I am building a 1958 ironhead from a basket and have myself a good looking chopper coming along...one of about 5 I;ve built over thyears but this one is the oldest powerplant by far. I did not get an oil tank in the boxes of pasrt so i decided to build my own after i rebuilt the engine and checked it all out. Here's where the fun comes in...i have plumbed the tank but this engine has no input on the pump nor on the cam side behind the cover like all of the rest i have had. theres only 3 ports just aft of the rear jug.(see pic) Which one of these is which????? Any help would be appreciated guys.

 

twinflames.....
It has been a lo-o-ong time since I have worked on or even seen a 1958.
The three connections on your machine look strange to me. All I can find on this is the photo I have of a 1957 Sportster. This shows 3 connections and I have marked them up according to what purpose I think they serve.
1) Chain oiler. This was a small metal line coming off the nut looking fitting and going to the chain. Many owners removed this line.

2) Crankcase vent to oil tank. This one I am sure of. It will connect to the vent (internal to the tank) on your oil tank.

3) Oil return line to tank. This one I am sure about as well.

4) Oil supply to pump. This is the one that I am not sure about. On more modern Sportys the oil supply line goes into the rear of the pump body. I can only guess that in 1958 the supply connection is in the crankcase as shown on yours. Be sure to check out where this connection leads to before you run the engine.
The photo of the 1957 shows 3 connections on top (plus the chain oiler) similar to yours. In anycase, there are 3 connections.....oil in, oil out, and crankcase vent.
Let us know when you can verify this. I am curious about the 3 connections.
When you get oil to the pump. the oil should pump through the engine and come out of the oil return fitting. I recommend you do that before starting the engine. That way oil will be distributed throughout the engine...........pg

Oh, and a final note: If you have fabricated your own oil tank, be sure that the oil return fitting and the crankcase vent fitting both have internal standpipes inside the tank and that the open end of the standpipes are above the tank oil level.


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thanks alot for your input pg....love that 71 in the pic you attatched. At least now i have something to go on as far as which one is what. would the return not have an umbrella valve in it to insure the one way oil flow? i did do as you mentioned about the standpipes for the vent and return..........only because i have made that mistake once before..lol.not really funny then but i can laugh about it now. I picked this 58 up from a guy i knew who was in jail and asked me if i was interested because he needed the dough QWIK for 1000$ came with a straight frame, and a rusty ol 10 over springer.......but the engine was a whole in boxes after i sorted it all out and couldnt find anything wrong with it that i couldnt fix. Im proud of her.she'll be a rat for a while as i get things together on a personal note, but shes looking good. so far. lol. thanks for the info again. ill keep you posted. and really man that is one sweet red&white ride you got there.

 

t-flames....
I just cannot recall the situation on a 1958 model, but perhaps the oil pump did not have a connection on the backside of the oil pump body as you have described.
There are 3 connections involved:
The oil supply
The oil return
The crankcase vent
The crankcase vent and the oil return are going to be the same, except....the oil return line may be the next larger size than the case vent. Most likely a 5/16 connection for the return and a 1/4 inch connection for the vent connection. This is at the engine end of things. That will be the only difference.
At the factory oil tank end of things:
The vent and the oil return are both sized the same. The standpipe on each is exactly the same.
So, you can connect either line to either connection. I always connect the oil return line to the connection on the tank left side because the supply is on the right side. No other reason. Just the greatest distance apart.
The vent line I connect to the middle connection (between the other two)
The supply connection is the one you need to check out and make sure it is the pathway down into the oil pump inlet side of things.
Is the engine in the frame? If not, I would pull the oil pump off and run a wire down the passage to make sure the connection up above is indeed the oil supply.
Yeah, I know this means removing the timing cover, retiming the breather valve and perhaps retiming the cams, but I think it may be worth it.

The oil return does not have any kind of valve that I am aware of.
There is a ball check located in the front of the oil pump. This prevents oil (sometimes) from draining down into the base if the bike has not been started in a long time. Usually the ball leaks and puts some excess oil in the bottom end which gets puked out on the garage floor when you fire it up.
The ball is kept in place and seated by a spring, and when the engine is fired up the oil pump developes oil pressure that lifts the ball off the seat making the oil light go off and allows oil to circulate throughout the engine.
The oil falls back into the scavenger section of the pump after it has been pumped through the engine and the scavenger section pumps the oil straight back to the oil tank via the return line. No valves involved here........pg

 

Just noticed this post. You got them all right, Pinion. The feed line on the old motors goes down through the cases. The fittings on that motor are definitely not stock but should be OK.

 

Thanks for the confirmation Moon Wolf. I have not worked on a 1958 in many years, but thought something did not look right about the photo. I guess it was the fittings that someone had installed. I knew it never came with brass ones.....pg

 

PG and Mon....thanks alot for all the input..... im already in process of pulling the timing cover off to do what you said with the wire etc. guess it never occurred to me to check it that way after i had set everything up, but it would eleviate any questions as to the input aye?!? Ill keep you posted as to what exactly i find so that maybe someone else can also use the info from this post for there own scoot. thanks again guys.