Bikernet was faced with an interesting challenge recently. We try to help anyone and everyone in the industry, so when a starving bike builder came to us, because he couldn’t pay the rent, we reached out. He had a 1998 Dyna Glide basket case and needed to sell it quick. We made it available to friends and family and came up with a buyer, Sin Wu’s brother, Brad.
Brad’s been the proud owner of a ’62 Panhead forever, which is in pristine condition, but he needed a reliable touring motorcycle. Brad is also an electrician and Los Angeles port crane operator and helps around Bikernet, so we’ve stepped up to help him build a hot touring motorcycle out of the Dyna basket. As it turns out I have a Pro Street FXR Frame, swingarm and oil tank. So our first project included rebuilding the engine, and switching the dyna glide tranny into an FXR case.
Since Brad requested a strong running stock engine, not a hot rod, a distinct opportunity formed. We could order the engine rebuilt through the Harley-Davidson factory remanufacturing process and polish his used, stock engine right back to the original factory configuration.
If you have an engine remanufactured by the factory, removed and replaced at a dealership, your warranty is restored. The factory is also capable of remanufacturing your original power plant or replacing it with a new, very reasonably priced unit, containing your original VIN numbers. Lotsa options, including finishes from black and chrome, to silver and chrome or polished are also available.
It starts with your dealer removing your engine and shipping it to the factory’s Capitol Drive Facility. When it reaches the factory, they will unpack and prep it for disassembly. The process from the factory costs $2000 for an Evo engine and $2200 for a black and chrome Evo. I'm sure your dealer will charge you for R&R. Twin Cams are slightly higher, but there's more options. You can send it a Twin Cam engine and the factory will install a big boar kit and ReMan your engine at the same time. The new engine and ReMan program started in '99 and it takes only two weeks from the time your baby lands in Milwaukee before it's shipped back home. The factory runs through about 1,500 ReMan Evos a year and sells almost 2,500 new engines. Let's get to work.
Quality engine parts can be remanufactured to original specs and saved, while others are discarded. All reusable parts are cleaned and freshly power-coated or polished. Reusable parts are machined, rehoned and rebored to exact tolerances and then passed through rigid specification checks.
Crankcases are set, bearings pressed and parts reassembled. Chromed and polished parts are replaced. Each engine is upgraded to meet the latest specifications, where possible.
(For compliance and warranty program acceptance, all engines will be built with stock camshafts. If you have installed a performance cams, they will be discarded and replaced with the stock versions before your engine it's returned. You might consider installing a stock cam before beginning this process.)
Each remanufactured engine is hot tested to Harley-Davidson standards. If it passes, it receives a one-year unlimited mileage factory warranty. After our running test engine was cleaned and polished it was packed for shipping back to Fullerton, Harley-Davidson.
It took about two weeks after the initial shipping date for Fullerton H-D to receive our new engine, with the original VIN numbers in place. Generally customers work with the dealers to install the remanufactured engine, but we don’t ever do anything by the book. We’ll bring you more reports on progress in the near future.
We snuck into the Capitol Drive facility in a box of parts and photographed the entire sequence of remanufacturing procedures. We’re releasing some of the photos here for the first time in history. Don’t tell anyone.
The engine is inspected upon receipt and the VIN number verified.
Wendy has an overhead electrical chain hoist to help her move the engine onto her work station—lucky girl.
She’s about to pull the engine onto her work station by unbolting the engine from the crate (black crates are owned by the dealers. When engine is shipped out, shipped in same crate.)
She’s unhooking the engine from the chain hoist after placing it onto a blue engine bracket for processing.
Note: Disassembling the rocker boxes (rocker boxes always get replaced with new rocker boxes).
She’s disassembling the cylinder heads, removing the pushrods and pulling the head bolts.
Parts normally discarded and severely damaged parts go to a metal recycler.
Here she’s removing the lifter stools. Note we don’t have any shots of the cylinders being removed. We have 200 shots of everything else but not that. Once the heads are removed the cylinders just slip off over the pistons.
I find this whole process fascinating. The remanufacturing system allows the factory to inspect the wear of many engines and determine how well they preformed and find their weaknesses. Twin Cam engines can also be remanufactured. It would be interesting to know which engines hold up better.
I’ve always liked the Evo engine (and so does the aftermarket) for its simplicity.
She’s removing the fasteners to the cam chest.
As you can see the cam slips out of the case without a problem. There’s only two other gears in the case. One drives the breather and the other the oil pump. Couldn’t be much simpler.
This shot was taken after Wendy removed the fasteners for the oil pump. Apparently she uses a wedge of sorts to pop the oil pump free. I’m curious what she gets paid as a union worker for taking engines apart daily?
Note: ALL polished and chrome parts are replaced.Usually the engines are shipped with no oil, dealership should drain all fluids before shipping.The VIN # on the old crankcase is destroyed. The customer’s original VIN # will be stamped on a new crankcase when the Reman engine is assembled.
These are some of the parts that are remanufactured:
flywheels
connecting rods
oil pumps,
cylinders
cylinder heads
pushrods,
tappet blocks
filter mount
The above pieces are washed before work is done. This is a steam/chemical washing process.
She splits the cases with a special tool although there is no direct pressure on the case.
She is using an impact gun to remove the crankpin nut, in the process of disassembling the flywheels.
I'll bet this is a puller used to remove the Timken bearing off the sprocket shaft.
These cleaned parts are staged to begin the refurbishing processes.
She’s taking parts out of the washer, to prepare them for the remanufacturing process.
Each set of flywheels is serialized to keep the pair together during testing and remanufacturing.
These parts are staged to begin the refurbishing process.
This is a precise process of measuring and Inspection of the parts.
Here's Hiep checking the lifter stool cylinders.
Here’s the precise platform for holding the lifter stools in perfect position for reaming.
Here’s lifter stools that have been checked and reamed and are now ready for cleaning and refinishing.
This tool is designed to relieve the pressure on the valve keepers for easy removal.
Here’s the final valve removed after the springs, seals and collars.
Wow, plain old vice grips are used to remove the bottom valve collars. Not everything is based on precision machinery.
Here’s a bank of stripped heads ready for cleaning and prep for remanufacturing.
There’s the oil filter housings before and after stripping the paint.
They even have a precision device for checking pushrods.
I would imagine each pushrod is checked for precise size and straightness.
Oil pump gears are checked for clearance, fit and cracks. This is a cool process. Imagine if every engine was checked to this level of precision after 50,000 miles?
I’m lost here. What the hell is that and what’s he doing? I’ll find out. Ah yes, the answer. This is a guide block, the exact thickness of an oil pump gear, used to calibrate the meter.
Don't miss the next installment. You'll see how flywheels are checked, how barrels are bored, everything.
Checking fitment of pinion shaft on flywheels and the threads on the pinion shaft.
Hiep is checking keyways on the pinion shaft, critical.
He also checked the shaft for pinion gear fitment and this one passed.
Don’t you wish you had this bearing race heater/puller to remove the bearing race from the pinion shaft?
Here’s Hiep checking and measuring the sprocket shaft diameters for pressing on the new Timken bearing race. Look at that bank of measuring processors and that tool. It kicks ass on my old micrometers.
Wait, here’s a digital micrometer being used on the pinion shaft.
There’s the new bearing race about to be pressed into place.
Hiep presses the new race into place then gives it a final touch with a grinding stone for the perfect bearing surface. This pinion shaft race, to bearing, to case race fit is critical to the life and heat build up of the engine.
Hiep checks the bearing surface one final time.
We'll start on the connecting rods next.
The next steps included checking the bend and twist of the connecting rod (checking the straightness) (no pictures of this). From there Heip pressed out the wrist pin bushing.
He immediately plugged an new brass bushing on the press platform and replaced the wristpin bushing in the rod.
This shot shows honing the connecting rod in preparation for the new wrist pin bushing. I’m confused. We have another shot of pressing the bushing into place. I would think an arbor hone would be used to insure that the wrist pin is perfectly in parallel with the crank pin. I was right, a rarity. The arbor hone is used for the crank pin races and wrist pin bushings.
This shows the arbor hone used, with grinding stones, to smoothe the crank pin bearing races. Since we didn’t witness new races being pressed into the rods, we can assume (there’s that word) that oversized bearings will be installed on the new crank pin.
Here Heip checks the cylinders for wear, then begins the boring and honing process.
Ah, the bored cylinder ready for the next step-honing.
This is the machine used for honing the cylinders with grinding stones.
There’s that puppy at work.
Next we’ll take you to the Head station where Kerry performs the valve job, replacing or honing the valve guides, checking and machining the seats, lapping the valves and assembling the valves and springs in the heads. Hang on.
Here's a link to the second round and headwork: Check the Second Chapter For Head Work
