The inventor of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle, At the gates of heaven....

Harley Davidsons were not invented ... an aircraft engine was butchered and chucked in a frame, and utter cr@p resulted.

If Arthur had been able to do maths he would have cut different cylinders out of the radial aircraft engine so that it was balanced ... and a 90 degree twin would have resulted.

Pete

 

had a good giggle

 

I just cannot believe that somebody took an eight cylinder radial engine, in perfect balance, and removed 6 cylinders leaving a permanently fncked and unbalanced disaster of an engine. He could have removed any 6 cylinders ... made a flat twin, a 90 degree twin ...

Agree, but while Ferraris require maintenance they are not founded on flawed engineering. Saying that the first car made under Enzo failed with a broken crankshaft ... and considering all they were doing was joining to FIAT 4 cylinders together, probably the only part they made failed

From then on they got it pretty right. Harley stuck with the 45 degree and thus consigned themselves to a balance issue ... which has now become a trademark.

Anyway, yep they sell ... but engineers don't buy Harleys, not self respecting ones surely.

Pete

 

Haha: "intake is placed way too close to the exhaust." That's a punch-line in itself.

IMO though Harley's are ancient technology that's rough for the sake of being rough. I mean I like old bikes, but I'll take them geniune like something I can remember like a Yamaha Seca Turbo (1982 650cc 4-cyl turbo ~ 80HP) or something. It's an interesting bike, and riding it is unlike nothing you can buy new, so it just makes sense to give it a go down that road. Performance will never be on par with an R6, but i wouldn't be paying Harley prices for my retroness either.

 

Your point is valid, but believe it or not, a lot of us engineers own them...a novelty thing I guess. I was even dumb enough to build a new frame and take mine roadracing. It was a lot of work, but well worth it to see the look on a Ducati owns face after the race looking at the ground, shaking his head and mumbling “I got passed by a Harley?”

 

Would be interested to see a photo ... I do admit that some sure look cool.

Pete

 

Great Joke!

Here is another one:

Q: What's the difference between a Harley and a Hoover (Vacuum)?

A: The location of the dirt bag.


Pete,

Two points:
1. Radial engines are balanced with an odd number of cylinders per row.

2. The Harley V-twin was invented in 1909. The reason it is out of balance is that very little engineering was involved. They literally drilled a hole in the crank case of the single cylinder engine they had and attached the second connecting rod to the existing crank pin.

That said, the old ones are still the greatest!

Regards,

Art S.

 

Arh, thus the aircraft engine was a nine cylinder not an 8 ... thus the story that I was told that they cut 2 cylinders out of an aircraft engine is wrong. IMO this makes it even worse ... thus the idiot choose 45 degrees as the angle

Yep aware of that. I can forgive a little for that lack of engineering in 1909 ... but the company decided to found itself on that 'lack of engineering' philosophy, because until the Japanese and now Porsche got involved the engineering of their bikes was a complete joke, and hardly changed from that first bike in 1909 ... according to a friend of my fathers who is, or used to be, a Harley bike mechanic. I quote this person: "They are designed to fail".

But they have their place on the road ...
Pete

 

DAMN, both my bikes must have some design/manufacturing flaw! I bought a new 1996 Sportster in 95 which has not had a single problem in more than nine years and 50,000 miles. This year I got a 2004 Road King which now has 15,000 miles on it, also no problems.

Can I sue HD?

 

I think you can thank Yamaha for that. My understanding is that Yamaha once owned HD and redesigned many things ... thus my quote would not apply for such modern machinery.

50,000 miles on a bike is impressive!
Pete

 

I don't think Harley was ever owned by Yamaha.

 

Well some Japanese company was heavily involved. I used to work for Anderson Consulting and they were involved in a new stock control system ... and it was an initiative by a Japanese motorcycle manufacturer FOR HD.

I'll double check with some motorcycle friends.
Pete

 

HD has never been owned by another motorcycle company.

During the late 60s and early 70s they were owned by AMF, which also produced bowling balls and golf carts. The worst of the HD reliability stories come from that era. Modern HDs are decent bikes. Much like the Porsche 911, they have used technology to overcome the basic design defect, and have transformed the defect into "character"

 

That is a great sentence, and I guess with 50,000 miles (refer LA Swedes post) on a modern HD, appropriate too.

Though not sure where the technology is (?) ... until the new Porsche designed engine came along.

Pete

 

Just as a little bit of interesting info...there's a very large private bike collection close to me. The guy own 2 or 3 HD's with boxer engines.

They were prepared for the North Africa campaign in '43 but were never used. They were a blatant copy of the BMW bikes the german forces used with much better reliabilty. I think they are the only examples remaining and may be the only HD that didn't use a V. (Someone correct me here...they may be as common as horse **** )

Cheers
Simon

 

The Harley Davidson XA

See http://www.conansclassics.com/harxahis.html

Nope. Early HDs were single cylinder bikes. There were also several small Harley-branded singles in the 50s and 60s. Even today, you can buy a Buell Blast which is essentially a single-cylinder Sportster engine in a sportbike frame

 

One of those smaller HD's was the Harley Topper "vespa" (does anyone think that Topper Harley (Charlie Sheen) from the movie Hot Shots was named after this little bike)

here is a link to it:

http://home.ama-cycle.org/forms/museum/classic/bike.asp?id=83

regarding longevity of HD's. when I picked up my Road King, there was a bike outside the dealer with HD's official mileage program badges on it.

it had the 500,000 mile badge!

there was probably an engine rebuild or two on that bike, but still.

 

Harley also built a sport bike with a boxer configuration from 1919 until the early 1920's. It was good for its time but more popular in Europe than in the states. This was a neat bike that was well engineered but I think they lost money on it.

Art S.

 

Interesting.

BTW: I asked about Japanese involvement with HD on this site, with this thread:

http://speedzilla.zeroforum.com/zerothread?id=34119&postid=285242#285242

Pete

 

My first motorcycle in 1968 was an Eye-Talian Hawg called a Rapido!
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Here is another interesting thing. My new Road King came with a 7 year UNLIMITED miles warranty! I was impressed, I don't think even Toyota offers that. Granted, the service intervals on a bike are a little tighter, but still.

Even the TIRES are covered, but only if you get a flat or a nail, not normal wear and tear.

 

0-60 in .7 seconds, 45 degrees seems to work for these guys
http://www.zodiac.nl/dragrace/index2.htm

 

Wow that would be a wild ride!!!

BUT in the end and with enough money ... you can make hp from anything, you could even drag race a Ducati (in between valve adjustments ). I also doubt very much if there is even a single genuine Harley bolt on those bikes

Pete