Yuengling Brewery Tour - more

Converted to Ice cream during prohibition (or did they)


Thirsty...

Entrance to the caves where the beer was stored. The government actually bricked them up during prohibition.


Stained glass ceiling


Mural of first beer post prohibition...happy guy



Gratuitous Panhead shots




Here's some more pictures of the Yuengling Brewery.

The black Mercedeses followed each other compactly up the minuscule mountain roads, like a long black snake trying to flee its own tail hunted by the burning sun. 4000 feet below them there was still a war on the beaches of Normandy, my war. I brought it there and even though I didn’t like it any more than I liked Henry Rollins singing in Black Flag it kinda put things in perspective. A shiny glimpse of a circular past illuminated my graveled expectations; instead of unity I felt isolation.

The French Riviera is magnificent in May she said from behind her outsized Gucci eyewear as the Lamborghinis passed outside the restaurant where a bottle of wine costs more than all the clothes on my body, but sometimes it’s not about the money. Reflections in tinted Bentley windows portraying palm tree parades leading up to The Carlton Hotel, the sun sets leisurely over the jewelry drenched haciendas as the murderer met her at the Viper Room, 5 hours left until she met her doom, blood tastes better if you had a pulse he mumbled, the ghost of River Phoenix and a bag of blow can’t save you now. The bottles piled up between my feet as my spirit fell from grace.

Rewind my soul right here on the beach, through moonlit skies, foliage symphonies and breaking waves, the bloody red shorelines are whispering my name. The night of the moth raises the divine wings of dawn or was it the other way around?
Jesus Christ I love being drunk and I really love Buco windshields, specially the small Cushman model without the headlight cutout at the bottom, the same model used on Indian Chiefs and the four cylinder models. Buco did these windshields in several sizes and colors so to find a color matched 21” X 22” sure was a bloody poetic experience.
I am off to Denmark early tomorrow morning.  We are eight Norwegians going to participate in the famous “Skagenløpet”.  We are riding from the top of Denmark, a place called Skagen to the capitol København.
All the 211 bikes are made before 1934. Look out for the last entrance number on a 1933 Ariel Red Hunter 500 cc, me no 211.



Before you start to speculate…..No, the boy on the right in the sailor uniform is not me. The photo is from the finish of Skagenløpet 1915 and seen on the Harley Davidson are Christian Bohnstedt-Pedersen, believed to be the winner of the race.





Paid a visit to the Yuengling Brewery in Pottsville PA this past weekend. It's a pretty cool place with an interesting history.
Remember, if you subscribe to GKM you'll get a free sticker inside issue 21.

You lucky people.

Simon Mills: A V-Twin obsession "Part One"

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I am simon mills a friend of Gary Inman and Ben Part from Sideburn, also colleague of Fiddy from Davida.
well I'll be brief, in the olden days as a boy it was ducati Obsession, barcelona 24horas, Imola, then as a young man I discovered Le Mans, Bol d'or endurance racing, French style etc, I loved those bikes and the events, from the early eighties it was all about the underdog battling the mighty Japanese, as a student I saved and borrowed and built bikes around 900SS, Guzzi SP1000 T3 etc and they came and went, some still seem to be here.

1983 900 SS endurance style-large Vee twin obsession commences

1985 Le Clou-The NAIL, the guzzi that always ran when the duke broke

the duke became a Harris duke to try to follow the times

Later on came other Guzzi and Ducati singles

the re-birth of the 750 sport 8 years ago

the re-built shed to remove 8 bikes from the house





all of the bevels were built from wrecks, the silver bullet 900 ss was a tribute to the American racers of the 70's, California Hot Rod, old blue etc, the 900S2 was a tribute to the NCR endurance bikes of early 80's built from bits and pieces from scrapyards and friends, burnt out wrecks recovered.


the scrambler was standard but a friend crashed it so it acquired Darmah forks and wheels, the 900ss swing arm caused the NCR to be built as I went to scrapyard to buy a swing arm from 900ss and ended up with whole bike totally burned but managed to rebuild with another SS frame etc



The silver bullet, 900ss fancy valves, pistons, much porting and lighteneing throughout engine, 1980's replica Chrom Moly race frame, 996 forks, brakes and wheel, marchesini rear...
Not so sure why, it just seemed like a good idea 9 years ago


recently ripped up a perfectly good 750SS to make a little cafe for madame, its bit rough but cheap and cheerful..

the final version, cheap and cheerful




.
.


I am simon mills a friend of Gary Inman and Ben Part from Sideburn, also colleague of Fiddy from Davida.
well I'll be brief, in the olden days as a boy it was ducati Obsession, barcelona 24horas, Imola, then as a young man I discovered Le Mans, Bol d'or endurance racing, French style etc, I loved those bikes and the events, from the early eighties it was all about the underdog battling the mighty Japanese, as a student I saved and borrowed and built bikes around 900SS, Guzzi SP1000 T3 etc and they came and went, some still seem to be here.

1983 900 SS endurance style-large Vee twin obsession commences

1985 Le Clou-The NAIL, the guzzi that always ran when the duke broke

the duke became a Harris duke to try to follow the times

Later on came other Guzzi and Ducati singles

the re-birth of the 750 sport 8 years ago

the re-built shed to remove 8 bikes from the house





all of the bevels were built from wrecks, the silver bullet 900 ss was a tribute to the American racers of the 70's, California Hot Rod, old blue etc, the 900S2 was a tribute to the NCR endurance bikes of early 80's built from bits and pieces from scrapyards and friends, burnt out wrecks recovered.


the scrambler was standard but a friend crashed it so it acquired Darmah forks and wheels, the 900ss swing arm caused the NCR to be built as I went to scrapyard to buy a swing arm from 900ss and ended up with whole bike totally burned but managed to rebuild with another SS frame etc



The silver bullet, 900ss fancy valves, pistons, much porting and lighteneing throughout engine, 1980's replica Chrom Moly race frame, 996 forks, brakes and wheel, marchesini rear...
Not so sure why, it just seemed like a good idea 9 years ago


recently ripped up a perfectly good 750SS to make a little cafe for madame, its bit rough but cheap and cheerful..

the final version, cheap and cheerful




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Since Harley came out with their Twin Cam in 1999, it has gained a reputation as a motor that is fairly easy to modify for significant horsepower gains. Unfortunately, the Twin Cam's reputation for reliability seems to have lagged far behind, and not without reason.



First there was the whole fiasco with the early cam chain tensioners. Seemed as though the life expectancy was anywhere between 20 and 30 thousand miles (though some did not make it that far). When they wore through the tensioner pad, things could get ugly in a hurry. Throw a little hearing loss on the owners part, and you get a cam chain wearing a hole through the cam cover (its true - I just rebuilt one with just that problem).



An early response to the whole cam chain tensioner problem was the S&S gear drive cam set up. Its a legitimate fix, but it comes with its own issues, the main one being gear lash. Of course the whole idea behind the cam chain set up from Harley was to quiet the motors down by eliminating gear lash issues. Only trouble with the gear drives is you now have two sets of gears to get the lash right in order to have a quiet motor; the outer pair which drive the rear cam off the crank, and the inner pair which drive the front cam off the rear one. Although S&S offers and oversize and and under size gear for each pair to aid in getting a good fit, every cam plate will give a different fitment. Too tight on the lash and the gears will whine; too loose and you get the old tappet type noise.


After only seven years in production, the factory came up with a new solution for the early cam chain tensioner failure syndrome. Beginning with the 2006 Dyna models, and 2007 for the balance of Big Twins, Harley fit the Twin Cams with a new type cam chain system known as variously as hydraulic tensioned, or silent cam chains. Apparently the key to this new system is not so much the hydraulic tensioner as it is the type of chain itself. A quick feel of the outside edge of the chains (the part that the tensioner pads ride on) tells the real story. The early chains which were controlled by spring loader tensioner pads are down right sharp compared to the later chains!


All that leads us to that venerable practice of upgrading old motors with later model part. Really, it is a custom that has flourished for many years, and involves everything from putting on an M74 carb in place of your M35, all the way up to the simple but ambitious practice of putting an entire Shovel top end on a Pan. The "late model parts on an earlier model bike trick" has been a staple of the Harley aftermarket as well as the Motor Company itself for years.


The first I became aware of the possibility of upgrading the cam tensioners on '99-'06 Twin Cams was via the Kuryakyn catalog. They even list all the parts you need to purchase from your local Harley dealership to complete the upgrade. Included in the upgrade is the late model cam plate and the new higher volume oil pump, and of course Kuryakyn will be happy to supply a variety of cam grinds manufactured especially for this upgrade.


Checking the Andrews catalog, I see they offer a whole kit with cam plate, oil pump, and everything else needed for the conversion as well as a full complement of cams specifically for this upgrade.



Not to be totally outdone, Harley Davidson, via their Screamin' Eagle division also offer a kit. Harley's kit, however, leaves you stuck using the original "chainsaw" style inside cam chain. The reason they did this was so that you do not have to use a special cam; you can keep the one you have if it is still usable. The down side is that you are forced to keep the chain that contributed to the problems in the first place, and is the one hardest to service to boot. Seems to me it is only a solution to half the problem.


Now, if you are thinking that you lean toward the Kuryakyn promoted solution, I have a couple of cautions for you. Since you are purchasing a cam plate that is not designated for use on the '99-'06 engines there won't be any warning label mentioning that on certain years of NON Softail models, one of the oil holes in the new cam plate will line up with ...NOTHING. That right, if you have a '99 (for instance) Dyna or FLT model, this hole which feeds the balance chain tensioners on "B" motors, will dump pressure oil directly into the cam chest. This will drastically lower your oil pressure, give you noisy lifters, and a flickering oil pressure light at hot idle. The solution is to simply plug the hole; in fact the procedure would have been outlined for you in the instructions if you had purchased a stock replacement cam plate for your early Twin Cam.



this is the offending oil hole





where the boss would be on B motors - note the pencil is pointing at open space







the solution




The next caution has to do with cam sprocket alignment. From what I have seen so far, I am led to believe that Harley has machined every pinion shaft from 1999 until now incorrectly. Every shaft is machined for the diameter of the cam chain drive sprocket just inboard from the portion that rides in the cam plate itself. This machining includes a "flat" on one side which positively locates the sprocket. This machined flat is the problem. Admittedly I have only checked a half dozen crank assemblies, but the range from 1999 to two brand new fresh out of the shipping crate 103" cranks. The specific problem is that the "flat" is machined deeper (further inboard) that the rest of the diameter for the sprocket by about .015". This causes the cam chain sprocket to pull in on that side when tightened. It gives said sprocket a similar amount of lateral runout, which in turn makes sprocket alignment between cam and pinion, shall we say ...interesting.





undercut deeper at the flat





There's not much you can do about the situation, as far as I can see, outside of being aware of the issue so that you can split the difference and minimise the misalignment between the two sprockets. If you were to simply follow the factory service manual and check the sprocket alignment, adjusting to within the Harley mandated .010, you may not think to turn the motor over 180 degrees and re-check. You may not think to, because the manual doesn't mention it. Whoever wrote the manual assumed (as most of us do) that the sprockets would install "square" on the shaft. Oops.






note gap between straight edge and top sprocket







rotate engine 180 degrees and note difference in gap



Now you "get" the title that I chose for this piece; "wobbly" indeed. If that were the only place the factory went wobbly on the Twin Cam, it would be one thing, but it seems to be only the "tip of the iceberg", so to speak. How about the flywheels? Why is it that the specification for flywheel runout on my 1946 Knucklehead is within .001", but on a new Twin Cam it has become four times as much at .004"? Is that progress? Were the machine tools that much more accurate back then?


A comparison of a 1999 Twin Cam service manual with its 2009 counterpart is revealing. In 1999 the spec for flywheel runout was .002 maximum. By 2009 that spec was doubled to .004". Not only that, but the service wear limit (deemed acceptable by the factory before repair) in 1999 was .003 for flywheel runout, but .005" ten years later. Note that the .003" runout which was the limit before replacement in 1999 would be within new setup spec for 2009. In 1999 the spec for pinion shaft runout was .003, and no service wear limit was given. In 2009 that spec, though renamed (to protect the guilty?) is .010" with a whopping (or should I say wobbly) service wear limit of .012!

My conclusion? Harley reached its zenith for quality and engineering with the Evo motor. Of course they reached their zenith in just plain "class" much earlier with the Knucklehead!

More Photos in the Near future of Harleys on Cuban soil .








The Stockers Tea Party was a great bash... great to ride and drink and laugh with friends. Thanks Steve for making the effort to put it together.

The Pan ran like a champ there and back... about 620 miles. It spewed oil (mainly because I over-filled the tank) wherever it stood and blew its front wheel bearing seal. So on the way back up north I stopped at Italian Motor Magazine HQ and my brother Adam helped me investigate whether the bearings were mashed or could take another couple of hundred miles' abuse.

With the help of a Frosties packet (slightly thicker than Shreddies) we created a cover for the blown cork seal which worked a treat. We repacked the bearings but Adam discovered there was at least a couple of mm lateral movement in the wheel once it was tightened down. Bearings? Worn spindle? Lost shims? Combination of all?

Dunno. Rode it anyway and only got rained on for 150 miles straight. My shiny pipes became shitty pipes.

Thanks bro! xx
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