1969 XLCH spark control spiral

[EKHKHK56]

On the starting, I do a procedure that works everytime, `one` kick. For KHK, ignition off, full choke, full throttle, two kicks. Than stroke motor up to near TDC. 1/4 throttle, 3/4 choke. ignition on than start. Hot or warm maybe no or 1/2 choke, 1/4 throttle and wind up to BTDC and start. If one of these 4 & 9/16" strokers kicks you back you will have a bad experience! Cheers, Erik

[hennesse]

SAFETY GAP
An interesting item is the magneto Safety Gap - which was used from 1958 through Early-1964. It consists of the 29566-55 Spring Plate, Safety Gap, and the 29530-55 Cover. You can see the Spring Plate in the Parts Catalogs, but you can't see the difference between the -55 and -55A Covers.

Here is the spring plate installed in a 1958 to early-1962 magneto.

29566-55 Spring Plate, Safety Gap

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Here are the 29530-55 (F-M# PY-2430) on the left, and an aftermarket 29530-55A (F-M# BY-2430) on the right. Note the added wires on the spark plug terminals, and that the real deal F-M cap has copper thingies. The plug wire terminals on the cheap aftermarket -55A cap are aluminum.

29530-55 left, 29530-55A right

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These parts have -55 part numbers, and I'm pretty sure they first appeared on the KR racers in 1956. I really don't know the purpose of the safety gap, but perhaps it was in case the spark plug wires became disconnected or the plugs fouled, the spark generated by the magneto coil could jump to the grounded Spring Plate. Otherwise, the coil might be damaged, or the magneto could explode, or some other horrible thing might happen.

The gap between the spring plate pointy parts and the little wires on the cap's spark plug terminals should be set at 3/8". OK, but just how can you check that once the cap's on the magneto? Easy, you take a spare cap and cut a window in it.

Spare cap with window

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The safety gap was discontinued in late 1964 - per the service manual. The 1965 Parts Catalog says the spring plate fits 58 to early 64, and shows the -55A cap. Mike at AEI (see Technical: Magnetos) told me the safety gap was a special setup for Harley-Davidson, and F-M mags for other applications don't have it.

[sportsterpaul]

I think the safety gap is to prevent shocks to the rider when running at high speed. Unlike a battery ignition, a magneto will make more and more output the faster it spins. That is one of the cool things about a mag, besides not needing a battery. So I suspect that maybe riders were pulling spark plug wires, either to troubleshoot something or perhaps when the kill button stopped working. With the plug wires disconnected from the plugs, I have to believe the spark energy was high enough to just jump out of the boots and zap people. With the safety gap, the spark would jump inside the mag, instead of out of the wires. Another scenario is those narrow-gapped plugs oil foul, and then same deal, sparks start jumping all over trying to find chassis return.

I never heard the term fee-bay before, gosh I love this place.

Monsieur Fowl, I must have the 10% ignition problem, since when I put on a coil and battery the bike starts better than it ever did with a mag. I will allow that my particular mag is bad. I spent about 4 years with a kickstart non-mag bike as my only transportation, so I think I have starting procedures down, although there is certainly a black art to it, based on each and every bike. Are what you guys saying is that you can start a mag bike in a few kicks? I do count "priming" kicks as a kick. So don't tell me your procedure is "Kick it 15 times, to prime it, and it will start in a kick or two."

I hope to figure out if my mag is bad by building a little test jig to spin up the mag and measure its output. I know a bigger air gap between the rotor and pole piece will kill the output, and gosh knows what is around for decent condensers for these old mags. It will take a while before I get to it, but I still have my mag, but only one, having sold the other ones to finance the move to Florida.

There is a guy here in Florida that is supposed to be a rock star when it comes to mags, no matter if it is tractor or airplane or bike. I will look at sending my mag to him. First things first, I have to get the 1964 front end off my 1962, and then I will worry about ignition. I can tell you, I will run a battery no matter what, I have been hit from behind at a stop light once, and I don't want to re-live that again.

And regarding kick-start procedures, Carl, a mechanic at Duncan Keller's shop once told me "Harleys definitely have a soul." Being rather non-mystic, I called him on it-- "How do you know that Carl?" He replied, "We build two identical engines. Same cam, same heads, same everything. But they will still idle and run different." Now the non-mystic in me will point to timing differences between different cams, and sloppy factory tolerances, but there is a part of me that has to wonder-- heck, do bikes have a soul?

[EKHKHK56]

Priming kicks do not count as starting kicks. Yes, engines are people too, all different. Erik "K"

[dr dick]

lets quickly clear a few things up.

paul before i start id like to give you some advice about how to get you head around 'what fits what'.
try to really see whats on orig bikes first then goto parts book to refine.
going the other way works but it can get mind wrenching at times, as the part books tend to drop info between publication dates where as orig bike will retaint that lost info.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1)
the mag change in mid 62
dave is correct in stating the keyswitch and tach drive got added.
but
the difference in bolt pattern and cam cover adapter plate was to make room for the tach drive cable to exit where it needed to.
it was not to allow for adjustable timing.
that happened in 65.

that said lets look at adjustable timing for a minute.
can you site a single production harley before 58 that had fixed ignition timing?
i cant.
how bout after 65. me neither.

that leaves 58-64 xlch only as the fixed timing years.
is it coincidence that there was never a 2p cam on fixed timing bikes?
absolutely not.
thats food for thought.
------------------------------------------------------------------
2)
lets look at what happened to bars. (in this paragraph this the bends are of no consequence as we are talking operability).
starting in 53
left bars had timing operability and two switches: hi/low and horn
right bars had no switches
this continued thru 57.

58 xl & xlh still used the bars set up from 53.
for the 58ch the left bar button was kill instead of horn. no hi-low switch.
right bar sill bare.
but
the 58ch didnt need any timing control on left bar.
this is what the immobility spacer did. it allowed a moded xlh bar to be used on xlch.
the mod was the hi/low switch mounting position wasnt machined. r models used this bar also.

now

in 59 the new road legal ch needed 3 switches.
hi-low and horn on left and kill on right. (the xlh still used the 53 pattern. switches on left only).
so
at this point the right bar was different h (old bar, no button) to ch (new bar, kill button).
but the left bar was the same h or ch
except
ch needed no timing control. immobility spacer got that done.
this carried on til 61 or e62,
at
which point a new 'no timing control' left bar appeared.
this new bar was much easier to manufacture so it was instituted on 62-64 ch as a good business move.
this gets us to 64.
i know this paragraph is hard to comprehend. you really need to re-read till you get it.

1965 everything changed.
now fixed timing is dropped across entire line.
h gets auto advance
and ch get manual as the earlier h had.
whats that mean?
left bars now flip flop-- ch now uses the old manual timing left and h models use the 62> ch solid grip.
this continues till 69.
in 70 all bike are auto advance so all left bar with the timing control is dropped.
----------------------------------------------------------
what bends came on what years will be easier to get your mind wrapped around if the above is considered 1st.

[dr dick]

I think the safety gap is to prevent shocks to the rider when running at high speed.

no.
the safety gap protects for your coil secondary insulation if you loose a wire to a tree branch or a hay bale at high engine speeds.

sendin yor mag to someone else is akin to sending you brother on a date with your new girl.
it wont help you at all.
you need to go on those dates if you want some action for yourself.
there isnt a single mag question i cant answer.

[DaveC]

Dr. Dick,
As the pirates used to say, begging your pardon, the 59 to 62 CH left bar had no hi-low switch like the battery models. The CH hi-low beam function was incorporated into the three position light switch mounted on the headlight brow. When the tach was introduced in 62, it became nearly impossible to get your hand on the headlight brow mounted three position switch to turn on or off the lights and adjust the beam while seated on the bike. I happen to have a late 62 with a tachometer so I can attest to this. In 63 the hi-low switch was moved to the left bar as on the battery models. Note that the only bars available for the XLCH from 58 to 64 were the Laconias. In 65 (with the incorporation of the mag retard) , the Buckhorns were offered and in 68, the XL's were also offered on the CH's, so you could get Laconias (now called Sport), Buckhorns and XL's. A word of caution, I believe that some of the the Sport bars were ever so slightly different shaped than the Laconias.
Your thoughts?

[dr dick]

right your are dave. the rotary was in the brow.

im loosing it fast as of late. actually its the only thing i am doing fast anymore, except running to the head.
seeing as ugly isnt a good defense, and fat is overused, ill go with just plain stupid this time.

i know if you take a bunch of low bucks, xl's, or laconias/sport and hold them side by side chances of all the bends being equal is pretty slim.
i dont notice this this with high bucks or speedsters-- does that mean the bending got weird in the late 60's idk.

while we talking this stuff lets talk about when the hi/low switch changed position on the bar.
early bars had the switch positioned so you had to put the perch between switch and donut.
later bars had the switch tight to the donut. do we know if this is a 64 to 65 change?

[sportsterpaul]

Well wow, guys, this is really helpful. Dr, you should be called Professor. I have gone through all the parts books and made a chart of the what the books seem to indicate what is going on. I can see your point Dr Dick, there are gaps and flat-out mistakes in the books. I think I have a pretty good handle on what was going on now, thanks to you. The page does have a few question marks where I was stumped or there were flat-out contradictions in the parts books.

Here is a pdf of the chart-- 1952 to 1984 handlebars. Well, no there isn't, I can't upload pdfs. OK, maybe a big gif-- no that doesn't work. Here, I put it on my site and there is a pdf link on the page as well. The page is probably going to get replaced in a year or two, so apologies if its a dead link, you future readers.

I have mapped most of what you guys have taught me. The real excitement is I can haul out all my handlbars and parts and figure what they are. I know, lots of work to do, feel free to offer corrections. Ultimately I would love for every part number to have a picture so that if you hover on the part number a picture of the part pops up. That is going to have to wait.

I really would have been befuddled if you guys didn't tip me off about the switches, and the immobility spacer, and all the other good stuff.

Now Doctor, I appreciate the best place to learn is over an original bike, but I don't have any handy. My understanding is that the only truly guaranteed original bikes are the ones that Harley rolled into the warehouse each model year. And I have heard they just picked one, so you might see an XLCH of one year, but then you won't see the XLH of that year. And they only bring a couple out for the museum.

Patrick has mentioned in another thread that the factory pictures got bought back from the Pohlman studios and they are under lock and key.

I have written the Harley archivist and asked for the Bills-of-Material for all the years, no response, although I am told he is pretty good about answering a specific question. And all the BOM will tell us is numbers, we need the ECO (engineering change order) to know why they did something, and the part prints to see exactly what changed. And to top it off, the more I read on this and other forums, the more I get the feeling that a bunch of hungover guys got together every morning in Milwaukee and just slapped together what was laying around the factory.

Even a barn find is not guaranteed to be original, they changed brand-new bikes just like people do today.

I have tried to search for pictures. The gallery on this site is turning into one of the best resources, but there is "original" and then there is "Dr. Dick 100% guaranteed pure original," and I don't think most people are as diligent. I do hope to get to Hershey and Davenport and the Daytona bike antique show right here in Florida. The $8000 roof they are putting on next week put a crimp in my travel budget though.

[thefrenchowl]

Paul,

I would not trust the factory photos to be always right as far as model years go...

Usually, the 65 "prototype" done for catalogues photos is a 64 std bike picked of the line and sent to Willie G.'s office where the new bits are fitted, but without other new bits not ready and for sure not in the photos.

Now, when there's actually a complete new prototype bein' done, say the XLCR Cafe Racer in 1975, it is noticeable cause a lot of things are different, but furthermore, that XLCR prototype is also way different than the end result that hit the streets. You can see that if you have the 1977 sales brochures or Service Manual... All the photos are of one of the 2 running prototypes (they made 6: 4 mock ups with wooden engines and just 2 runners with 1/2 sump gerotor prototype engines)

Also, catalogue photos are usually heavily retouched, I have several examples of these, before i.e. real, and later, well, hardly recognisable!!!

And not mentioning at all the dreaded and poorly documented so called mid year changes!!!! They actually happen whenever the factory feels like it

Patrick