harleyKmodel

by **Ferrous_Head** » Wed Nov 29, 2023 11:51 pm

South Australia.

By any chance was Rob Jolly involved in any of this ?

He worked in with John Trease and John had his own Sportster cases cast up. I'm thinking John might have mentioned doing K cases early on in the piece.. Bob was big into XLR's but I'm thinking he might have started out with KR's.

I wouldn't mind knowing where John's patterns for the Sportster cases are now.

by **Knuckles** » Thu Nov 30, 2023 1:17 am

Just to add to the K case conundrum. I have a dealer replacement KH case, stamped "D, blank vin block with a 116 belly number.

Gary

by **hayleyl** » Thu Nov 30, 2023 5:51 am

Ferrous - no mate wasn't Rob in SA. John T had my 1121 cases for about two years and took patterns off them. At one point John and I had a wonderfull idea casting aluminium K cylinders with nicocile liners.
Unfortunately, life, kids, mortgages and the minister for war and finance got in the way, so that mission was put on the back burner. We even had a set of KH waxed cylinders ready to go for moulds.
I can ask around about the patterns for the Sportster cases. I know a few blokes that worked with him in out of Quick Street.
I know he had big twin Indian cases, cylinders and heads cast at the Castlemaine foundry. They were stunning. They were making (or going to make) 103ci fIathead Indian engines. Castlemaine might know of JT XL case patterns.
I know John made a few sets of billet nitro Sportster cases on his C&C mill. His son Jack would be a good contact. Cheers Hayley.

by **Ferrous_Head** » Thu Nov 30, 2023 6:51 am

This is possibly a coincidence. One year on the way to Phillip Island my brother and I ran into some guys coming over from Adelaide. Can't remember the year, maybe 2009 -2010. But 4 guys I think nearly dead from heat exhaustion. Told us they gad ridden over from Adelaide and could go no farther so stopped at the same morel as us.
One of them was a pattern maker. I talked to him about making some Ducati single heads. Thinking I could do 4 valve heads with much better combustion chamber shapes and shock the world. Shatter speed records. I'm pretty sure he talked about the Castlemain foundry as they were one of the few who would do magnesium castings.
But life,, kids, work, the minister for war and the minister for finances intervened and it never got done.

Were you by chance part of that group ?

by **hayleyl** » Thu Nov 30, 2023 6:33 pm

Ferrous - no, wasn't part of that group - and yes Castlemaine do a lot of alloy & magnesium work for hotrodders. I'll case up sportster case moulds. Apologies to all - we're straying a bit off topic here. Cheers Hayley

by **ford_fan70** » Thu Nov 30, 2023 11:40 pm

Took the tank off and found the numbers up at the front by the down tube 47593-52 and the one on the bracket for the head motor mount 47661-52 , As far as i can tell from the frame pics it looks like a version 5 .

by **hennesse** » Fri Dec 01, 2023 12:37 pm

Knuckles wrote:Just to add to the K case conundrum. I have a dealer replacement KH case, stamped "D, blank vin block with a 116 belly number.
Gary

I guess I should have added a 5th category to my previous list: Unexplained Mysteries

The stamped letter "D" does have an explanation - over in Technical : Numbers - scroll to the bottom of the page. But what about the oddball belly number on your case? Do all of these late production "D" K and KH cases have similar belly numbers? An Unexplained Mystery.

by **sean** » Sat Jan 06, 2024 8:21 pm

Seen the bike at the Toronto motorcycle show and is in amazing condition wth all the right parts and finishes.
My opinion on the numbers is that it was a replacement cases after an early failure in the transmission due to the soft gear issues.or everyone is wrong on how many made since this prime example can’t be ignored.columbus did not discover Canada.
Sean

by **JerrryR** » Sat Jan 06, 2024 9:06 pm

The K case with the letter "D" stamped and a virgin VIN with 3 belly numbers is not a mystery, they are later HD K model replacement dealer cases. The following pictures are of a set I have. I'll do a second post with the information on the Letter "D".