Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[grc]

2harleys, your post makes me wonder who and where the cranks are being put together. If it is here in the U.S.A. and they have a small group of people who assemble cranks, they should somehow be able to be identified to any crank they put together, maybe by vin number, or some code on the crank itself.   If people started getting fired for bad workmanship they would have a different attitude about the quality of their personal work. The crank is the heart of the engine. It is the most important part. If a person wants to change to gear drive for example the crank should be true enough so that it would be a non issue. However if someone is doing a build and wants to get 120HP/120 lbs of torque and put that load on a crank originally made to not handle that much power they shouldnt expect it to last very long unless they true,plug and weld it. I am not sticking up for HD because most of the complaints on this post are valid ones, but most of us have at least 40K into our CVOs by the time they roll out of the dealer's parking lot. You would at least expect the crank to be as true as humanly possible. Sorry long post. I am just frustrated with the chronic amount of untrue cranks people on the site are talking about. It is fu--en bullchit on harley's part and they don't seem to give a rats ass. Sorry for the long post. CAHDBIKER 

I believe what you will find is that there is no "individual" person who assembles crankshafts (flywheel assemblies).  The individual parts are cast, forged, machined, etc. and then they go to a machine where the two flywheels, the rods, and the crankpin are loaded into position and pressed into one crankshaft assembly by the press.  The problem isn't that some hourly assembler isn't tweaking something correctly, the problem is in the design of both the parts and the tooling used to put all the stuff together.  Human beings basically just load the parts into the various machines these days, they don't hand assemble and adjust anything.  If you want to blame anyone, blame the management and the engineers.  The pressed crankpin design was obsolete more than 20 years ago, at least for companies other than H-D.  If they refuse to abandon the forked rod, common crankpin design to keep the cylinders in a perfect line fore and aft, they need to address finding a better way to assure the crankpin to flywheel joint integrity.  The engines produce more torque, and they are working against a higher load.  The regular press fit isn't up to the task, obviously.  Even if you get lucky and get one from the factory at .001" runout, there is no guarantee it will stay there for any length of time.  They know this, thus the huge increase in runout tolerance to avoid bankrupting themselves replacing cranks under warranty.  If you can't or won't make good parts, you change the specs so that all parts are now considered good.  They use the same approach on all sorts of things these days, such as the .008" runout spec on brake rotors as compared to an industry standard of .002".  I don't know about the rest of you, but when I pay a premium price for a product I don't expect that kind of cheap conniving crap.  I might understand it on a third world product that sold for $5k, but Harley's are the highest priced standard motorcycles on the market.

Anywho, don't blame the poor bastards working on the assembly lines.  If they are like many of the folks I knew in the auto plants, most of them are just as pizzed about the sorry quality being pushed out the doors as the rest of us.  Vent your anger at the folks who are truly responsible; you'll find them sitting in comfy offices counting their bonuses.


Jerry

[sadunbar]

I believe what you will find is that there is no "individual" person who assembles crankshafts (flywheel assemblies).  The individual parts are cast, forged, machined, etc. and then they go to a machine where the two flywheels, the rods, and the crankpin are loaded into position and pressed into one crankshaft assembly by the press.  The problem isn't that some hourly assembler isn't tweaking something correctly, the problem is in the design of both the parts and the tooling used to put all the stuff together.  Human beings basically just load the parts into the various machines these days, they don't hand assemble and adjust anything.  If you want to blame anyone, blame the management and the engineers.  The pressed crankpin design was obsolete more than 20 years ago, at least for companies other than H-D.  If they refuse to abandon the forked rod, common crankpin design to keep the cylinders in a perfect line fore and aft, they need to address finding a better way to assure the crankpin to flywheel joint integrity.  The engines produce more torque, and they are working against a higher load.  The regular press fit isn't up to the task, obviously.  Even if you get lucky and get one from the factory at .001" runout, there is no guarantee it will stay there for any length of time.  They know this, thus the huge increase in runout tolerance to avoid bankrupting themselves replacing cranks under warranty.  If you can't or won't make good parts, you change the specs so that all parts are now considered good.  They use the same approach on all sorts of things these days, such as the .008" runout spec on brake rotors as compared to an industry standard of .002".  I don't know about the rest of you, but when I pay a premium price for a product I don't expect that kind of cheap conniving crap.  I might understand it on a third world product that sold for $5k, but Harley's are the highest priced standard motorcycles on the market.

Anywho, don't blame the poor bastards working on the assembly lines.  If they are like many of the folks I knew in the auto plants, most of them are just as pizzed about the sorry quality being pushed out the doors as the rest of us.  Vent your anger at the folks who are truly responsible; you'll find them sitting in comfy offices counting their bonuses.


Jerry

And the bonus of GRC's story is the compensator has proved not able to adequately protect the pressed crankshaft - and even the MOCO agreed with this - so the compensator was redesigned, and now it's no longer a robust design either.  End result is a compensator that needs to be replaced about as often as lifters need to be replaced!         (oops - lifters - a whole other story)

[HD Street Performance]

The regular press fit isn't up to the task, obviously

I have pressed them apart and the saying "they don't make them like they used to" definitely applies. The older wheels had more press and took more tonnage to get apart.

Good write-up, I couldn't agree more

[skreminegul07]

About a year ago, one of the magazines did an article on the engine production facility (Tomahawk, I beleieve) and told how the engines are on a moving line and at each station, the employee has 30 seconds to add /fit pistons, etc.  Knowing this, the assembly must be a sloppy fit so that the line moves on.  Each component has a tolerance range male/female, so if you have one of the components at one end of range (small) and the other mating piece at the opposite extreme end, you have a sloppy fit that's still in tolerance.  An engine builder is not going to assemble this way.  Each part will be hand fitted for the tightest fit and therefore will perform /last longer and quieter.

Just my .02 and one of the first victims of the crank issue.

In the auto indusrty, cars are designed to be built by robots.  When you go to repair them, you ask, why the hell is that fastener there?  Its because of ease of access for manufacturing, not repairs.   But at least the auto industry keeps improving quality, longevity, tolerances, etc.

[jagonza1]

I have it too.  the problem is the valvespring design harley went with a behive design and it is just noisy ive if you go to a hi performance behive from screaming eagle or the fueling  once it wil still be noisy unless you go to something more old school like the andrew or s&s.