Shovelhead 4 Speed Saga: Going Up Part 9

I thought I finally had this deal beat, but Steve73FLH made the call before I verified it with a bench check. The spring is not right and the kicker arm doesn't always return to the top. Luckily I hadn't torqued down the bolts or filled it with oil yet either. I have done this wrong before, too. If the kicker engages while you're riding, bad things happen.


These instructions and every one have read on Shovelhead.us haven't quite made sense to me for sure. Steve helped me understand the method better and hopefully the pictures I have here will help others not do this twice.


This is where the too loose spring slot in the shaft is with everything installed.


I pulled the cover off and the spring off to inspect the alignment. This is wrong.


I unbent the tab washer, removed the nut, then rotated the crank gear one flat. This got the crank gear stop and the spring slot on the same flat.


This is the spring slot(and gear stop) location prior to install with an unloaded spring.


This is how it looks going on. The install is the same as my other post about it.


This is the new location of the spring slot with everything installed. I did a temp install and the bench checks of the kicker arm were flawless.


I'm going to go over another thing that could be screwed up. The gasket will go on wrong. If it looks like this then flip it over to get it right.




Okay now the back to where we were.


Now we can torque the bolts. Couldn't find a good value so I went with 12 ft-lbs.


Now we are ready for the frame.