Case Repair

[Fire-medic]

I was at my machinist's today getting some work done on a garage project to make my work on bikes easier, and to assist in storage/retrieval of material stored on-site.

This came out of the hot-wash cabinet, a 1942 Harley-Davidson WLA engine case half, which has a cracked oil plug female fitting. He's going to fix the case for a local collector who has multiple flatheads, which is what this is.

I thought it was of-interest to the gearheads on here. God may save souls, but he saves cases.

 

[one2dmax]

That repair is going to suck but it can be done.

 

[Fire-medic]

He's not a CNC guy, his Bridgeport is 'analog.'

The inside of the case had some sort of red-colored sealant on it, I guess it's there to keep the oil in because the old casting techniques left the cases 'porous.'

 

[adambweird]

Its not that bad, drill it out, weld it back, machine smooth, drill and tap. The worst part about it will be the initial drilling, too much and the outer edge could collapse during welding. Id guess about a 7hr job to make it look like the repair was never done. Neat bit o history there!

 

[Fire-medic]

About the same time this engine case was built, (during WW II, as it's 1942) H-D was reverse-engineering a captured BMW boxer twin motorcycle, an R 71, that the Army took possession of in N Africa. The story is that they disassembled it, changed the specs to inch measurements, and made a run of boxer twins, shaft drive of course, which made sense in the gritty deserts of Africa.

http://www.harley-davidson.com/cont...-history/H-D_History_H-D_And_The_Military.pdf

https://rideapart.com/articles/harley-davidson-prototypes-wwii

Be surre to check out the 2nd link for a pic of the two Harley V-twins geared together for powering a tank!