From: ed@Tekelec.gecko.uucp (Ed Campbell)
Subject: Re: XLH vs Big Twin
Originator: ed@rover
Organization: Tekelec Inc
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 22:02:32 GMT

>|   Do it regularly for 50 years or so and I promise to be impressed.
>
>I too would be impressed with ANY bike that would do that. 300K plus
>commuting (which I also do on my bike), plus another 15K miles per
>year of shorter trips (weekend getaways) would be a bit much for
>any bike.  Hell, for any car.  Any airplane.

    A couple of examples, I saw a writeup on a guy a 2 or 3 years
ago who bought a new Knucklehead in '36 and rode from Missori (or
some where about that distant) to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl game.
He has been making the same trip every other year since. (No, the
bike doesn't sit for 2 years between trips, he rides it).
    My friend Henry's main transportation is a '32 VL.
    My Servicar isn't 50 yet, but it may count anyway, because the
city of Long Beach ran it 8 am to 6 pm 6 days a week for several
years.



>Let's see, 15 years, 1977.  I have ridden some mid-to late 70's
>Japanese motorcycles.  Some of them had problems, but wasn't that
>right about the time when the Japanese motorcycle companies were 
>trouncing Harley, and Triumph, and Norton, on account of power,
>handling, and reliability?  AMF springs to mind, and even Harley
>engineers will admit the 70's weren't so verygood on quality.

   No, that was when they were trouncing them with market dumping.
the previously mentioned Suzuki (which had a seat that was worse than
sitting on a pine 2X4) was selling for about $1200 here, $1800 in
Japan with no electric start, no tach, and drum brakes.

   The AMF quality problems were not necessarily worse than imports,
just worse than older Harleys. This wasn't so much a lowering of
standards as production rates that overwhelmed QA so that once in
a while (for example) a tank would get by with paint almost as bad
as those on the '91 Intruders.(Maybe '92s too, I haven't looked at them.)

>|     I don't totally hate all Japanese bikes. I consider their 350
>|to 450 comuter style twins to be a great starter bike. I don't care
>|much for some of their design techniques
>
>Which?
>
>|, especially the lack of
>|safety factors, 
>
>Like ABS?  Like sticky tires?  Like disk brakes?  

    I said factors, not features. Besides, non of the items in the
above list are Japanese inventions. Design safety factors are added
capacity above the minimum needed, for example;

    A piston may be exposed to 900PSI combustion pressure. Using the
poor design techniques I mentioned, the engineer may say "That makes
the piston to heavy to run the engine at 25000 rpm's with the bearings
we are using. They tend to derate the material in the design tables,
so I will use 800 PSI. Most people don't ride at full load anyway."
     A traditional American engineer, on the other hand, is more likely
to say, "A lot of people do their own wrenching, and many of them
don't know how to time an engine properly. Others will endup having
to use poor gas at times. I better design for 1800 psi so it won't
blow up on them."

      Other poor practices I have observed in import designs are
grossly undersize wires, shunt regulators that are so incapable
that a battery failure results in fried lights, melted coils etc.
This is especially bad because a series regulator that would prevent
these problems can be made for only around 70 cents more.



Ed Campbell

'57 FL
'76 XLCH
My other car is a '54 Harley Servicar.

 
************************************************************* 
    " The reason they call those things shadow is because 
      they look like a real Harley, but there's nothing 
      to them." 
                  Wolf Who Runs Alone With the Wind, 1989 
============================================================= 
 
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles.harley