an excercise in aluminum welding and 46 progress pictures

I have to weld up the breather gear area on my friend Billy's 16 j case this week. I have never really welded any Harley cases that old, so I figured I would do a practice run on the closest case that I had. The oldest case that I have laying around is an early 29 DL case that i am going to use in an upcoming project. I figured this was would be a good practice piece. Here it is cleaned up, ground and pre heated.

Here is the weld. IT is really gummy stuff and the root pass was a bit of a challenge but I got good penetration and was able to go in with a nice cold weld. I tried it with the case pre heated at 200 degrees and at 250.

Here it is milled flat and with the letters laid out.


This is what it looked like after a half hour on the big kids etch and sketch and a little bit of grinding. There were some pits in the E which is the weld I did at 250 degrees. The x was done at 200 degrees and has no pits. This could be totally unrelated to heat and be a contamination issue. I will do Billy's case at 200 degrees and see how it goes.

I mounted up the ride control and headlight bracket on Wayne's 46 fl today.

Early 46s had black painted horn buttons and dimmer switches. I think this is a very cool look.

I set up the chain primary, installed the coil and kickstand too! Unfortunately, I did not have cad plated screws for mounting the derby cover and inspection cover, so I will have to order some before they can be mounted for good.

With the coil installed, I am able to start wiring. Here is the circuit breaker to coil wire. The terminal is correct for 36 to 47 bikes. Some have the H on them and some do not. I think it is a pretty cool detail, but it doesn't necessarily have to be there.