From: | Mark Hill | e-mail: | hillm@canton.edu |
Subject: | RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Shower Head Pic | Date: | Fri Mar 22 20:05:12 2013 |
Response to: | 4674 |
Oil pressure is a non-issue for us. The big boy KJ's that use the new crankshafts were drilled and modified exactly how Ian has described the mod he makes (late model Indian Four). We also left the tail hole open as it was originally. When starting some of the first of those engines up, we saw pressures on the gauge as high as 125 psi. No B.S. Actually, taming the oil pressure was a real problem. We used late model KJ pumps with restictor orifices. All of our bikes ran external filters. One or two oil filters were blown off the crimps and a hell of a mess was made on the shop floor before we tamed the pressure by drilling the orifice. The new crankshafts are fully cross drilled with four more orifices in them than the factory crankshafts had from day 1. The fabled brass restrictor jets(stock cranks) were never used either. That tiny wire EDMed orifice is miniscule in comparison to the spotty workmanship of the shim placement from the factory. If anything, the KJ's and probably the Deluxes are over pumped. Back to hydrodynamically floating the mainshaft, I am going to pressurize it. Half a dozen new special main shafts that are drilled and orificed providing lubrication are being gun drilled as I write this. I am going to float the shaft and it will be end of story(I hope)that part anyways. Careful attention was paid during the disassembly of key test engines and several of the pack engines survived with no wear whatsoever in the transmission area. The mods that we are making are for longevity, well beyond 4000 miles. You can not ask oil to find its way into randomly places oil holes in the plain bearing bushings with a centrificly rotating shaft that is trying to push it out just by the nature of the shaft turning. Look at the oil path of BMW's RR 1000 crankshaft it end oils rather than side oils like most everthing else on the street. You can spin a shaft so fast it will resist pressurized oil flow. Yah thats not our case here but we are working with random chaos that oil will want to enter one of those three holes in the spline shaft bearings. I am going to float it then loads can be calculated properly. I will post pics of the shafts and my mods when the shafts are ready. We are Gunning up for the next time if there is one . I love the look of demoralized H.D. riders. Mark ----- ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS ----- If the standard Henderson pumps are set up with about .002 end clearance on the gears in the housing (including the gasket thickness) there is plenty of oil. Our .005 inch thick gasket requires that the gears protrude .003 above the surface of the pump body. Billk ----- ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS ----- I could have sworn I remember seeing a Henderson with a HD type oil cooler mounted on it. Would be a simple enough modification. I affixed a filter on mine but I doubt it adds enough surface area to provide any effective cooling. ----- ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS ----- John,It seems even the smaller Delux pump produces enough pressure and flow initially it,s the heat that needs controlling to be able to supply the extra oiling needed in Marks modification to make it successful.It would be interesting to hear from some of the guys running external oil filters with enough surface area or exposed tubing to affect cooling if they have noted better viscosity in those machines under the same conditions.Many questions? Ian>>>>>>>>>>> ----- ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS ----- Sounds like the next step is to upgrade the oil pump with a spacer and some wider, re manufactured gears. Can only hope to boost pressure though as the 3/8" tubing is only going to flow so much oil. :John ----- ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS ----- Mark ,Have been following your progress on this immense undertaking.The question comes to mind of what is the effect of bleeding off the pressure in the crankshaft?particuliarly in a motor at full operating temperature?I have found that plugging the tailshaft and forcing the oil thru the side hole as in the Indian engine will increase the viscocity and length of time it takes to reduce it.but it does not eliminate it and a pressure drop ensues when running the type of miles you guys were running on the cannonball particuliarly at high altitudes.It seems a transmission that has enough oil mist and pressure to drive or pump the oil up the shift tower to cause a leak should be sufficient to lubricate the plain bronze bearings or in the case of the cluster babbitt or aluminium of the Henderson.Short of a modification to run a roller or ball bearing not sure if there is a way out of this one.Looking forward to seeing your mod on the mainshaft. Ian>>>>>>>>>>>>> ----- ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS ----- ----- ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS ----- The Cannonball exposes weekness that can only be learned on that type of brutal, non-stop competition. I watched three of the Wolfpack Hendersons run wounded. Bramwell's was the worst(he could only cruise about 75mph). Cutter, you got the video that day in Iowa when we were smoking the entire line of bikes. See if you can get it to Dave H. It would be cool if he could add it as a link. It was great smoking those HDs. We had torn up some mainshafts on some of the bikes due to a materials compatibility issue. During one of our gas station engineering sessions, we began talking about taming the Henderson transmission. Our modern motorcycles and dirt bikes all shower and pressurize the transmission. With the type of power we are making now, and on long, sustained pulls, it became apparent we were not cycling enough oil through the transmission. This was probably partially due to the line boring process I employed. The shims that I use between the bearing halves get bored 360 degrees along with the bearings. Originally the Henderson shims were not set up like this. They stood back off the edges of the shafts which probably allowed for some oil in the rear bearing to effectively "puke" back around the small bevel gear (to use an engineering term)- completely inadequate in its own design as the lack of a 360 degree bearing is kicking the hell out of the hydrodynamic lubrication of the shaft itself. Discussion of our situation led to the topic of the late model Indian Fours having a drilling off the pinion support bearing, showering the bevel gears with a jet of oil (1940 - 1942). Yes, Barry, I updated your '36 to this spec. We were pushing these bikes hard, and they let us know what worked and what didn't. It would be very difficult to achieve the Indian style shower effect with a Henderson case due to the differences in geometry of the saddle support of the case. Everyone was in agreement that we needed to figure out how to get oil from the tail stub of the crankshaft to the transmission. Mike Fockler (#65) offered up one of the suggestions that we think will yield big results. We would wire EDM, an oil hole, through the pinion gear at an angle to provide a shower effect to move more oil back to the transmission area to cycle oil through the system. This gets us a shower on the gears but it still does not address the lack of hydrodynamic lubrication of the main shaft. Wait until you see what we are doing with the main shaft. TO BE CONTINUED... |