April 02, 2025, 08:43 AM
shovelheadA Motorcycle Story; H-D —> Indian
quote:
I pulled the chain drive out and put in a gear drive on my 00 TC, chained the bearing out that was problematic. mainly because it was upgrade time to the 95 and put in new cams
Wish I could have gone gear drive but my crank runout was right at the maximum limit so unless I wanted a new crank it was nope.
The early TC’s had inner cam bearing (needle) issues. On the 2002’s the front outer bearing is a ball bearing, never figured out what happened except it ground up three balls and sent them through the motor.
A factory reman was considered but quickly ruled out as they were using the 2003 design which utilized a single caged roller bearing for the left main location unlike the twin tapered rollers in place since the 1950’s. The caged ones were less labor intensive but by 2004 we were seeing 2003’s with stroker motors experiencing bearing failures and many of us figured it was only time until the stock motors started having problems.
In fact Screamin Eagle offers conversion kits for those early designs.
April 02, 2025, 09:53 AM
HRKThat was a big issue for the early TC engines, eventually, chasing more and more power, the 95 wasn't enough.
I pulled the entire engine apart and put in SNS stroker flywheels and it had runout within the specs to go forward, everything got attention it needed to crank it up to a 117 running SNS 625 gear drives, it was a beast.
Until one of the rods went south and through the case. SNS fixed it up though, twice, as the first repair they didn't get the balancers back in correct, that's how it ended up a 124.
Still regret selling it, the only problems any HD I've owned has are of my own doing, which, is par for the course LOL
April 02, 2025, 02:17 PM
clangI don't know why HD didn't just reintroduce the Buell Ulysses design instead of creating a whole new problem bike (the Pan American). The Uly had its bugs worked out of it and a faithful following. HD had already killed the Buell brand so it wouldn't be too hard to bring it back as an HD badged bike.
I had an '06 Uly. I eventually sold it because where I live is too flat and square to enjoy most bike riding.
April 02, 2025, 04:32 PM
mark60My 21 Springfield rides like a sofa on wheels. I couldn't imagine a nicer riding bike of it's type.