Harley Davidson Panhead : Single Point Timer, control, clutch cable, clips & brackets.

Dizzy Timer advance-retard control cable

I decided to make the parts required to replace the missing timing control components. The cable, slide, rollers etc were all gone. The first thing I found was the correct size cable from a mower shop. $4.50 USD for 1.5m, 5ft.

It has vinyl covering, nylon lining and the correct piano wire single strand inner.

Inner 1.4mm, .055"

Outer steel cable coil 4.75mm ,.187", 3/16", (not incl vinyl).

I made the adaptor for the inner handlebar from 1040 steel. Because it's a push-pull I needed to solder it to the cable.

Some of the outer vinyl and inner nylon burnt/melted during the soldering but it's not expected to be a problem.

The slider was lathed from solid, The pin is screwed into place and made from a cap screw.

The rollers are also made from old cap screws which is a tough chromoly steel .

The single strand cable is fixed by a grub screw.

Cable clamp hand-made from color-steel roofing panel.

Cable clamp on the frame downtubes. Larger cable is for clutch.

6Jan2018 The timer endfloat was .009" which is .002" over maximum allowable tolerance.

The rivet securing the drive was drilled out, then the shaft was pulled out and cleaned. A new spacer washer was made which gave a clearance of .003"(min tolerance). It wa hardened and tempered using Brownells compound. Re-riveting was done by using a nail of exactly the correct size 0.1125" It was a light/medium tap fit.

The ends were securely peined over.

Grease was applied to the inside of the timer before assembly. This greatly improves the advance/retard hand control movement.

Clutch Cable

I wanted a cable that fitted perfectly without having adapt or modify it or the bike. Too often a bought item doesn't fit nicely, is poor quality or needs adapting. My existing one was the exact correct length so I only needed to copy the dimensions.

I made it from nylon lined outer with a 3mm 1/8" inner.

The nipples/ferrules were turned on the shop lathe. The nipples are mild steel while the ferrules I chose stainless. Both were machined from solid. The nipples were soldered using a regular candle for heat, Duzall flux and 50/50 solder bar. This cable will not be lubricated but run dry. I put a tiny amount of grease on the transmission end nipple at the lever in case it needs to pivot. It also spigots into the lever so the cable would need 6mm+ of slack to flick out of position (I don't want it coming out by accident!).

Nipples and ferrules:

Ferrules in place

Finished ready to install.

This is redundant in favor of a MouseTrap

8Jan2021 Timer parts repair

The problem was points gap varied .007". The points base was effectively loose on the timer shaft housing. I could hear the metallic sound of looseness when gently checking fit. The points themselves going from .020" to .027" looked alarming.!!

Yellow arrow shows where fit needed to be improved. This is what centrally locates points base although it does rest on the wider part of the housing. I measured .005" clearance. The 2 mating parts were worn slightly out-of-round/taper.

I decided to swage the hole in the points base. One method I heard was to use a socket but I couldn't find one of the exact size. I made these pieces from solid round steel bar.

The anvil part is simply made by turning round bar true on one end.

The swager is bored with half a degree taper so it could be shortened if needed. This would allow progressively tighter swage.

Supporting the points base with the anvil part held in vise, I used swager to close hole up with successive hits with club hammer. I was checking, going slowly. Finally I had closed all clearance up. There was one tight spot when points base was fully rotated on timer shaft housing. I located the high spot and carefully "tickled" it off.