HARLEY UNIVERSITY
Harley gets us to rebuild their prized Milwaukee Eight 107 engine. Were they brave or foolish?
Learning to take apart and rebuild the iconic Milwaukee Eight
NOT TO TOOT MY OWN HORN but I am proficient in engineering operations and am the go-to man when it comes to small-scale repairs of any sort in the house. While I may have received several jolts, cuts and nicks along the way, I do get the job done. You can say that I am mechanically inclined. So upon hearing of the opportunity to open up an engine, I called dibs on it in an instant.
This was no ordinary engine though. The first session of the Harley-Davidson University took place at its technical training centre above their Capital Harley-Davidson dealership in Gurgaon. The syllabus taught us how to rebuild an engine and the motor (read in the best American accent possible) in question would be the Milwaukee Eight 107 found on their Touring range of motorcycles.
Presiding over the session was Harley’s John McEnaney who is their Lead of Technical Training in the Asia Emerging Market. John is one tough nut and has trained almost every Harley technician in the country. Hence we were in good hands and did not goof around during the sessions.
The classroom session began with an introductory session followed by a Powerpoint presentation on the basics of engine design and engine archituecture. Nothing like a bit of revision, eh? Old
concepts like the four-stroke (or as I was taught correctly – Suck, Squeeze, Bang and Blow strokes) configuration, thermodynamics and the rest were revisited. Harley makes use of precision fluid cooling and not pure liquid cooling. The difference being in the head design which has fins for air-cooling as well as identified pressure points to diffuse the heat from the top of the cylinder heads.
Theory done and we were taken to the shop floor next door, all of us donning safety goggles and boots. John told us that as long we followed instructions to a T, our process would go along smoothly. Sitting bolted on to jigs on our workbenches, were eight Milwaukee Eight 107 motors, three individuals working on each one of them. The engines were separated from their transmissions and were ready for deconstructing.
The process began with the simple task of removing the intake manifold along with the small peripheral sensors and the oil filter. Upon starting itself we found our first hurdle. The bolts that Harley uses are of imperial sizing and we tried opening them up with metric tools. John commented, “Over the next two days and furthermore, you guys should understand this – Imperial good. Metric bad.” Alrighty then. Imperial tools it is then for the next two days.
As John commanded, the parts started coming off and my smile grew wider and wider. The cams, oil pump, push-rods and activators came off early. Then went the big essentials such as the cylinder heads, pistons and then finally splitting open the crankcase, revealing the massive flywheel and the single counter-balancer (Touring models get just the one, Softails get two). We were made to inspect and arrange them in an orderly fashion as the following day we would be assembling them back together. The best thing about this entire ordeal was that the assembly process went ultra-smooth. We torqued the bolts as the manual specified and as it deemed enough. Thus Bolts on the injectors required less torque than cylinder heads, for obvious reasons.
At the end I was filled with a sense of great accomplishment as I had managed to put the engine back in pristine condition. More importantly, there was not a single bolt or part lying outside on the workbench and that was a bigger victory. Had we fired up the motor, I was pretty confident it would work seamlessly. This has inspired me to work on my own bike and open her up as well. Wish me luck!
Sitting bolted on to jigs on our workbenches were eight Milwaukee Eight 107 motors, three people per motor