Hardley a Davidson diesel Project

[pietenpol2002]

I agree regarding the right profile. One of the objectionable factors (in addition to the flylwheel shroud) is the air filter. Not only is it unattractive, it gets in the way of the knees. One option is to go with the sink drain and a K&N type filter. Your options include chrome plated brass, black brass or PVC. Only require fabbing a flange. See below.

https://www.dieselbikeforum.com/down ... &mode=view

http://tinyurl.com/3lnc4t2

[Dougy]

I also agree about the air filter and was going to do something about it later on, I may fit something off a Harley to keep the theme going, Ebays full of them going really cheaply, it seems like the first thing you do to customise a Harley is change the air filter. Neat idea about the drain pipe

[pietenpol2002]

Hey Dougy, here you can see your engine in action. Same displacement in an 82 Kawasaki. Curiously, he didn't need to cut the frame.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9-Do194tIo

For sale here.

http://tinyurl.com/3m4gdme

[Dougy]

Nice one mate, if mine goes that well I'll be a happy chap, I think the bikes a LTD 250, I had one of those in the early 90's and it was the worst bike I've ever owned ! so a diesal transplant would be a great improvment for realiability (it coudnt be any worse than standard anyway).
I think I'll go try see his back sprocket again .....

[balboa_71]

Dougy,
Both my diesel engine have glow plugs. The direct injection Kama clone never was started using he plug. If the weather was cold, I'd put a half teaspoon of 30wt oil in the port at the top of the engine that has a little yellow plastic cap (unscrew the cap first) and then crank it over. The glow plug is a useless feature as it will drain your battery before cranking. I believe that cranking an engine over fast is what lights their fire as the compression builds heat. You can also spray some WD-40 in the intake manifold after removing the air cleaner. WD-40 is flammable and easy on the cylinder walls...just get the engine turning 1st before spraying. As for my Kubota, being indirect injected, I don't have a clue as to what I'll be doing in the winter aside from riding my scooter instead Diesel biking is a warm weather sport in my book and we have plenty of warm weather here in Texas. Even in the dead of winter, we'll have 70°F days from time to time....its all in the sun shine. The dude that fixed my Kubota told me not to use the glow plug unless I was desperate, and I'm not.

Cris

[Dougy]

I re-read the manual after you posted and found the paragraph about cold starting, what I havent got however is the rubber bung that goes in the hole, just goes to show you cant tell if somthings missing if its never been there ! Thanks B, Ebay here I come...again

[andrewaust]

My little trick when it's below 0C is to hold the de-compression lever down and kick the engine over a few times whilst holding the throttle open. That little bit of fuel does help start the old thing up. Nearly every time the engine starts without doing this, but does work when it is really cold.


A

[lardy1]

aye up doughy,coming along nice that m8,see you on britchopper

[Dougy]

aye up doughy,coming along nice that m8,see you on britchopper

Sure is mate Its more specialist here, diesals are not everyones cup of tea so its great, have a look at the build section theres some great bikes.

[Dougy]

Dougy,
Both my diesel engine have glow plugs. The direct injection Kama clone never was started using he plug. If the weather was cold, I'd put a half teaspoon of 30wt oil in the port at the top of the engine that has a little yellow plastic cap (unscrew the cap first) and then crank it over. The glow plug is a useless feature as it will drain your battery before cranking. I believe that cranking an engine over fast is what lights their fire as the compression builds heat. You can also spray some WD-40 in the intake manifold after removing the air cleaner. WD-40 is flammable and easy on the cylinder walls...just get the engine turning 1st before spraying. As for my Kubota, being indirect injected, I don't have a clue as to what I'll be doing in the winter aside from riding my scooter instead Diesel biking is a warm weather sport in my book and we have plenty of warm weather here in Texas. Even in the dead of winter, we'll have 70°F days from time to time....its all in the sun shine. The dude that fixed my Kubota told me not to use the glow plug unless I was desperate, and I'm not.

Cris

I got a reply off a local dealership today with a quote for my top end cold srarting rubber bung, well two actualy, one sells the bung for £6.00 plus the VAT, but the other one got back to me saying they started selling the top cover with the bung hole blanked off because putting oil down it for cold startin caused a load of bent conrods, anyone else heard of this

[balboa_71]

Dougy,
My yellow plastic cap vibrated off years ago so I found a coarse thread metric screw to plug the hole. Bent conrods from hydraulic compression (for a lack of better terms) would certainly be a possibility. I think a squirt of some WD-40 in the intake might be more fun and rewarding, besides, these engines are so tall, getting underneath one's fuel tank to get at the "oil port" is a problem. Plug the open hole if you don't have a plug and let the good times roll. If it's cold outside, you'll need a big battery anyways, probably bigger than you want to lug around under the seat

Cris

[Dougy]

Cheers mate but I've orded one and have been told today its in stock, its only £7.20 so I'll bite the bullet and get the genuine thing but I take your point in that you cant get at it with the tank on

Heres my new sprocket which arrived today, now when I originally asked him to make me a sprocket I kind of plucked a figure out of the air and asked for 13 teeth with a chain size to suit the rear sprocket which I also sent him so we got the chain size spot on, he then discoverd this in his draw that he made for someone else years ago, Its exactly the right size but the keyway set-up is a bit differant, but easily fixed, he sent it to me to try so I can experiement with the gearing, its got 10 teeth as opposed to the original 11 but as you can see its quite a lot bigger and runs 415 chain which is much safer than the original bicycle chain I think, so...... if the front sprocket is 10 teeth and the rear sprocket is 59 teeth.
Does that mean that my final drive ratio is 5.9 to 1

[Dougy]

[Dougy]

The other thing I learned was to get a torque converter drive unit that will engage at 1,300 to 1,400 rpm, because these small diesel engines make torque down low, so if you engage at say, 2,200 rpm (normal drive unit engagement speed), you will be past your engines peak torque on the curve chart, not to mention that you will run out of rpm at 3,600/4,000 rpm, depending on your governors settings. Having 800/900 more useful rpm of engagement is a plus when it comes to drive ability.

Cris

Hi Cris, as you can see I've got my ratio near enough to your recomendations (purely by happy coinsidence) dont think theres alot I can do about the CVT engagment right now, though though I may seek out a differant engagment spring later on, after the test run.

[Dougy]

When the belt was on the pully's It looked a bit cock eyed pulled in at the crank so I've had to lathe up a spacer to even it out.

In this picture you can see it looks a lot straighter which I'm happy with but brings its own little problems...

And here they are ! There's now a 7mm gap which requires another spacer making from the end of the crank to the drum driver.
For people who have used CVT's before does this all seem normal ? Because I've only ever seen CVT's on utube and I'm still a bit puzzled as how its going to work ,I guess it will all become apparent when I start it up, but at the moment I cant find out what type of bolt Yanmar uses for the crank end, so I've orded one from a dealer who said that the bolt is not a Yanmar part, I've also orded the rubber cold sarting bung from the top of the engine, when these come I think I can try start it

[balboa_71]

Dougy,
Nice photos, and it looks like you've got a solid drive train set up. Let us know how she pans out on your first road trip. I'd get the bike up on a center stand and run your engine up to full speed to check for binding and make sure the drive unit will retract to its idle position. Using a torque converter tranny means you have to have solid brakes and a way to kill the engine should there be a problem....just my $.02 worth

Cris

[Dougy]

Thats good advise Balboa and I'm going to take it I'm getting a battery tommorow and if it starts it I'll make the battery box and run a kill switch in there somehow, in the meantime I've made a basic exhaust system out of a junked car one and some two inch pipe, its heavy but there you go, theres no baffling at all so I'll just play it by ear (pun intended ) and my headlight brackets arrived also, some nice vintage John Tickle jobs ! roll on tomorrow.....

[Dougy]

Had a good day today, IT LIVES ! The engine fired up ok and the CVT worked great, Good gravey its a good day, I've hit a few problems though, I need to figure a way to turn it off other than the decompressor lever, or is that acceptable ? And also the temporary throttle assembly I rigged up simply does not work the way I expected but rarther the other way around ! so as I tried to rev it it died Its back to the drawing board tommorow regarding that but did I mention its been a good day ...
Click on pic to play the video...


God its been a good day

[Dougy]

Another good day today, I figured out how to fix on the throttle (is it a throttle on a diesal ?) and gave it a go up and down our road, It takes off great and I'm quite happy with it so far now its going to get expensive ! lights, electrics, rechroming, suspension, paint, bla bla bla.....
Again there vids so just click the pics.....

[vincentyeager]

congratulations with the runner, have you found a way yet to kill the engine?
maybe by travelling the throttle lever downwards? i mean exactly like the throttle worked earlier

[Dan J]

Dougy - great stuff!

Don't know if this helps with the throttle set up? https://www.dieselbikeforum.com/view ... f=21&t=753

Maybe it isn't ideal but I've been using my decompressor to shut my engine off since Day 1 and I've had no problems - I'm certainly not the only one who does either. Even if you're going to sort something else out it won't hurt in the interim.

[Dougy]

Cheers lads it's certanly a red letter day , the throttle was really easy to set up in the end, when I start the engine it automaticly ticks over nicely, it actualy moves very little to achieve tickover, and revs up great, now I attatched a paintbrush to a string and looped it around the engine where I could get at it easily and when pulled lowerd the revs to stall really quickly, on the finished bike I'll have a front hand brake on the right side and a foot brake also on the right, on the left where you would normaly have a clutch lever I will use this lever to lower and stall the engine, not a kill switch but rarther a kill lever ! As per MSVA regs you've goto be able to kill the engine without removing your hands from the bars.
Ohh but it has been a good good day, riding it just a few hundred yards up the road was great fun

[pietenpol2002]

Great work Dougy. Nice to see another one in action. And in record time. Congrats.

[Dougy]

Cheers mate, it did feel good to finally ride it up the road .

I've got another project I'm doing for number one son Archie and yesterday I bought a battery for it, its a sealed type and is 12V 10ah, now the Yanmar user manual says use a battery between 24-36 ah but that basicly equates to a whopping big car battery which is no good for me really, I've got the engine hooked up to this small 10 ah jobbie and I've started it up with it a couple dozen times and theres no problem at all, so looks like I've solved the battery problem too ! Unless anyone here has any imput I'll start to make the battery box around it

[Dan J]

Is you "Archie" project a similar engine? I use a Varta YB14L-A2 (14Ah - which is the standard Enfield electric start jobbie) to turn over my L100 Yanmar clone and it'll do so for 10 seconds at a time for 10+ goes (go on, ask me how I know... ). These engines generally start in a few seconds and so really don't need the mammoth battery specified in the manual (don't forget these engines are often permanently hooked up to generators or pumps and the battery/starter needs to effectively drive them also).

In short... stuff what Yanmar says in the manual!

And anyway... more importantly... are you hiding another diesel project from us?!

[Dougy]

Cheers Dan , it does make sense now, most of these engines will have permanent pullys or pumps attatched and the big battery will have to drive everything plus start the engine (if they had a 'the penny finally drops' emoticon I'd use it........now )
Sorry mate, number one son Archies project is'nt a secret diesal but should be (possibly ?) more economical, I've put a 50cc engine in his bike and have been busy getting it ready for the road, its ready for the MSVA test now, I'm quite exited to see how that pans out but Archies asked for permission to bring it to school for his show and tell spot ( he's 5 ), its got to go past his schools Health an safety police first though and we find out next week if it will be allowed, it should be ok as we've built it all up but never had a chance to get it running so theres never been any petrol or oil in it, fingers crossed, you did make me laugh but I'm not going to ask why you know them batterys are up to it, it sounds like a sore point lol

[Dougy]

Back to the diesal !
Tonight I modified a front mudguard to fit the modified frame, Seems to fit ok, so with growing confidence tommorow I will try tackle the rear mudguard which as its off an old triumph, I suspect will be a bit more difficult to get looking right.

[Dougy]

oop's

[Dougy]

Here I have decided to fix a part of the rear mudguard, its hidden so its a case of function over form, Well that and the fact they dont make em any more !

[Dougy]

I've made a shelf for the 10 ah battery I've decided to use, It went in ok and I decided to cover the bolts in alloy tube for titivication.