In the last 2 years, I have had the pleasure of working on 3 motors with the same affliction…short-cuts.
When Indian started putting out it’s 4 cylinder shop manuals/bike specs more than 90 years ago, they chose the specifications for building the motors with intent and backed by reason.
A common misconception about new technologies and techniques is that they are always better than their predecessors. Not the case when it comes to lacing the main studs.
This may seem to be a trivial detail to those that hurry through the process and/or embrace the common short-cuts of using a cotter pin or a locking nut or even thread lock on nuts; instead of lacing wire.
The Indian manual specifically spells out the process for lacing the main studs on the crank shaft, the main shaft of the transmission and the cluster gear. Lacing wire costs about $2 for 100 yards. The process adds about 15 minutes of assembly time.
Only a month ago, I used my bare fingertips to remove the studs of a motor that had been fastened with cotter pins and thread lock. The result of this short-cut was that the studs were loose; the cluster gear was falling out. Other instances include: broken crank shaft main journals from the crank shaft actually coming out of place and holes busted out of the sides of cases.
The moral of this story is simple; don’t use a cheap short-cut that will end up costing you around $8000 for a new upper case. The old way is the best way.
Roy Davies
retiredsfcroy@yahoo.com
812-239-5952
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Location:Indiana
