59 Spaceliner Motorbike Conversion

The Knuckle Head job left a few weeks ago. Customer loved the way they turned out. We were able to save a very valuable set of castings. Although it was a HUGE challenge. Next job up is a 1959 Spaceliner Bicycle which will have one of our motorbike conversions installed on it. This is a really nice survivior so there is no painting or chrome work for us to do. But we do have quite a bit of fabrication to do. Stay tuned.

Knuckle Head Restoration Moves Ahead!

We have been very busy here in the shop. I just got back on the Harley Knuckle Head restoration. We have made a fixture to hold onto the head while in the mill. I will have more pictures of the process soon. Here is one that shows the setup. more later.

Harley Davidson Knuckle Head

Our next job involves the restoration of a set of Harley Davidson Knuckle Head cylinder heads. I'am not a Harley expert but i do know that these heads and a knuckle head for that matter is extremley rare and valuable. The heads are in poor shape and will require some extensive machining to get them to a useable state but also they need to look like brand new. These heads have been repaired a few times in thier lifetime as there is spots of brazing in several spots. The heads have passed crack inspection. The next step is going to be to bake them at around 400 degrees the lead shot blast. This will cook off all the years of grime and gook that a solvent tank and a brush can't get too. The next step is too repair the threaded holes in the deck of the head. We will not be using helicoils. next will be a light machining to the deck of both heads. We will first need to build a fixture to hold on the head casting. Stay tuned this should be interesting.

Supercharger Shaft Finished.

Thought I would show some more of the operations done to the superharger shaft assembly. The main shaft has a square machined on both ends to act as a key for the flange and the front hub. this eliminates using woodruf keys and square key stock that you would normally find in an application like this. This design is much less prone to crack and metal fatique goes way down being that there is no slots cut into high stress areas along the shaft. The degree wheel is mounted on the end of the shaft and a pointer is clamped to the table. You machine a flat to the desired depth every 90 degrees. If you read the degree wheel with a magnifier you can be extremly accurate. my index equipment was set up for making gears so i had to use a different method. There is always a few ways to attack jobs in a machine shop. The shaft assembly is finished now. the customer is installing it soon. I hope to get photos of the car to post here soon.

3-D ASSEMBLY FOR SUPERCHARGER SHAFT

We started using 3-d design software about 3 years ago to help speed up the process of going from sketches and engineering to machine a little faster. I'am finnally starting to become effecient at it. This was a HUGE learning curve but it has started to pay off. Pencil and paper is no longer required. The drawing below is the assembly of the supercharger shaft. We now can generate a full set of blueprints from the parts sketches done in the computer and i know the assembly will work because I assembled it in the computer. The computer tells you when you have a dimension that won't line up. Technology sometimes works in my favor.

3 -n- 1

The part in the pictures appears to be just a random turning of steel from a lathe right? This is actually 3 parts for the supercharger drive all machined on the same bar to be separated later. I do this when i can to save on time and material. The trick is being able to split the bar up later without too much hassle. The last picture is all the parts for the supercharger drive except for the main drive shaft. More later.

SUPERCHARGER MAIN SHAFT

The job in the shop now is a 6-71 supercharger main shaft. The original broke due to being out of true and made from inferior material. The new one is lighter and features 1045 steel shafting material and 2024 aircraft grade aluminum. What we decided to due was machine a square for the shaft to ride in. After it is pressed together it will not fail. No welds to brake and the assembly spins true. check out the photos. There is more to come.