of the bike you're asking about.

Without a conclusive answer you could just buy both bushings and use the one that fits.

[NP72Iron]

Thanks again [mention]needspeed [/mention]. I have posted this to the IH section too so we’ll see what they have to say. Problem is, it didn’t have a first gear when I bought the motor so I don’t know if it has the speedo gear or not! I may have to do the route of buying both, but we shall see. Thanks again!


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[bustert]

the id is the same 7/8
the 35787-52 is 5/8 long
the 35787-72 is 1/2 long