I have been mesmerized looking at the photo in the first post as well as the whole bike on Patrick's site:
http://www.harleykrxlrtt.com/images/0p-1953-kl-exp.jpgIs it my imagination or is the front cylinder offset to the rider's left? So that would mean no forked rods, but side-by-side, which might also mean offset crankpins like the old 60-degree Buicks had.
I am confident the generator and camshaft were chain drive, it makes sense since cars were doing it I think. I wondered about that big hollow boss between the crank hoke and the cam hole. While the picture on Patrick's site is a little washed out, the picture on page 9 of the Harley Davidson Sportster Performance Handbook by Buzzelli shows a slotted plug in the cam cover. So I am pretty confident that hollow boss is how you see the timing mark.
I am not sure what the square hollow boss is below the generator opening. Maybe its some snazzy version of the camcase vent, but then again, it wouldn't be so low. Maybe drain oil out of the generator?
The oil pump would have to be very similar to a K/Sportster pump, gear-driven off the crank pinion shaft. You could see how it would spray oil on the chains as the timed breather opened. The square recess is obviously supposed to have a screen in it, and then oil drains down to the lower chamber where the pump can scavenge it back to the tank.
The picture in the book sure makes it look like the sprocket cover and camcase cover are one big piece. Patrick's picture has a tiny little line that would make the sprocket cover separate and near identical to a K/Sportster cover.
I wondered where the ignition was. It has to drive off the camshaft, so it is likely on the back side, the left side of the bike. That make me wonder if they tried the infernal cone setup way back in the 1950s, and that was likely another development problem since flyweights don't work right when subject to the acceleration of gravity, that's why Chevy and everyone else stand the distributor upright so the flyweights are horizontal.
Its fun to think the K-frame was really an KL frame that they stuffed the K into after the KL was killed. Thing is, Buzzelli book quotes Harley Chief engineer Spexarth saying he priced out the XL vs the K, and the KL cost "considerably less". So it sounds like the K was planned and a done deal and the KL was intended to be the XL. The book also gives a race justification for introducing a side-valve K. They didn't want to make a 500cc OHV to go against the brits, so a 45CID (737cc) side-valve would differentiate the bikes. After all the VL and W models were highly successful. I have a pal that says the 80CID UL flathead is better than a Panhead. It sounds like Harley wanted to make an OHV (they built an experimental W OHV) and they hoped the KL could replace if the K, if only for a cost reduction. But when the KL faltered, after costing so much money, they slapped iron heads on a K to make an XL. The book notes that Harley had even ordered production tooling for the KL, it was, as we used to call it at GMC, "Prime Program". As to cast iron heads, the book points out all the problems with the early Panheads, and how cast iron ELs were less hassle to develop. So the cast iron was both a cost reduction and a risk reduction.
So now this raises the question if the KL was a 500cc bike that could race flat track. Or maybe they figured to de-stroke it for racing like they do the XL engine. In any event, I sure hope they kept the drawings at the factory, it would be great to see exactly what they were doing.
Back when I had more AutoCAD than sense, I did some studies of stuffing a 60-degree engine into a Sportster frame. One had conventional Sportster valve train but 3-valve heads.
- Engine-4_checkplot_sfw.jpg (76.51 KiB) Viewed 24506 times
Another study put a single cam between the cylinders like the KL.
- ENGINE1_sfw.jpg (50.03 KiB) Viewed 24506 times
Yet another study with the cam way high and one rocker box for both cylinders. Plan was to hard-bolt the rocker box to one head, and let it is slide a bit on the other head as thermal expansion made the jugs taller.
- 1996-01-17_High-cam-check-plot_sfw.jpg (60.56 KiB) Viewed 24506 times
Speaking of Harley development and 60-degree engines, here is a Discovery Channel documentary about the Birth of the V Rod.
https://youtu.be/GpsGwZWvMf0