Mild build on my FXR4

[elvislee]

 

[elvislee]

JW ... now that's KEWL ...... If I didn't have the chicken, or was ever to change .... my first choice would be to adopt a Buffalo, 2nd choice, TAZ !!!!!!!!



WHOA .... JW, That paint job on your bike is AWESOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's what grabbed me. Made me trade a 110 Street Glide cough up some more molla to get her. Haven't regretted it for a minute. Now I just need to get the FXR back together!

I came over here to keep up with you and the guys on the FXR stuff. Good information over here too. May post a thread on my FXR here also.

JW

So what ya waitin fer thar JW? I wanna see what color ya chose ta paint them thar tins? Hey, I know you ain't paintin em ba, ba, ba. ba. balack are ya?  You know Harley never painted any of their stock bikes black don't ya? 

Lookin forward to seeing that baby when your finished man 

[fxr4mikey]

JW ... now that's KEWL ...... If I didn't have the chicken, or was ever to change .... my first choice would be to adopt a Buffalo, 2nd choice, TAZ !!!!!!!!



WHOA .... JW, That paint job on your bike is AWESOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's what grabbed me. Made me trade a 110 Street Glide cough up some more molla to get her. Haven't regretted it for a minute. Now I just need to get the FXR back together!

I came over here to keep up with you and the guys on the FXR stuff. Good information over here too. May post a thread on my FXR here also.

JW

Yeah JW .... comeon and DO IT !!!!!!!!!!!!

[ClassicRider2002]

now that was some funny STUFF!!!!!!!!

   

We keep having this much fun and well who knows what will happen.....LOL

Regards,

"Classic"

[elvislee]

Mikey buddy...I know your busy; but, just want to let ya know we ain't forgot about ya man. If you don't hurry back, Jeff is gonna get that FXRS of his on the rode before you do and you had a years head start ....Look forward to seeing ya back...Blaine

[fxr4mikey]

Mikey buddy...I know your busy; but, just want to let ya know we ain't forgot about ya man. If you don't hurry back, Jeff is gonna get that FXRS of his on the rode before you do and you had a years head start ....Look forward to seeing ya back...Blaine

Hey Blaine .........  I haven't gone anywheres .............  I've been busy with a couple of side jobs that I took on  .... just a bit of pocket cash ... that couple with the cold weather last week, my cold and that sums up what I got done on the build ....

I'm working again tomorrow ... but I expect to be working on the bike this weekend ...I hope all goes well and that I'll have gas in the tank on Sunday .... however ... the weather forecast for Sunday doesn't look good right now .... but that won't matter .... I still plan to get her together  .. and be ready for the first nice day that comes along.  I cant wait to hear her roar !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for keeping track of me Blaine !!!

[fxr4mikey]

oh yeah, I'll be posting up pics as I continue to put her together ...... you can count on that ....

[elvislee]

oh yeah, I'll be posting up pics as I continue to put her together ...... you can count on that ....

Good deal Mikey. Hey, here's a pic of Me and my little grandson after a 40-50 mile little ride out to Dauphin Island last Fat Tuesday

[attachment removed after 60 days by system]

[ClassicRider2002]

Blaine....that there is an awesome photo.....he looks like he is having the time of his life hangin with you.....that's some NEAT STUFF RIGHT THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so tell me who took the photo?

Regards,

"Classic"

[fxr4mikey]

oh yeah, I'll be posting up pics as I continue to put her together ...... you can count on that ....

Good deal Mikey. Hey, here's a pic of Me and my little grandson after a 40-50 mile little ride out to Dauphin Island last Fat Tuesday

OH MAN .... he's a keeper for sure !!!

Hey, I see you got your tank bra on ....

comeon man, where's the close up pictures and the narative telling us all about it .... how do you like it, how does it fit, how does it look, how's the quality, blah blah blah

[elvislee]

Blaine....that there is an awesome photo.....he looks like he is having the time of his life hangin with you.....that's some NEAT STUFF RIGHT THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so tell me who took the photo?

Regards,

"Classic"

Yea Tim....We had a great time. My Niece took the pic. We had stopped by her house on the way back.

[elvislee]

oh yeah, I'll be posting up pics as I continue to put her together ...... you can count on that ....

Good deal Mikey. Hey, here's a pic of Me and my little grandson after a 40-50 mile little ride out to Dauphin Island last Fat Tuesday

OH MAN .... he's a keeper for sure !!!

Hey, I see you got your tank bra on ....

comeon man, where's the close up pictures and the narative telling us all about it .... how do you like it, how does it fit, how does it look, how's the quality, blah blah blah

Heres a quick pic...I'll get back with ya on the details...gotta go 

[attachment removed after 60 days by system]

[Black Diamond]

Blaine

Great pic with Grandkid. You look quite content! Reminds us of what important. Our families' and our Harleys'

JW

[elvislee]

Blaine

Great pic with Grandkid. You look quite content! Reminds us of what important. Our families' and our Harleys'

JW

Thanks Jeff,  we had fun riding that day 

[elvislee]

oh yeah, I'll be posting up pics as I continue to put her together ...... you can count on that ....

Good deal Mikey. Hey, here's a pic of Me and my little grandson after a 40-50 mile little ride out to Dauphin Island last Fat Tuesday

OH MAN .... he's a keeper for sure !!!

Hey, I see you got your tank bra on ....

comeon man, where's the close up pictures and the narative telling us all about it .... how do you like it, how does it fit, how does it look, how's the quality, blah blah blah

Heres a quick pic...I'll get back with ya on the details...gotta go 

Hey Mikey, Sorry I haven't gotten back with ya on the tank panel/bra. I don't have any pics but the ones you saw and those were quick snaps at my niecs's house. I want to get a few better closeups for ya and then I'll post with my thoughts. I'll be here rather than there from now on and man am I waiting to see where your at on your build...Best to ya man...Blaine

[fxr4mikey]

oh yeah, I'll be posting up pics as I continue to put her together ...... you can count on that ....

Good deal Mikey. Hey, here's a pic of Me and my little grandson after a 40-50 mile little ride out to Dauphin Island last Fat Tuesday

OH MAN .... he's a keeper for sure !!!

Hey, I see you got your tank bra on ....

comeon man, where's the close up pictures and the narative telling us all about it .... how do you like it, how does it fit, how does it look, how's the quality, blah blah blah

Heres a quick pic...I'll get back with ya on the details...gotta go 

Hey Mikey, Sorry I haven't gotten back with ya on the tank panel/bra.

Not a problem man, I understand !

I don't have any pics but the ones you saw and those were quick snaps at my niecs's house. I want to get a few better closeups for ya and then I'll post with my thoughts.

OK...... I plan to order mine SOON, but want to hear what you have to say about it first 

I'll be here rather than there from now on

OK, seems to be the same for many others too ..... no problem


and man am I waiting to see where your at on your build

OK, well, I haven't worked on it for about a week and a half .. been busy with a couple of jobs that I took on for some pocket cash   
and haven't been 'in the mood' for doing it ... but I'll get back to it SOON


...Best to ya man...Blaine

Back at ya man !

[fxr4mikey]

OK, some 'SMALL' progress on the build.

I decided to put the cir clips in one side of the pistons while they are on the bench.  There's several threads around the various forums with pics telling/showing how to do this.
It was my experience that some of these ideas don't work for the stock pistons on the 1340 EVO.

1) the example of the 3/4 inch copper coupling..... won't work. The coupling is larger in diameter the the hole for the cir clip, and 1/2 inch is too small
1a) if you have some 'other' pistons, like the ones in the picture with the copper coupling, you need to be sure and buy a coupling WITHOUT a 'STOP' inside it. Otherwise your 5/8 inch socket will not pass through the coupling

First thing I did was put some assembly lube on my finger and run it around inside the opening where the cir clip was going to be installed


It took me several attempts to get the first one in, and it DID NOT fly off anywhere 

I started out trying to have the opening of the cir clip at 12'oclock. At 6'oclock there's a little notch for a pick tool for removing the cir clip, so you want to make sure when you install it, that the opening IS NOT at the 6'oclock position.  So it JUST SEEMED LOGICAL to start it at 12'oclcok.

The problem that I encountered with that is that the clip kept getting caught up on the left hand edge of the little notch for a pick tool for removing the cir clip and I couldn't get it past that point -

I couldn't hold the clip, the pencil and the camera all at the same time .... well, not the way I wanted ... look over at the left side of that notch, that's the edge that the clip gets caught on if you start with the opening at 12'oclock



So it dawned on me that I needed to rotate the clip and start it at 2'oclock so that it would already BE PAST the little notch when I started pushing it in with my screwdriver...




you see in that picture above, look at the top of the clip, you see that it just outside the slot that is cut in the side of the piston, squeeze it down with your thumb and under that lip, hold it down with your thumb .... like this





after you get past about 7'oclock you won't even need to hold it, you can just keep pushing it with your screwdriver




almost installed, just one more lil push with the screwdriver and the cir clip opening will be at about 3'oclock

[Bucket]

Mikey  Great job! I have finished my bike and I took pictures but I havn't figurued out how to post them. the circlip is tricky. I used a pick and worked ok. I left my pistons in the clyinders pulled them to do base gaskets and new heads.I did it this way because I had 168 psi on front and 165 on rear and was using no oil to speek of now with the new heads the compression is a little over 180  Did your piston pins push out by hand or did you have to encourage them? mine were floating ok but got tight in the circlip area after a cleanup they went in fine. I like my S&S reed so far on the tear down I noticed the rear rocker cover gasket had pushed down and was restricting the movement of the umbrella valve don't know what that would do but can't be good .....will keep up with your build ..Good Luck

[fxr4mikey]

Alrighty Then !!!

More progress on the build .... got the pistons ringed, installed into the cylinders, put the cylinders on the bike, put the heads on the cylinders, torqued them down, started the install of the intake manifold ....

first use a sharpie to mark the direction of the arrow that's on the top of the cylinder ... Nice tip from my Good Friend Harley !  Thanks Harley !



here's the rear cylinder, upside down, the piston (with rings installed) and the ring compressor.  I oiled all of the rings before I installed them, then I put assembly lube all the way around the piston. Starting from the 'top' of the piston and going down to the space below the oil wiper.  I also put assy. lube inside the ring compressor to make it easy to knock the piston out of the compressor.  I didn't get any shots of that process ... messy hands for sure .... I used the wooden end of a plastic dead blow hammer to tap on the inside of the piston to drive it down into the cylinder.  You have to pay attention to how far you put it into the cylinder. .... leave enough room for the wrist pin to clear ....



Here's the piston in the cylinder .... arrow pointing to the left (front) ....



here you can see that there is room for the wrist pin to clear



just for the fun of it, I took a shot down into the cylinder ... you can see that the arrow is pointing to the front ..... the cut-out in the side of the cylinder is the space used by the push rods ....... I know all you wrenches already know all this stuff .... I'm just trying to help the guy, like me, who's never done it before.



here's the cylinder with the piston installed and sitting 'upright'  you'll notice that I've installed the wrist pin into the piston already. Thanks Steve for that tip !!
Install it just short of the entry for the connecting rod .... this way you won't have to stop after you put the cylinder down over the studs and try to find the wrist pin, or pick it up from somewhere. In the photo, it might look like it, but it's not, .... that the cylinder is sitting down on the top edge of the wrist pin .... it's not



EDIT:
Don't do like I did (I got lucky)  I FORGOT to stuff some rags in the crank case holes so as not to drop anything in there.....like a cir clip 


here's the rear one on, wrist pin installed (more on this in a minute) and getting ready to install the cir clip.



cir clip being installed ..... see my earlier post on this .... once you get that idea down, it's EASY ..... Not one of them went FLYING!!!



then I took the head bolts .... I know they look like 'zhit' but there's NOTHING wrong with them  ... and you can't see them anyway ..... and put some oil in the cap, dipped my finder in it and lubed the shoulder of the head bolts, and the bottoms of them. I had already oiled the inside threads a couple of weeks ago by dipping an old cyl stud in oil and screwing that into the head bolts.



here she is with her first new head !!!
I used James base cylinder gasket, and Cometic head gaskets. Both come with torquing instructions ... I followed the Cometic instructions and pattern.  I've also decided that even I were to use stock HD head gaskets (but I would NEVER) that I'd still follow the Cometic torquing instructions.



ain't she PRETTTTTTY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

here's the second one going on -  you can see the wrist pin already started



then, working from the other side, you can look into the hole for the wrist pin and align the connecting rod and push the wrist pin through ...... :-)   Thanks again Steve !!
It took a few maneuvers to get it aligned, but it was pretty straight forward and not difficult. You just have to hold the cylinder/piston, move it up and down, you might have to move the connecting rod, reach through to the other side with you other hand, and start pushing on the wrist pin .... once it starts to go in keep pushing on it until it seats up against the cir clip that was already installed on the work bench...



here she is with both of her new heads !!!!!!!!!!!   I LOVE THIS BIKE !!!!!!!!!!  She is BEAUTIFUL !!!!!!!!



so then I set about to install the intake manifold. If you do this step now, BEFORE you install the rocker boxes you'll have more room to work.

here's the old seal coming out



here's a closer look at what the seals look like .... be sure to install the flange FIRST, and the bevel side of the seal goes 'in' towards the flange.



here's the loosely fit intake manifold .... got late, got tired, got cold ...... tomorrow is another day .....

[fxr4mikey]

Mikey  Great job! I have finished my bike and I took pictures but I havn't figurued out how to post them. the circlip is tricky. I used a pick and worked ok. I left my pistons in the clyinders pulled them to do base gaskets and new heads.I did it this way because I had 168 psi on front and 165 on rear and was using no oil to speek of now with the new heads the compression is a little over 180  Did your piston pins push out by hand or did you have to encourage them?

I had to use a homemade tool to get the wrist pins out ... I'll post that up. Wish I could take credit for the idea, but it was passed to me from another friend!

mine were floating ok but got tight in the circlip area after a cleanup they went in fine.

Mine too

I like my S&S reed so far on the tear down I noticed the rear rocker cover gasket had pushed down and was restricting the movement of the umbrella valve don't know what that would do but can't be good .....will keep up with your build ..Good Luck

Thanks for the Good Luck Wishes !!

[fxr4mikey]

Home made tool for pulling out your wrist pins .....
I needed this to get mine out ... I could push them, but they seemed to get stuck when they got to the grove for the cir clip, this was EASY !!!!!!!!!!

The parts for the tool




Wrist pin with the c clip still in





Head of carriage bolt against the wrist pin





Plastic pipe notch for clearance







Wrist pin partially removed





Wrist pin almost out and sliding into plastic pipe




Wrist pin completely out.



Parts for the tool - 8" long 5/16" carriage bolt, 5/16 wing nut, 5/16 fender washer, 5/16 nylon washer ( not really needed), a 3-1/2" long piece of 1" I.D. plastic pipe and a bottle of Makers Mark for me.

[Bucket]

cool pin puller I made one from all thread and stainless pipe  notched the same way worked good. Mikey you probelly know this but I ran into it with my heads check the valve retainer clearance on the lower rocker box. the boxes have a casting mark that i ground out to give more clearance. was easy with a dermal tool. If you have already talked about this I haven't read all post in a while. You should fire her soon looking good

[tinkerman]

Hey Mikey,

Looks like she is getting close to being able to fly.

As said before, great work, great post.

Tink

[ceduby]

Hey Mikey,
Glad to see things going well, and NICE shop! Not to hijack your thread but I ran into something when I put gas in the tank, (just finishing up a top end re-do) fuel came pouring out the overflow, Carb was on the bench for about 6 weeks, untouched, Since i was doing a short heat cycle anyway I decided to just run it till the bowl was empty. After the run, I turned the fuel back on and no more leak. What ever it was the vibration cleared it. So if this happens to you don't pull the bowl off right away. I would of but didn't have a short enough phillips at the time.

[fxr4mikey]

Gettin close now ....
Got the mainfold, bottom rocker boxes w/rocker arms and push rods installed.

for all you wrenches out there reading this, remember, this is mostly an effort to help those that might not know, and for those who may be working on a FXR .... so of it is specific to the FXR, and MOST of it is common to any EVO.

Thanks to EVERYONE who has been helping me, and to all those reviewing and providing the kind Compliments and words of Encouragement

Here comes the pics ...

the manual says to make sure that the manifold is in an 'up right position'  I interpret that as to mean 'vertical'
so I placed a torpedo level on the face of the timing hole to see how the bike was sitting


then I snugged up the bolts on the manifold, just enough to hold it into position, put the level on the face of the manifold and adjusted it to be the same as the way the bike is sitting


then I adjusted the manifold, as best that I could to be 'centered' between the two cylinders, obviously this is from the back side of the intake


you can not put a torque wrench on the bolts that hold the manifold in place, not on the front or the back (I don't know how the HD Techs torque these bolts).  So I warmed up my arm, calibrated my bicep, put the dog leg allen  wrench in there and torqued them down (SM calls for 15-17 ft lbs)

front ones


back ones


then it was off to do the base rocker boxes
here's a picture of the pretty one peice James gasket .... dayum nice gasket
The large holes at the top of the pic is the side that goes over the valves and the other side is where the push rods come up into the heads and to the rocker arms


here's a pic of the bottom of the base rocker box, all pretty, shinny and clean !! all of the rocker boxes were cleaned using a parts cleaning brush and Simple Green


when I took it apart I put all the parts into baggies and labeled them. This insures that I get the same rocker arm shaft back into the same rocker arm that it was in before.
I had also labeled all of the positions that the bolts came out of .... .didn't matter this time because I put on new heads .... otherwise they would have all gone back into their original holes.  Here's the parts that go into the bottom rocker box ... starting with the rear (#2) cylinder


then I made my first Doof mistake of the day ........ I put the rocker box on, only to remember that the bolts on the rear (left side) for the rocker arms have to be installed WITH the rocker box, as there is NO ROOM to get those bolts in once the rocker box is installed


so the rocker box had to come back out


so then I decided to read the SM .... it says to install the rocker arms and shafts THEN install the rocker box .... but it DOES NOT mention that on the FXR4 you MUST (if doing this with the engine in the frame) drop those rocker arm bolts into the box BEFORE you put the box on the head
Here's what the assembly looks like

here's a shot of the bottom of the rocker arm ... the little hole is where the oil comes up from the pushrod and oils the rocker arm shaft ... you see the shaft to the right, and the notch that must line up with the bolt that holds the rocker arm in place


first one installed, the bottom of the photo is the left side of the cylinder


here's a shot of the rocker arm (upside down) the shaft (showing the notch) and the bolt


it is possible to install the rocker arms backwards in the rocker box ..... be sure that the push rod seat is on the right hand side of the box ..... yes, you can ask me how I know this .... but I might not tell you ....


first rocker box assembled and installed, with the rocker arm bolts in place


checking the end play on the rocker arm .... if I recall you can have up to .025 end play, mine measured .009 ..... good to go !


after you snug down all the bolts, you'll realize that there is no way to put a torque wrench on the bolts on the left hand side .....


so I called my Good Friend Harley and discussed this with him.  He told me about 'dog bones'.  So I needed a torque wrench adapter .... but I didn't have one, so I made one like this
started with a combination box end ratchet wrench


added to that a 3/8 to 1/2 inch ratchet adapter (Mike's torque wrench is 3/8 inch drive)


put all that together and had an adapter that I could put on those bolts








these two screws on the left side ... no torque wrench ... I used my calibrated right arm and set them ...


both bottom rocker boxes installed ..... YEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


I'm going out to work on it now ..... the push rods are already installed and adjusted, and I have the pictures ....  but want to go to the garage now .... so I'll post up more later