Ever Boiled Diamond Chains in STP?

Another great friend, Paul Kosma, who is helping me with tons of tricks asked me the other day if I have ever heard of boiling my chains in STP? Of course, I had never heard of that. He told me it was an old trick the dragbike racers used, back in the older days. Paul said, racers could get about 2 passes on a drive chain before replacing them. When they boiled them, they could get 10 to 12 passes. Sounded good to me. You put all of your chains in a steel pan and pour STP over them and cook them. As I did this, I saw little air bubbles coming from all the chains as the fish cooker got the oil hot. After about 30 minutes, I cut the heat off and let the chains soak over night and cool down. The STP get thin and soaks inside the chains. After it cools, it returns to a thick, thick grease. I hung the chains up and pulled all the excess lube off of the chains and packaged them in plastic bags and labeled them each.

1,000 Mile Tear down and inspection

Trying to catch up on the Blog with all of the work preformed over the last couple of months. After I returned from Arkansas with 500 miles on the bike, I continued to make adjustments and ride the motorcycle on 100 to 150 mile trips. My goal was to get 1,000 miles on this motor and bring it back in the shop for a complete tear-down inspection. David Kleptz has been my mentor and coach through out this entire build. He rode in the 1st Cannonball Motorcycle event in 2010 with a perfect score. I have many pages of notes and tips from him. We talk fairly regular and he is keeping a close eye on my progress. He is a wealth of knowledge and many of the tricks I am doing to my bike came from his advice. Here is a picture of David Kleptz 1915 Harley when he rode it in 2010.

As you may notice, my 1919 Harley Davidson reflects the style of his motorcycle. I wanted the rough / patina look of a bike that some people might think doesn't have a chance of completing 4,100 miles. However, I wanted the inside mechanics of the motorcycle to be in top shape. That is exactly what I am looking for!!

As I stated before, I followed Dale Walksler, Wayne Stanfield and David Kleptz during the 2010 Cannonball event when they passed though Arkansas. I was riding 1995 Harley Fat Boy (staying back, clear of their motorcycles) Cris Sommer Simmons rode a book about her 1st Cannonball experience in a GREAT book called, "Cannonball Diary" - You should get her book, if this Cannonball stuff interest you. Michael Lichter took a picture of Wayne Stanfield one day when he was on the side of the road, repairing a flat tire. That picture is in Cris's book. David Kleptz is in that picture helping in the red pants. That's also me in standing behind them in the orange t-shirt, along with Johnny Whitsett and Calvin Burnett. Who would have known that in 2014, I might get the chance to experience this truly awesome epic event. Johnny and Calvin are also instrumental in helping and coaching me along.

This past weekend, March of 2014, I completed 1,000 miles. David K. told me to shake down the motorcycle for 1,000 miles and then disassemble it completely and inspect or repair any needed items. Friday night, beginning around 8:30 pm, Lisa went up on the lift. By 10:00 pm, this is how it looked!

 

By 11:30 - looked like this

It would have been great to stay up all night and continue until it was all back running, just like we were on a Cannonball Event. Jon Neuman, one of my riding team members for Carson Classic Motors has already done what he calls a "Fire-Drill". Jon Neuman and Greg McFarland performed a Fire-Drill on a perfect running Cannonball machine. They started the clock and completely disassembled a J model Harley, including engine and re-assembled it. Re-firing the machine in a record time of 6 hours. So happy to have those guys on my team.

My 1919 did have one issue to address. One of the front primary cover studs was stripped. I took a moment to mount the case in the Bridgeport mill and machine the studs out to replace them. I will have to contact Competition Distributing on Monday to get a new pair.

The cleanup and inspection was AWESOME!! The pistons still look brand new! There are NO signs of any problems. Everything is Cleaned up and ready to reassemble. Dale Spooner of Motion Machine did my blind boring. I had to call him, just thank him for the work he did. Can not wait to put 4,100 miles on this motorcycle

 

Test Miles! Test Miles! Test Miles!

In January, I rode the 1919 Harley Davidson Cannonball Motorcycle over to our cabin on the Little Red River. Sonja was following me in our vehicle. (Notice the barking dogs in the video) She filmed a small video clip of the bike as I rode. I was able to put over 500 miles on the bike while we stayed a week at the cabin.

The motorcycle is running Great! I have been monitoring cylinder head temperatures and exhaust gas temperatures as the motor is breaking in. Got to ride one day with Chris Muirhead. We rode about 110 miles through the Arkansas Ozarks Hills.

After I returned from Arkansas, it was back into the shop to fine-tune other items. For some time, I have been planning to build a rather cool headlight. I have an original headlamp on the bike, but wanted to design a cool LED headlamp, without altering the original lamp. BMW cars have unique lamp called a Halo. It is an LED light ring. With that in mind, I constructed a fiber board and mounted (10) 6 volt LED bulbs in the ring.

We will not be running any of the official event in the dark, but this lamp is bright, even in day time, you will know this lamp when you see it coming!

I also wanted to remount the coil in an easy place to test, repair, or replace it. I added a spare condensor, ready to switch to if needed.

 

A spare 2 gallon fuel tank