SHOVELHEAD REBUILD

When starting into any type of engine project, more or less start them all the s ame. First start with a careful inspection of each and every part as it comes of f. I like to look for signs of any problems such as why did this part leak here or maybe why did it make that strange noise. What I am getting at here is don t ju st blindly rip into anything without carefully looking over each and every part. Just remove a single part and inspect it every which way you can dream of. A li fetime ago I went through some tech schools put on by FoMoCo and the geezer that was the instructor used to say take in the big picture your problems will show up 99% of the time. The guy was right and I have never forgot it. This engine s repair parts list started with replacement cases. The first choice in replacement engine cases has been S&S. Why? First thing they come complete a nd are ready to build right out of the box. One of the many nice features of all S&S replacement cases are that they come standard with the pinion race line lap ped and sized ready to go. With other brands if you don t have a case bearing lap set and the measuring tools needed, count on extra added time and costs. These c ases are not just standard replacements either; there are many improvements over the original factory design. On OEM and most of those others you need to work ove r the breather window opening to correct the breather gear timing but not these, it s already done. These have a breather cavity in the crankcase area that is of a streamlined ported shape, no more hours of welding and machine work to slick u p this area. The oiling system on these 70-84 Shovelhead style cases are set up for the most proven of oil pump designs, the 81 and up split system. Any 81-91 O EM pump will just bolt on, nothing to modify. With a simple set screw plugging o peration you could use an 80 or older design pump. I tend to think S&S just coul dn t leave well enough alone with that oiling system though and they have made som e improvements. First thing I noticed was where the oil scavenge port is located in the gear case. The scavenge port location has been moved to get it away from the turbulence caused by oil pump drive gears. The oil scavenge intake port is now located near the cam cover gasket surface area and this change alone will he lp prevent oil carry over out of the crankcase breather passage. The top end and tappet oil circuits have been rerouted from the OEM design. No longer does the oil galley run close to the cylinder bores. OEM cases have cracked here and if y ou ever think about going to big bore cylinders that passage could be bored into causing a major internal oil pressure leak. There is still a tappet screen used to trap oil born contaminants in these cases unlike some of those other brands. Now let s talk cylinder to piston clearance, that s what parked this engine in th e first place. Each piston type, cast or forged and the many different brand nam es will have their own loose clearance spec. Make sure what the spec is for the pistons you have and for the type of service they will see. Just as a rule of th umb, cast pistons run tighter in the cylinders than forged and street use engine s are tighter than race engines. The use of stress plates mounted at the top and bottom of the cylinders are a must to get a true and round cylinder bore while machining. Forget only honing to get to the next oversize, it s just not going to work. I always take cylinders and pistons both to the machine shop so they can b e matched when boring. The shop s owner who does them for me bores them perfectly true, round and at the correct loose fit clearance needed every time. This shop does not use an automotive type boring bar and does not cut cylinders on a lathe , he uses an inside diameter grinder to resize them. By mounting cylinders by th eir base in the grinder the bore will always be at a true 90 degrees from the ba se as they should be. Lon at Sunray Products in Vernon Michigan, 989-288-2972 ca n bore any Harley type cylinder be it a Knuck, Pan, Shovel, iron Sportster, any

Evo type big or small and any Twin Cam big twin engine. Hate to say how long Lon has been doing cylinders but for me it s close to 18 years with never a problem. Lets get down to the build now, where do we start? As with any major rebuild, I like to rebalance the flywheels. If you are replacing any major components in t he lower end, a rebalance job is a must. I static balance flywheels and have had what I feel are very good results. The balance kit I use came from S&S years ag o and it has served my needs well. Before any balance work could be done, all ma jor work such as cylinder boring to fit the pistons, rod bearing race lapping, h ave the proper rollers chosen to fit the crank pin you plan to use, new flywheel thrust washers replaced if needed and have the wrist pin bushings replaced and reamed to size. There is no sense in balancing parts that will be replaced. Ther e are only a few simple rules I use when balancing flywheels. First is that I ne ver remove weight near the crank pin. If need be, weight can be added to the opp osite side. I also like to drill to remove the needed weight from the inside of flywheels. There is nothing worse than looking for timing marks and finding only balance holes. One tricky part of a balance job is in how you weigh the rods. T here are three weights for each rod that must be known: the wrist pin end (recip rocating end) the crank pin end (rotating end) and a total for each. The hard pa rt is to have the rods crank and wrist pin ends add up to the actual totals. Wha t I have learned while weighing rods is to hang one end from a string while weig hing the other end. I do not use the rod stand provided in the balance kit. The rod stand can and does influence the rod end weight totals. Once I hung the rods level center to center the weights added up much more accurately. I also use an old wrist pin to keep the string from touching the rod sides as I have found th at it will influence the weight figures quite a bit. Once you have all rotating and reciprocating weight figures it s only a mater of simple math to come up with the proper bob weight amount for balancing each flywheel. Once the bob weight is known and in place, choose the proper arbor from the kit to support the flywhee l on the parallels and gravity does the work. When the flywheel rolls and stops with the heavy spot at the bottom, its time to mark it and drill to remove weigh t. I use mostly a 7/16 diameter drill bit and rarely need a larger size for remov ing weight. It s best to drill only a very slight amount at a time. I would say th at it takes on average for me about 25 trips to the drill press for balancing ea ch flywheel. How do I know how much to remove, it depends on how fast the flywhe el seeks it s heavy spot. If I have a flywheel that drops like a rock to the same spot each time it s a sure bet that quite a bit of weight must be removed. If the flywheel rotates quite lazy like and also rotates many degrees back and fourth I k now that the wheel is very close to balanced. I keep at it until there is no mov ement when placed on the parallels in any position.

Crankshaft assembly is next and there are a few simple rules I use with a defini te order that must be followed. I like to check all shaft tapers to see if they are concentric. Now and then you may run across a shaft that is off and it makes for much grief when truing flywheels. All shaft and flywheel tapers must be ext ra clean and dry before assembly. If you have any trace of oil, grease or solven t on any taper surface when you torque the nuts, the tapers will not seat proper ly and they may go deep. Cast iron flywheels can split and wreck your whole day just because of some oil on a taper when going together. The factory spec for ea ch flywheel s run-out is 0.003 at the rim edge max. Take your time here, all effort spent will pay off in the next stage of installing the crank pin and rods. I li ke to use Loctite number 609 on all crank pin and main shaft nut threads. While truing any shaft and flywheel, a lead hammer is always best to use. Lead will no t scar the flywheels or the machined shaft surfaces like an iron, copper or even a brass hammer will. I like to start flywheel truing with half of the nuts tota l torque spec and then check for run-out. I whack the shaft or wheels to adjust them, retorque then check for run-out again. Once you are happy with the run-out , bump up on the torque and start the same drill all over again. I keep at it un

til torque is at max spec and run-out is at 0.001 or less. These flywheels and sh afts trued up pretty good for as many times as they had been apart. I ended up w ith 0.001 on the flywheel edges and when I installed the crank pin and rods the r un-out on the main shafts was 0.0003 on the pinion side and 0.0005 on the sprocket side, all well below the max spec of 0.003 and 0.001

Once you have the flywheels, rods and shafts true it s time to mount them in the c ases. There is no other way to do this other than with the proper tools. Once yo u have the crankshaft assembly in the left side case it s time to install the pini on rollers. These are brand new S&S engine cases so the pinion race is already l apped to size, this made it a simple matter of just picking the proper size roll ers for a loose fit clearance of 0.0004 to 0.0008 You may have a favorite gasket g oop you use for sealing the case halves, use a anaerobic type sold by Permatex c alled Gasket Eliminator , This red colored sealer sets up as a flexible, non migrat ing seal. A word of warning here, silicon type RTV sealer will work but be extra careful not to over do it. Any loose bits of RTV will make it into every place you just don t want like oil pumps and any internal engine oil passage. Loose bits of that RTV has been the cause of many engine problems so you have been warned. After the case halves are sealed and the case studs and bolts tightened to the proper torque, I like to check the wrist pin bushing alignment with the cylinder base gasket deck surfaces. I cannot stress enough how important I feel this det ail is. New replacement rods are not always reamed true and replacement bushings in used rods will most often be off. An out of alignment wrist pin will put the piston in a bind with every stroke and rapid wear and piston failure is sure to happen. I made this rod bender tool from a hunk of bar stock and it uses thick aluminum washers that clamp the wrist pin end of the rods. It s likely you will do damage to the new bushing by using only a bar poked through the bushing or wris tpin. OEM factory rods bend with an alarming ease, heavy duty aftermarket rods w ill take some Horse Power No matter what brand of rods you use, new or rebuilt, ma ke sure to check and align them.

Now that the cases are together and the rods are ready to go, I move onto instal ling the oil pump. Since Englishman s old oil pump was bad, a new S&S replacement will be used. I like to install the pump drive gear in the cam case before I tor que the pump mounting hardware. That way I can roll the pump shaft and gears to check for any bind first. Be extra careful installing that drive gear snap ring and key. It s best to use a new key and always use a new snap ring. A stretched or used snap ring will fall off and trash an engine quick. Next to go inside the c am case area are the pinion shaft keys and gears. I never drive a key into its s lot, distortion is sure to happen. I rub keys on a file or wet stone until they will just slip into their slots. Remember to use a drop of Loctite number 242 on that left hand threaded pinion gear nut. The Camshaft this engine had did bump the case somewhat before. These S&S cases have plenty of room for camshafts with a high lift figure. Camshaft endplay should be kept at the minimum spec if your going to drive a vertical mount magneto like this engine has. Any extra cam end play will mess with your timing. Points type or electronic ignitions that run di rect off the end of the cam are not quite as fussy but close to the minimum spec here is still best. While you re into the cam case it s now time to move onto breat her gear timing. Breather opening and closing timing should be checked with a de gree wheel mounted on the crankshaft. These cases had the proper timing right ou t of the box but it s rare that an OEM or other after market case will. The timing spec on this engine is checked from the front cylinder. The breather gear windo w started to open at 10 degrees before top dead center and closed fully at 75 de grees after bottom dead center. That timing spec works for any stock displacemen t and also big bore stroked engines. Why bother with breather timing at all? Pro per breather timing will help scavenge the air/oil mist from the crankcase area

and reduce pressures. Any restrictions here will create an extra oil drag on the flywheels and that ma kes for extra engine heat. Proper breather timing is as close to free Horse Powe r as you can get. Tappet blocks like this need to be aligned with the case for b est roller life, the tool for this is quite simple as it s a bolt with a tapered s hank. The taper above the threads will align the block by centering the hole ove r the tapped mounting hole in the case. I like to use the tool in the bolt hole closest to the oil galley near the top center case stud. These are Jim s brand big axle tappets that will oil the rockers like an Evolution engine does. They oil the top end by transferring oil through the tappets into hollow pushrods and the n passing into the rocker arms. I like the idea of this oiling system because oi l is under pressure at all points of tappet to pushrod and pushrod to rocker arm contact. The standard oiling on Shovelhead rockers just lube the pushrod ends b y splash. One thing I am not sold on are the big axle part of the tappets themse lves. There are fewer needle rollers with the big axle type tappets and I view t hat as a roller that will not carry as much load because of fewer needle rollers making for less contact area. The test of time and mileage may prove me wrong; I hope so but do have my doubts.

Only after you are sure of wrist pin alignment the pistons, rings and cylinders can go on. These pistons are S&S cast stock compression replacements fit to the recommended 0.0025 clearance. They came with a ring set that has a moly insert t op compression ring. Once the ring gaps are checked and adjusted if needed, it s t ime for placement on the pistons. Ring gaps should never be in line with each ot her or placed on a thrust area of the bore. The major thrust area is the rear of the cylinder wall and the next minor thrust area is the front. These pistons I have marked with numbers at the positions for proper gap placement. # 1 is where I place the oil ring expander gap. Yes # 1 is located at the major thrust area but the expander does not come into contact with the cylinder bore. # 2 and # 3 are where the oil ring scraper rail gaps are. # 4 and # 5 are for the second and top compression rings. Make sure to use a quality ring compressor, this is not the time to mess up the pistons, rings or cylinders. Once the cylinders are slid down over the pistons and rings I leave the base nuts only finger tight until t he heads are in place. These heads had been gone over about a year ago with no mileage on them. They have Row Ampco 45 guides with Manley stainless steel valves. The valve seats had been cut at 5 angles. Valve travel was matched for the camshaft used. I did a q uick check on rocker arm end play and bushing to shaft fit and then bolted the r ocker boxes onto the heads. The head gaskets here are James brand Fire Ring type and will need to be re torqued after this engine has been warmed up a few times . I like to use silver grade anti-seize on cylinder base studs and nuts, same fo r the head bolts. Once the heads are on with the bolts only finger tight it s time to align the intake ports with the manifold. Once I am happy with alignment I t orque the cylinder base nuts and head bolts in at least 3 stages.