1962 Sportster - Barn Find

[dr dick]

No way you can miss at that price, even if the engine needs work. It's a good find.

if your a short frame nut you wont find many bikes as complete and original as your 62.
mike is correct.
its arguably a bargain price for a rare bike in an even rarer state of non-molestation.

[hennesse]

It rained today, so I spent some time in the garage - and finding alternatives to the Harley dealer.

The first job was to "fix" my kickstarter pedal - it was just a "stick" with an acorn nut on it. Not too comfortable on a magneto Sportster. My local hardware store yielded two 1/2" id x 5/8" od x 1-1/2" long spacers that fit over the stick, and a piece of 5/8" id rubber hose. Now I've got a makeshift pedal that won't hurt my precious right foot.

The second job was to "fix" the funky 1958-1965 air cleaner that has the choke assembly in it. The previous owner had installed a Webco float bowl extension on the DC-12 carb. Apparently, under hard usage, the float ran dry, and the extension provided additional reserve. But the little "receiver socket" on the back of the air cleaner for the spring and ball hit the Webco extension, the air cleaner got a little bent around the socket, and the spring and ball had fallen out. These bikes are hard enough to start as is, without a "free-floteing" choke mechanism. I removed the float bowl extension, and unbent the air cleaner. I then needed to find a 27349-11, "SPRING, choke stop", and a 27406-26, "BALL, choke stop". My local hardware store provided the BALL, but didn't have any SPRING that small in diameter. Neither did any of the ballpoint pens I looked at. Neither did two auto parts stores, the tractor repair shop, nor a jewelry store.

Running out of stores, I stopped at the local hobby shop, who looked through their repair parts, and finally said, "We just don't have anything that small". While waiting, I was perusing a Radio-Controlled dune-buggy-like-thing, and said "Oh yes you do - that's it right there!" - and pointed to the throttle linkage. The techie guy said "Dang, I think I have an old throttle linkage in my toolbox", and so he did. The spring was the right diameter, but a little too long, so I just cut it down some. My cost $0. He gave me a good tip - at the hobby/RC store, you typically would have to buy the whole throttle linkage for $20 or more. But he said I should go to the gun store, and buy a "detent spring package" for an AR-15. Apparently, AR-15's have four or five little springs of about the same size, and the detent spring package is cheaper than a RC throttle linkage.

Assembling the choke with the spring and little ball was a real pain. I had envisioned the little ball flying across the garage floor and rolling to parts unknown, so I had purchased two spares. Of course, since I was prepared, the little ball simply fell out, rolled off the workbench and came to rest on the garage floor at my feet - about 20 times. Finally, I got it right. Now I have a working choke.

Onward and Upward. I had previously drained/changed the engine and transmission oils, installed some new J8C spark plugs. One of the Harley #5's in the bike was broken, and the pair of J62R's in the spare parts boxes seemed a tad cold. I had cleaned and re-gapped the magneto points. I had planned to replace them with the old ones from the KH (pitted but functioning), but the ones in the CH looked fine after I scraped the oxide coating off the points. But I had not checked for spark until this evening. Result: none. Changed the points and condenser with the ones I had taken off the KH. Still no spark. Ack- what to do now? I decided that I'm smarter than a magneto - not much, but hopefully just enough. So I attacked it with an Ohm-meter. The coil wire to ground should be about 0.3 ohms - mine was 2.5 ohms - yikes! Between coil output springs - about 13,000 ohms (13K-ohms) - mine was about 9.5 K-ohms - a little low, but not unreasonable. 2.5 on the primary IS unreasonable - is my coil bad - do I need a new one?

In the past, my 1948 Farmall Cub tractor, and 1970's Gravely 2-wheeled "tractor" had sparking problems, and I had found that both had developed some rust between the mag and the chassis, and by simply removing the mags, cleaning the mounting surfaces, and reinstalling them fixed the problems. Could it be the same with my 62 CH? I backed out the two allen screws at the back of the mag - these hold the coil to the mag chassis. They were pretty rusty - it took PB'laster and some working back and forth to get them loose. I got them out, moved the coil around a little to determine that the rotor still had plenty of magnetism, and tightened them back up. Hit it with the ohmmeter again - whammo - 0.3 ohms - just like it's supposed to be. Jennifer helped me by looking for spark while I kicked the bike over with both (important) spark plugs removed and laying against the heads. My face really lit up when she reported "I see sparks". She then realized that she was not going to be the primary object of my desire that night, and headed off to bed.

I put the plugs back in the bike. Choke closed, throttle closed, finger on kill button, I gave it three good kicks. On the third kick, I heard a "crack" as the kickstarter return spring broke - drat. Three or four more kicks, and not a sound. I decided to hasten the starting process, and reduce the number of times I had to manually return the kickstarter, with a shot of di-ethyl ether into the carb. One kick and I heard a beautiful sound, but only for a few seconds. Another ether-shot, another kick - another beautiful sound. A few more kicks with almost full choke, and it fired - and ran - on gasoline. Whoopee!

The hour was late, and I realized that the throbbing exhaust reverberating in the garage was not doing anything to enhance my marital bliss, so I reluctantly shut it down. It was time to sit back and mourn my broken kickstarter spring with a nice cold Nanook.

[hennesse]

I took the '62 out for its maiden voyage Friday. Although we only went five or six miles, it ran strong, and I am very pleased with my purchase. I removed the dual seat and mounted the solo seat on the spring/plunger setup, which was hiding under the dual seat. With the solo and the buckhorn handlebars, the CH is quite a different ride than the KH with buddy seat and speedster bars.

Discovered two problems - first, the exhaust pipe has a hole in the bottom, just above my right foot. Exacerbating this is the fact that half of the shifter rubber is missing, and it takes some deliberate footwork in the "hot zone" to shift. I suspect these "high level" exhaust pipes are made of unobtainium, and I will have to get this one repaired.

Question - is the only clamp on the throttle cable the one on the left fork neck? The previous owner had used a 1" aluminum spacer between the intake and carb, and had mounted a bracket for a cable clamp off the top carb-to-manifold bolt. When I replaced the AL spacer with the correct insulators (from Wilderness), the bracket was way too long, and the throttle wouldn't close all the way. I temporarily relocated it to the top of the horn bracket (wrong), but now I've found the correct neck clamp in my parts stash. Just wondering - is the neck clamp the only clamp?

I like this bike! It should be a fairly easy restoration, as it's essentially stock. There are a few missing parts, but after that, it's a disassemble, clean, paint, and reassemble. Give me a year, and it will be looking pretty nice.

Dave

[dr dick]

this is the correct set up.
used 57-65 with linkert.
66 with tilly.
72-73 with bendix
1966 shown