Not a Harley dealership. A privite shop. Out of respect i'm not going to mention the name.

 

Everyone makes mistakes. It isnt hard to leave that o ring out. Could happen to anyone. Shouldnt happen, but sheet happens as they say. A good mechy says "mate, we fd up here, we are gonna need 2 days to fix it. You wont be charged".

Anyone who starts to BS when they f up isnt worth dealing with, you end up asking yourself "I wonder what else they screwed up and DIDNT tell me about while they had my motor apart".

 

thats what im saying, be honest and build trust rather than tairing it down. We will see after monday, i will post what he said. I feel the father is honest, I dont know about the son, To many things are coming up missing or broke.

But as for the build, i think its going to be strong. Hes built some dam good engines. This is my first time using him. We will see how he handles it.

 

He Is having the work done at H&D Cycles, I’m the son. Randy had a build done at our local Harley dealership twice one with a 37g Andrews and the other with a 585 S&S, and the outcome was not what he wanted. It consisted of 103+ heads, the matched 10.5 pistons, S&S gear drive 585 cams, Rinehart true duals, Ness stage 1 S.E. lifers and adj. pushrods. I’m not to sure about the whole story because it has changed every time I have talked to him. He complained enough to get a Harley field rep involved, and got the parts at cost and free labor. He went to Pannama bike week let someone try to tune it their and was not happy with it. . He put bolts on both sides of the exhaust to give him more bottom end . Still was not happy with it. He had a lot of starter kick back and back fire though t/body. The story can go into a lot more detail but ill leave it at that. So eventually he found us after talking to other satisfied customers with our engine builds. We talked, played through several different scenarios, of a new motor build, using what he had but putting a Fatcat on it, and a tw-7hg7, and several different motor builds. After spending several hours with him and numerous phone calls, dad(owner) was very leery of doing a motor build for him, he said he is the worst customer he has ever had to deal with for being second guessed over and over. I said Im sure I can make him happy. He’s done a lot of research which I can not blame him for, but he thinks he knows way more than what he does. He wanted a torque motor, but huge numbers. He wanted huge numbers but wanted stock reliability.
He got so wrapped up in dyno numbers it was frustrating. Dad tried to explain to him that you have to give up some numbers up top to get some down low, after we thought he understood he turned around and went right back to dyno numbers. Once again dad was very leery but I said give me a chance. Once again this story can go into a lot more detail but ill leave it at that.
We agreed upon using S&S new 106 cyl/piston kit (have a great price on them right now) woods tw-7hg-7 our stage 1 heads, he already had S.E. lifters and adj. pushrods I told him he would need at least larger injectors, but would benefit with the 50mm S.E. t-body( His Dyno numbers he was so worried about) and a stage 2 filter. He fought us the whole way, about air and fuel delivery with this build, because of cost. (He wanted a Corvette but was only willing to pay for a Kia Rio) we also suggested a ring and pinion conversion kit but declined, also told him his starter clutch had taken a lot of abuse and due to fail eventually.
D&D has was on back order at the time, and told him if he could find a exhaust before we could get it then he was more than welcome to get it from someone else. Well he couldn’t find one, so he placed a order with someone who sold it cheaper than us. Dad was frustrated at that but let it go.( Shop owners know that in order to stay in business you must make a profit on parts.) When he showed up with the exhaust he took upon himself to buy a filter kit and used S.E. 50mm t-body. Dad was frustrated , but bite his lip once again.
He had 189 psi ccp front 193 psi rear.
He sold his exhaust to someone on hdforums. So as soon as he dropped it off I pulled his exhaust and to my amazement he had Two 5/8 bolts cross boned on each side. Rinehart’s are 2 ¼ pipe you restrict down to about a inch worth of pipe and wonder why the bike runs bad. He had 12000 miles on the build 50000 on the bike.
During disassembly I paid very close attention to all parts, looking for a reason to explain the low power. We did not charge extra for this.( and it was time consuming) His air filter was half way saturated with oil from oil blow by. The flapper valves were in good shape as was the o-rings under the rocker support housings. He had a valve guide seal out in the front intake(very common with S.E. heads) and the rear cylinder had excessive Carbon build up, which could have been caused by the 5/8 bolts in the exhaust and tuning. His cylinders still had a nice cross hatch to them, and no broken rings. Next I checked cam gear backlash, crank run out, oil pump gerotor clearance. The inner body was a little scared up but nothing unusual. And the cam plate pressure relief valve was operating correctly. I checked it with our Feuling tool.
I did notice a large leak from his stator plug. We showed and explained to him the leak. He agreed to do the job and I checked to see how much fluid was in the primary it had 50+ oz and the reason I said + is because it over filled one of my ratio rites. So that pointed us to the left crank seal. Did the job explained to him if the stator plug was still pliable then we could use a black rtv instead of him buying a $150 stator(you can not replace the plug). He agreed to this as well. We also put in a extra plate Barnett Kevlar clutch kit in as well. With his permission. (50000 miles on stock clutch plates).

This lead me to believe that the motor was wet sumping. I had the thought in the back of my head from the low power, excessive oil blow by and now this. But I could not put a reason for it. He was already complaing about money which I cant blame him on, times are tough, so I wasn’t even going to try to sell him a Feuling high volume oil pump.
Also showed him that his right side exhuast mount and bolts were missing and caused his trap door to leak as well. Told him hopefully after the new bracket was tight it would stop the leak, but no guarantees.

So Back together it went. We reused the cam gears, used green loctite as S&S suggest, same cam plate, oil pump, lifters, adj. pushrods rockers and housings and breathers. Oil pump alignment was done by the book. Checked gear backlash and once again was good. His rings were set to .018 ring end gap top and bottom, and the oil rails were around .030. The heads were our stage one, which includes a mild port and polish matched the port entrance to the S.E. 50mm. 1.90 intake and 1.575 ex. with a radius valve job. We machined for compression releases at no extra charge(was not quoted at that, but once again dad believes in customer satisfaction and he needed compression releases.) Many builds with our heads and absolute satisfaction, with zero warranty issues and they create good numbers. Not the best heads in the world, but very good for the price. The heads were torqued to S&S / Cometics specs. Pushrods were adjusted 12 flats or 3 turns. The used S.E. 50 mm was installed and went to install the backing plate. The backing plate had a piece broken where the face of the spacer bottoms out on the backing plate. So we replaced that.(robbed a complete kit to get a chrome backing plate for him). Then went to install his supplied zippers filter and it would not fit, the studs were to long. Being pressed for time and not having the correct equipment to make them 100% equal in length I used the ness stage 2 kit. Again wasted time for customer supplying wrong parts.

Upon initial start up(fuel tank off, running of a pressurized fuel suppy bottle) I was shocked by the rear cylinder plug wire. Which could have caused the rear cylinders excessive carbon. There was no complaint of a misfire.
We explained to him about the wire and he never heard about having to replace spark plug wires. He said he only has 50000 on his bike and 150000 on his diesel truck and he hasn’t replaced the plug wires on it. Dad explained to him diesels don’t have plug wires( I found that amusing)

After the Second heat cycle on the motor, the ignition switch started to smoke. The ignition switch had previously been worked on because the wire connector was held in with zip tie. I suspect the connector was not removed with the specialty tool and was broke. So I fixed that, we made a special run to the local dealer, which we don’t make any profit off of just to get the job done.(once again Customer Satisfaction)

I Changed the oil, and put in some 20/50 fossil oil. It was broke in like all previous motor builds. I checked for compression 195 front 193 rear. Big Boyz head calculator estimated 192 ccp. Put it on the dyno did a 4th gear ro base power seemed low so I didn’t do any other throttle postions. Went to tunning link and roughly tunned the front cylinder, did another 4th gear ro and power was still low. I did a negative hp test -50 hp at 6200. Next I did a wet sump test, ran the bike up to 6000 pulled in the clutch and killed the motor.I drained out 16 oz from the mini sump. Not 12-16 or 18 as said above but 16 fl oz. Bob wood say normal is around 2-4 oz I think 4 is a little tight but that’s what he said. He also said that amount could rob anywhere from 10-15 hp.
So we made the dreaded call to randy, Told him that the motor was wet sumping, which was losing power. Dad went into a lot of detail, which imho is way over Randys head. Told him their was a couple of causes to the issue.
1. The o-ring for oil pump to case could be pinched, non seated, or missing
2. The O-ring from cam plate to engine case missing
2. Oil pump alignment
3. Oil pump failure
4. Blockage of oil passages in engine case or transmission/oil pan assembly
To explain number 4 the engine case halves are assembled with a sealant not gaskets , if excessive sealant was in the case and broke off or protruding into a passage way it could restrict flow. Me and dad personally have not had this happen, but Our tech that works for us has. It took harley tech support 3 weeks to tell him to split the cases and look for obstructions when he worked at a dealership. And that’s exactly what he found. At first Randy acted like he never new what wet sumping was, then he admitted to Harley telling him it could be a probable cause to his excessive oil blow by. He said he checked it himself before with minimal oil, and dad told him you can not just ride it let it sit over night and check it you have to rev the motor up and pull in the clutch and kill the motor to test for wet sumping.

Dad told him we would disassemble down to oil pump and inspect for possible o-ring issue at no charge . He asked if it would be ready in two hours, and dad laughed.

I started teardown and he called back saying he called the local harley and they said 12 to 14 oz was normal. Odd that he has bad mouthed harley for so long, yet he calls them to question us. Dad question him calling harley, was pretty pissed at this point. Dad was not very nice at telling him we were tearing it down and would call him when we had inspection completed.

I stayed late to finish inspection. I took pictures that are timed and dated, you can see the o-ring is installed correctly as well as the oil pump being raised off the case floor(oil pump alignment) . After cam plate removal I checked how tight the oil pump was in the case bore, and it was damn tight, and the o-rings for camplate to engine case were correct. There is no doubt in my mind that the o-ring was seated correctly.

If anyone has any further questions feel free to ask, im sure some things were left out, but hopefully you will see the picture. Harleys motor build had the same symptoms as ours, I checked everything that I could, except a wet sump test before I touched the bike.(lesson learned) That’s the only mistake I believe I have made, ohh and talking dad into taking the job.
Put it all together blown left crank seal, excessive blow by, low power ohh and 16 oz of oil in the mini sump sounds like wet sumping to me.
It has been nothing but a headache from the start, I still hope to have a happy ending. I do not want to release the bike wet sumping like it is. I still want to make him happy, although im very frustrated with him, this can still have a good ending.
If I was randy I would be frustrated to but things would be so much easier if he trusted the people working on his bike. I have truly gone above and beyond trying to make this guy happy, but I guess that’s a impossible task, or so it seems.
Also Randy what’s come up missing, and there are two broken parts. Ignition switch(burnt not snapped or abused but a electrical problem) and the air cleaner backing plate, which has oil build up and grime where the break is, from the excessive blow by.
This reply isn’t meant to be nasty it is somewhat unprofessional but im pretty frustrated. Dad would never aprove of it, but I just want to lay the facts out their so anyone can question, or put in input. Like I said I still hope for a happy ending, we just have to get back on the same page. All it would take is a little trust, that’s it, we have not done you wrong, you may think we have but we haven’t. Dad is a very respectable man, and will tell you like it is. If a mistake is made he takes care of it. For ex. we had a tech work for us when we first opened up and made a lot of mistakes by letting him take his shortcuts long story short he is no longer employed by us. He did a complete motor rebuild on a Sporster, he failed to torque the crank properly and the crank shifted, which caused excessive noise and vibration. We took it in checked it out it tore up a rotor and stator in the process and the motor had to be completely disassembled again. To top it of he was due to go on a trip to panama city (thunder on the beach) with family and friends. So dad let him borrow his Wide Glide, and fixed his motor personally at no charge. That’s the kind of honesty and customer satisfaction we strive for, but being constantly second guessed ( trust issue) makes it very hard to maintain that customer satisfaction. If you wish to talk more you can do it on the thread, pm me or pm and ill give you my cell number. I want this right for all of us.

 

 

 

Wow. I'm not mechanically inclined so I'm sure I don't fully understand, but wow!

DAWG, can you pass the popcorn?

 

Hell you should be happy the tech is keeping you updated.

 

This ought to be informative!

Andy

 

First off , i'm shocked that a shop would get on this forum and do what he just did.