headlight bracket:xlch brow

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Re: headlight bracket:xlch brow

Postby MTaylor » Fri Jan 06, 2017 5:06 pm

My 63, which is original paint, has the notch for the tach cable but no tach. Of course, it could have had the tach at one time, but I doubt it. If it was hand filed, the person that did it certainly did a perfect job, one that matches my other two notched eyebrows exactly. One would think if this were something owners did themselves, regardless of the existence of casting marks, that the work wouldn't be so uniform and perfect.
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Re: headlight bracket:xlch brow

Postby thefrenchowl » Fri Jan 06, 2017 5:47 pm

All very nice, Mtaylor,

But how the guys who bought the kit did the notch???

I'm not saying owners notched all the eyebrows, just that the ones that did not order the option at the same time as their bike HAD to...

Patrick

PS, sounds like some of you today think everything done at the factory must have had the highest approval and that the instructions would have been thouroughly done, vetted and covering everything and every angle...

A lot of it was responding hastily to dealers querries and such... And later put in place in factory litterature.

That's why I'm a bit more skeptical than some whem I read "from engine 54 KH 2534" or whatever!!!...
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Re: headlight bracket:xlch brow

Postby Magneto Sportster » Fri Jan 06, 2017 8:13 pm

thefrenchowl wrote:PS, sounds like some of you today think everything done at the factory must have had the highest approval and that the instructions would have been thouroughly done, vetted and covering everything and every angle...

A lot of it was responding hastily to dealers querries and such... And later put in place in factory litterature.

That's why I'm a bit more skeptical than some whem I read "from engine 54 KH 2534" or whatever!!!...


Patrick,

I believe when someone on this forum specifies a change taking place beginning with a specific vin number, it is because the dealership service bulletins state it as the official point of changeover. Harley Davidson, even in the 1960's, was a professional manufacturing organization, and I believe that if the assembly line was ordered to make a change, they did so. I don't think it is unreasonable to believe that the vin number of the transitional motorcycle was recorded for service documentation. Here is an example below that I found in the front of my folder of old service bulletins. Note the specification of the vin number when the change took place.

Image[url=https://flic.kr/p/QNBPpk]
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Re: headlight bracket:xlch brow

Postby thefrenchowl » Fri Jan 06, 2017 9:34 pm

MS,

I'm not saying guys here invent this stuff, just that I don't quite believe the factory was that efficient.

The example you list above just goes towards my point: change made on the hoof in April and the relevant bulletin issued one month 1/2 after that...

When you know as I know that engines were made in batches somewhere, loaded 20 or so on rolling carts, then stored elsewhere before being taken again out and on to the assembly line, I have difficulties in believing that 64 XLCH 2234 left the factory before 64 XLCH 2235, carts could be swapped or not taken in the order, the cart with the earliest numbers is hidden behind carts with later numbers etc...

; O) Patrick
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Re: headlight bracket:xlch brow

Postby Magneto Sportster » Fri Jan 06, 2017 10:03 pm

thefrenchowl wrote:MS,

I'm not saying guys here invent this stuff, just that I don't quite believe the factory was that efficient.

The example you list above just goes towards my point: change made on the hoof in April and the relevant bulletin issued one month 1/2 after that...

When you know as I know that engines were made in batches somewhere, loaded 20 or so on rolling carts, then stored elsewhere before being taken again out and on to the assembly line, I have difficulties in believing that 64 XLCH 2234 left the factory before 64 XLCH 2235, carts could be swapped or not taken in the order, the cart with the earliest numbers is hidden behind carts with later numbers etc...

; O) Patrick


Well, that would depend on when the engine serial numbers were stamped. Were they stamped when the engine was built, on the assembly line, or sometime thereafter? I honestly don't know the answer to that question.

I'm not saying your theory is unreasonable. In fact I believe that situations like you described absolutely happened. However, I think it was rare and an exception to the rule. As stated earlier, H-D was a professional manufacturing company, and I believe that (for the most part) things operated according to policy.

As for the time frame of the service bulletin, I would think it most likely was sent to dealerships when bikes with the relevant changes were eventually shipped from the factory, not when they were built. If the change took place on the assembly line at the end of April, those bikes probably didn't show up at dealerships for a month or more.

I'm not saying I have any definitive answers. I wasn't there when these bikes were built...hell, I wasn't even alive. But H-D was a professional manufacturing company, and I don't believe they were slapping bikes together willy-nilly with disregard for company policy. There would have to have been some level of order or else service bulletins would have been unreliable and disregarded.
Last edited by Magneto Sportster on Fri Jan 06, 2017 10:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: headlight bracket:xlch brow

Postby hennesse » Fri Jan 06, 2017 11:35 pm

thefrenchowl wrote:When you know as I know that engines were made in batches somewhere, loaded 20 or so on rolling carts, then stored elsewhere before being taken again out and on to the assembly line, I have difficulties in believing that 64 XLCH 2234 left the factory before 64 XLCH 2235, carts could be swapped or not taken in the order, the cart with the earliest numbers is hidden behind carts with later numbers etc...


My understanding is that the engine cases were cast, partially machined, then left and right halves mated, crankshaft bosses line bored, and then the belly numbers were applied, so that the line-bored engine cases remained as a matched pair throughout the rest of the manufacturing process. But the serial number was applied in the last stages of assembly, shortly before the completed motorcycle went out the door.

Yes, components were made in batches, large and small, and that includes finished engines. A semi-random engine might be taken off a cart and put into a motorcycle, then fenders attached, and then the serial number applied. So today, the belly (line-bore) numbers of engines can not be correlated to serial numbers. But the serial numbers went out the door almost sequentially.

Harley was frugal, and sometimes a little slipshod, but they were not stupid. If batch #603 of 100 pairs of engine cases came in, they assembled 100 engines, and recorded the belly numbers of the engine assemblies made from batch #603 of cases. If it was discovered that batch #603 had cracks in the left case, they knew exactly which engines had to be re-worked. If they didn't have this kind of record-keeping, they would have to tear down every engine in inventory if they discovered a problem.

On the other hand, this was a production environment. You did not shut down the line and idle 100 workers just because you ran out of external tooth shakeproof lockwashers. The supervisor said "use internal tooth". The workers might grumble, but Rule #1 is: The Boss is Always Right.

I worked as a quality control inspector in a production shop. I would reject a batch of parts for out-of-spec. My supervisor would often sign-off (and we kept records, so my ass was covered) as "OK to Use". In the beginning, I was appalled at the crap they let go by. Then I realized that my job was simply to advise management of problems, and it was management's job to make the decisions. Their decisions were usually sound - product rolled out the door, payments rolled in, and my paychecks didn't bounce. If they rejected everything I rejected, nothing would have gone out the door.

So I have to agree with MS here. When Harley said something happened at S/N 1234, it pretty much happened then. Yeah, there might be a quirk or two here and there, but we all have a quirk or two...
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Re: headlight bracket:xlch brow

Postby thefrenchowl » Sat Jan 07, 2017 8:23 am

OK,

Then some of you that attend rallyes in the States should do what I've done for other bikes I love and collect, learn to recognise genuine serials and photograph/record these serials with their bellys of all the Sportsters or Ks you see around. You're likely to see a lot more early Sportsters or Ks than I can do in GB...(Dave, sorry to have to say this, but they are still restamped serials in the ""good serials photo gallery"" on this site...)

That will tell you for sure when the serial was applied:

If the serial was applied nearer the bike assembly line that the engine assembly line, you should be able to record a wild difference of gap between serials and bellys. (say belly 1001 = engine 1234, belly 1002 = engine 1345 etc, no constant gap, we have 233 and 343.

If the serial was applied nearer the engine assembly line, you might get a more constant gap: belly 1001 = serial 1234, 1002 = 1236, 1003 = 1233, much tighter gap: 233, 234, 230...

Believe me, you'll learn a lot with recording techniques such as these...

Patrick
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Re: headlight bracket:xlch brow

Postby sportsterpaul » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:38 pm

I think all you guys are right. Having worked at Ford and GM in the 1970s, I can tell you how a professional manufacturing organization build things. A truck got launched by a "broadcast sheet". These came out of a dozen teletype machines all over the plant. A vehicle only went out against a customer order or a dealer order. It was not "lets build a bunch of stuff and maybe someone will buy it." Many things you might think were just made in batches were ordered by that broadcast. We didn't make a bunch of different seats and put them in racks hoping to use them up. Seats were a "broadcast item". They got built to order, for a specific truck. There was a guy whose job it was to shuffle around the broadcasts so that we didn't have 10 air-conditioned trucks in a row. That upset the labor content and the guys on the line would get behind-- so the option-loaded trucks were spread out among the strippers.

You didn't want a bunch of money tied up in inventory. So it makes sense they built matched case sets but did not finish the engine. You made as big a batch of case sets as you trusted the machinery and supply. 1955 is before the interstates and it snows wherever they built Sportsters. But I am sure their intent was to use the cases in belly-number order. Coordinating changes is a big deal in an auto plant. So there is a record of what revisions are in which belly numbers. I suspect the engine was a broadcast item. If not teletypes, than a runner went through the plant dropping off sheets of paper that get stuck to the frame and the engine and the fenders since things are ordered in a specific color. Once again, I really doubt they painted up a variety of sheet metal and used it as needed. They would have to figure out what colors were sold out and then order paint and ..... no, its a broadcast item, so the guys in the front office can order the paint as needed and they don't have a bunch of finished inventory costing them money. The frame would travel down the line, the workers would look at that broadcast sheet, and make sure the engine broadcast sheet and fender broadcast sheet and options they put on all matched the frame broadcast sheet for that specific vehicle.

I think we built trucks to the VIN number by the '70s, but it makes sense Harley stamped the VIN at the end, maybe even after they started the engine. It would explain why the VINS are so sloppy. But it is also likely they got the VIN off the broadcast sheet, since serial numbers were just that-- before they became the legal thing called VINs.

So even outside of Detroit, I am sure bikes were built to order, not put together from batches of stuff laying around. Now that being said, this was the theory. I am sure the practice was much more sloppy. Dave pointed out Harley was in financial difficulty in the 50s, so they would rework triple trees and frames and all the stuff Jerry has discovered, I think he said 47 frame variations the first few years of the K-model.

So the tachometer option was surely a broadcast item-- you didn't want to order 100 expensive tachometers and have them sitting around. But the Z-bracket and the notched eyebrow were made by Harley, so there-- well yeah, you can see them bending up 100 Z-brackets and machining 20 eyebrows. That would account for the uniformity in the notch from the factory. They must have made a jig that held the eyebrow and there is a drawing somewhere that shows how to machine it. But remember, when they used those 20, they had to keep track of it somehow, so the guys in the front office knew to order up another batch of 20 before they ran out.

All this theory is nice, until you're "lines down" due to a shortage. By the 1950s labor and management were hostile enough that it is inconceivable that the management could tell the workers to "just keep track of things" and build as necessary. Passive-aggressive was a great Union technique and they would shout "not my job, TELL me what to do and when." So I am sure there were times they were out of tachs or eyebrows or Z-brackets, and those bikes got pushed to Repair or gosh-forbid Heavy Repair while management ordered up the tach or the Z-bracket or the "make from" eyebrow drawing. So this accounts for all the goofiness that we see in builds, including, "put last year's stuff on" both to use it up and maybe because the new stuff was stuck on a truck in a blizzard.

To me I am astonished Harley would add that boss to the eyebrow and not bump the casting rev, since the mold had to change. Its equally befuddling that they didn't make a separate part number for the notched eyebrow. The Union was not the only part of the business subject to laziness. Hence there are both the factory-machined eyebrows, and I suspect there are eyebrows notched by dealers or customers who installed the tach kit. So expect to see a lot of identical factory-notched eyebrows, along with a couple hand-done ones we just have not seen yet.

I assume you all know about the engineer at GM that didn't bump the part number of the ignition switch when he changed it, since he knew it would get him in trouble that he even accepted the design in the first place.

So yeah, you are all right. K-models and Sportsters are both carefully crafted and totally half-assed and often on the very same bike.
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Re: headlight bracket:xlch brow

Postby thefrenchowl » Sat Jan 07, 2017 3:55 pm

Checked mine, another variant...

It's a -59A casting number, with round thinner casting around switch hole but without the raised cast pad for the tachometer cable notch...

The mind boggles!!!

Could't find engines loaded in carts photos after assembly but before storage, but they are about, I've seen them... All assembled apart from a few bits.

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Re: headlight bracket:xlch brow

Postby Magneto Sportster » Sat Jan 07, 2017 7:40 pm

MTaylor wrote:My 63, which is original paint, has the notch for the tach cable but no tach. Of course, it could have had the tach at one time, but I doubt it. If it was hand filed, the person that did it certainly did a perfect job, one that matches my other two notched eyebrows exactly. One would think if this were something owners did themselves, regardless of the existence of casting marks, that the work wouldn't be so uniform and perfect.


There was a one-owner, original paint 1963 XLCH on eBay about a year ago, and it looks like it also has the cable notch in the visor without being equipped with a tach. It's hard to see in the photo, so I can't say with 100% certainty, but it looks to be there.

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