Rear Axle Spacers

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Rear Axle Spacers

Postby JerrryR » Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:22 am

Post 1
Hi All,
Happy almost winter to everyone except for our friends down under who are heading for hot weather. A small topic but one that has been bothering me, Rear Axle Wheel Spacers. The attached Word document shows images and parts that either I have or are from eBay. The images and comments are numbered 1-12. 4 and 5 trouble me in that I am not clear on what the big twins would have used 67 to 72? Colony’s single spacer shown in 10 for all the Ks and Sportsters 52-78 seems to contradict the PBs which show a -52 and -55 spacer. Finally I show a mystery spacer in 11 and 12 that I’m hoping someone cad identify. I make comments for most of the images 1 through 12. As always I don’t know that all of my assumptions I make are correct. Please correct me if I’m wrong. We want to get this as accurate as possible. I have to do this in two post to display the Table in 4 pictures.
Take care,
JerryR
Axle Spacers 1.JPG
Axle Spacers 1.JPG (117.16 KiB) Viewed 11583 times

Axle Spacers 2.JPG
Axle Spacers 2.JPG (102.82 KiB) Viewed 11583 times

Axle Spacers 3.JPG
Axle Spacers 3.JPG (92.04 KiB) Viewed 11583 times
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Re: Rear Axle Spacers

Postby JerrryR » Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:23 am

Post 2 Read Second
Hi All,
Happy almost winter to everyone except for our friends down under who are heading for hot weather. A small topic but one that has been bothering me, Rear Axle Wheel Spacers. The attached Word document shows images and parts that either I have or are from eBay. The images and comments are numbered 1-12. 4 and 5 trouble me in that I am not clear on what the big twins would have used 67 to 72? Colony’s single spacer shown in 10 for all the Ks and Sportsters 52-78 seems to contradict the PBs which show a -52 and -55 spacer. Finally I show a mystery spacer in 11 and 12 that I’m hoping someone cad identify. I make comments for most of the images 1 through 12. As always I don’t know that all of my assumptions I make are correct. Please correct me if I’m wrong. We want to get this as accurate as possible. I have to do this in two post to display the Table in 4 pictures.
Take care,
JerryR
Axle Spacers 4.JPG
Axle Spacers 4.JPG (103.34 KiB) Viewed 11582 times
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Re: Rear Axle Spacers

Postby hennesse » Wed Nov 22, 2017 1:31 pm

Jerry,

Here is the page from the Colony 2017 Catalog. I think their spacers match up with your observations with the exception of your #5 (and the K/XL spacer). Your #4 says "1967-1972" Big Twin, which I think is correct. I have no idea what your #5 is - maybe something much later?

K/XL spacer - the parts books list a 41600-52 (1952-1954) and a 41600-55 (1955-1969, and up to 1976 at least) axle sleeve. The -55 first shows up in the 1955 Supplement. In typical Harley fashion, the illustrations in the parts books through 1967 all show the -52 spacer - they were just too lazy to redraw it. I just looked, and the illustration in the 1976 Parts Books still shows the -52!!! The change in axle sleeve corresponds to the change in rear wheel hub - 41018-52 and 41018-55 (first appearance 1955 Supplement). The hubs are different widths, so different width sleeves are definitely required.


41600-52 Finish - Parkerized ???

41600-55 Finish - over in the gallery, Roger Meinke's original paint 1956 KHK is parkerized. Dave Larkin's restored 1955 has it cadmium. Wonder what they came originally? Since this part was used for almost 20 years, maybe it was parkerized originally, and then changed to cadmium at some point?

Dave
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colony-2017-rear-axle-spacers.JPG
Colony 2017 catalog, page 55
colony-2017-rear-axle-spacers.JPG (88.28 KiB) Viewed 11564 times
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Re: Rear Axle Spacers

Postby strong56KH » Wed Nov 22, 2017 4:55 pm

The published photo of the 52 K at the Harley Museum looks parked up against the cad plated axle adjuster, but light and shadow in a photo can play tricks. The green 53 K on Ebay right now looks to have the letter A spacer in Jerry's #11 photo and is cad plated.
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Re: Rear Axle Spacers

Postby hennesse » Wed Nov 22, 2017 6:39 pm

Here's a photo of the brown 1952 at the Harley Museum, taken by Gary Moses.

Interesting - this bike has the stainless shock covers. Were they really available in 1952?
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Harley Museum 1952 - photo Gary Moses
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Re: Rear Axle Spacers

Postby starcain » Thu Nov 23, 2017 12:08 pm

I think up until now the commonly held belief was that the rear axle spacer changed from the early style one that has the smaller diameter end on the hub side to the the one that has the same larger diameter ends when they went from the 52 hub to the 55 hub on the mid to late 1954 models. I decided to check the notes I took on the 1954 KH museum bike when it was in the Harley Davidson traveling museum truck. Mind you these notes were taken back in the mid 1980's when I was restoring my own 1954 KH. They can be found in the gallery section under 54 KH Harley museum. On line 47 I noted " Rear Wheel Hub - Early Style" and on line 32 I noted " Rear Wheel Spacer - Late Style, Parkerized" I never thought much about it at the time as I was just learning. What I meant by late style was that the spacer had the same diameter ends used with the later hub. Now with what we commonly believe, that doesn't make sense to me. Early hub, later spacer?? I wasn't able to get a picture of it just the note. I started looking for pictures. I found one of Jim Garrett's original 1954 KH. It also has the later style spacer with both ends being the same. The length according to Jim is 2.08 which is the same length as the #12 mystery spacer. What I don't exactly understand is why this spacer is 0.057" shorter then the early one when used with the same early hub? The spacer on Dave H's '54 appears to be the same as the #12 example. Were these just manufacturing differences? The third picture is of Herb Glass's unrestored '54 KH serial number ( 54KH-2366 ) By that serial number they had already gone to the '55 hub and shorter axle spacer with both ends being the same. After all these years it's still a learning process. Thanks to Jim for supplying us with the information we needed
Stan
Attachments
Jim Garrett's '54.JPG
Jim Garrett's '54.JPG (147.88 KiB) Viewed 11499 times
Hennessey's '54.jpg
Hennessey's '54.jpg (65.21 KiB) Viewed 11499 times
Herb Glass's '54.jpg
Herb Glass's '54.jpg (178.36 KiB) Viewed 11499 times
Last edited by starcain on Tue Nov 28, 2017 8:14 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Rear Axle Spacers

Postby JerrryR » Thu Nov 23, 2017 3:03 pm

Here is a picture of Jim Gs spacer on his early 54. I think it looks like Dave Hs.
JerryR

Spacer Cropped.jpg
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Re: Rear Axle Spacers

Postby starcain » Thu Nov 23, 2017 3:24 pm

Thanks Jerry, I think that confirms my assumption that Jim's spacer is what I thought it was. Now the question becomes why did they change the spacer before they changed the hubs and when did that start?
Stan
Last edited by starcain on Tue Nov 28, 2017 9:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Rear Axle Spacers

Postby ambike » Fri Nov 24, 2017 5:17 am

" What I don't exactly understand is why this spacer is 0.057" shorter then the early one. "

I guess you guys will have to find a stash of NOS # 41600-52 spacers and measure & compare.

Good luck / mazel tov, but I also find these ongoing mysteries compelling.

So, I called my oldest sister who was alive back then and posed the question of rear spacers with the same part number possibly having a .057 " differential.

Note : She's highly educated with multiple degrees in her field including journalism. Here's what she replied -

Dave, firstly, before you were born, we were fortunate to have enough food on the table. We were not quibbling whether a breakfast or lunch was missed, and certainly no discussion over any servings being fractions of an ounce light was countenanced. The quantity of our nutrition was not scalable. As for any mechanical arithmetic, I highly doubt the same parts would have such a wide range of tolerance. You know as well as I that our Father would never allow such slop to ship from our manufacturing company. Undoubtedly, your OCD affliction for numeric perfection was inherited from our gestapo-like Father, but I must confess your world class cynicism for why we're enduring what we do has educated me beyond any formal training I've experienced. Indeed, as I reach the later stages of my teaching career with the progressives running amok and cramming Common Core pogroms down my throat, I've become quite comfortable smiling while I pass low-IQ uneducables. I've tried, the Lord knows I have, but I am weary. You have taught me well. Those students will never achieve proficiency with even the most rudimentary lessons. No longer will I be a fool. I've been using your attitude to say ____ them, and you know I don't use foul language. What happened ? I always thought of Honda and the Japanese being exceedingly precise.

I thought she understood I was referring to Harley-Davidson Motor Co. in 1950's America. When I made the situation clear, she abruptly told me to change the subject matter and quit wasting her time with nonsensical questions, the answers to which we both knew. Her name, Cheryl, and another applicable word, are both spelled with a capital C .
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