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Twin Cam Front End Upgrade

11K views 75 replies 7 participants last post by  kdkerr2 
#1 ·
I'm getting ready to upgrade my 05 Dyna Super Glide's front end. Here's a pic of it now. It's mostly stock except for the newer right hand fork slider and the dual disk brake I installed on it along with an 11/16" Electra Glide master cylinder.
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#35 · (Edited)
I got in my bar of 1x2.5x12" T6 6061 aluminum but unfortunately it's not tall enough for this job so I've got to go to plan "B". In the pic is the Al bar and to the left is my template which I used for fabricating my previous brake upgrade projects where I ran the 300mm H-D rotors with the dual 6 pot Tokico calipers. With plan B I'll be using the .500" plate along with a couple of .750" diameter offsets.
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#37 ·
Now I've got to transfer the caliper mounting bolt holes from the calipers over to the adapter plate. This isn't as easy as I'd thought and I had to fab this on off transfer screw from an M10x1.25mmx50mm screw by turning it down on my lathe to a 60 degree included angle. This wasn't a very good set up and I had some runout in my screw however not enough to mess things up.
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#38 · (Edited)
Here I've got all my caliper mounting bolt holes all drilled out and done a full scale mock up. This will give you a better idea what the final set up will look like. I still need to get some M10x1.25x60mm screws to mount my calipers. You can see the aluminum .750x1.00" offsets supporting the caliper. I laid out the caliper bolt holes so the tops of the pads are even with the outer diameter of the 320mm rotors to give maximum stopping power.
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#40 · (Edited)
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Hmm, my post seems to have vanished! Anyhow I finally got the right side done! Here's a pic of the final assembly. I got the adapter brackets machined down and the .375" corner radii installed [had to do that by hand]. I've still got to cut down the two .750" aluminum standoffs on the left side down a bit. The rotor is not quite centered on the two caliper halves.
 
#42 ·
Here's my first headlite mock up. I'm not sure how this is going to work. The shell is from an ancient Honda CB750 and it will take a modern LED headlite but I'm not sure I can get it back together again! The damned thing is extremely complex and I don't have an assembly diagram! InterNet searches haven't turned up anything. Carpy does have an aftermarket replacement for $89.95 plus shipping but it's chromed and I'm not into chrome! The 49mm headlite brackets were made in China and they are very well made.
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#43 ·
I've been studying the Honda headlite assembly. I should never have disassembled it! However I think I've figured out how to put it back together. I have half a notion to go with a Fat Boy style 7" headlamp bolted to the lower triple tree. If I go with the Honda headlite I've got to make some aluminum spacers to space out the headlite because the H-D 49mm narrow glide forks are 8.5" center to center, wider then the CB750 distance.
 
#45 ·
Well after some study of the headlite assembly and some tinkering I finally got it back together again! The Japanese had seriously overengineered this piece but that was because it has a left-right adjustment screw on the left side of the bucket. I now appreciate the simplicity of a Fatboy headlamp. Crude but effective it is!
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#49 ·
I got Red's front end dismantled today. I stuck the lower triple tree and steering stem up in the head for a full scale mock up. The fork stops look good but as I rotated the triple in the head the fork lock
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boss was hitting the frame so I took a rasp to it and bobbed it! A Bro's got to do what Bro has to do!
 
#50 ·
I just got my mid glide 49mm triple trees installed! I couldn't get the lower bearing and the dust shield on the old Dyna steering stem so I went to Harley of Louisville and bought a new shield and two new bearings. The bearings probably didn't need replacement [Red only had about 45K miles on him] but I did it anyway. I packed the bearings with plenty of grease and then found my next problem! The lower nut was bottoming out on the end of the steering stem threads! I did a similar changeover on my 06 Sportster and my 87 FXR and don't remember having this problem. I didn't have any washer big enough to use for this job so I got a piece of 16 gauge stainless and turned a washer out for this job. It did the trick and I didn't have to cut a second washer. Then I found my next problem. Apparently H-D changed the holes size on the upper triple tree for the handlebar rubber mount bushings. The old Dynas used the same size bushing as the Sportster. The hole were considerably bigger. Everything went together okay and I think they'll work but then I discovered the 1/2" standoffs that go over the 1/2" riser bolts were too short to use on my new set up. So I had to turned down two new standoffs that here 1 1/2" long. I had a piece of 3/4" round aluminum bar stock which worked perfectly. Here's the pic of the triple tree installed on the steering head.
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#51 ·
Triple Trees reinstalled and Forks Installed
I decided not to use the orange rubber isolator bushings because they were too small and flopped around in the hole. So I went to Harley of Louisville again and got some H-D replacements. This time I took my upper triple tree with me to make sure they fit! I reinstalled the upper triple tree and then installed my forks. They're sticking up thru the upper tree 3.500" because the new forks are 4.000" longer then the old forks. I wanted to raise up the front end just .500".
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#57 ·
Caliper Final Assembly
I finally finished the final assembly on my calipers. I did some ornate machining and painting on the caliper brackets. Unfortunately my old caliper brake lines were just a tad too short for the right angle banjo fittings I was running before. I ordered a pair of slightly angled banjo fittings which should work. I just hope J&P Cycles is on the stick. I haven't ordered anything from them for years.
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#58 ·
This pic shows what I was writing about in Post #57. The right angle Russell ANC banjo fittings wouldn't hook up to the banjo bolt because my brake
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lines aren't long enough. The bike is up on the cycle jack and the forks are at full extension. I could probably have put the bike on the ground and then the lines would have been long enough but this isn't a good idea because then when you raise the front end off the ground your banjo bolts will be in tension from your lines.
 
#60 ·
Brake Plumbing all hooked up!
I tried to replace all my metallic brake line o-rings with the type that has the rubber seal in the center. It's been my experience that the metallic ones can be problematic and sometimes won't hold their seal. Anyhow one of my banjo bolts had a button head socket on it with only a 7/32" socket and it stripped out! One step forward and two steps back! So I looked in my collection of stainless steel fasteners and found a 3/8-24x1" socket head cap screw with a 1/8" hole already drilled thru the center. I've made one off banjo bolts before. So I drilled out the cross hole and then put the bolt in my Grizzly lathe to complete the fabrication and Voila, it worked! So now my front end plumbing is all hooked up with the rubber type o-rings. I'll put Red down on the ground tomorrow and see if I can bleed his brakes.
 
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