Cool shop tool

So it’s the off season and everything is getting torn down and wanted to share a cool “tool” that you don’t see every day and damn sure would believe that a tool made in 1930 would work on todays stuff.

this is a 1930 Factory Harley Crank Truing stand.

Obviously I’m not a Harley guy, but this has been used in our shop for the past 40+ years and even to this day still works on many modern bikes.

weighs as much as a gold wing but works perfect to this day.

yes I need to clean it and I almost “restored” it but almost 100 years of grime and crank oil would be a shame to “clean away”

 

How does it work?

 

See the dials? Basically, you put the crank in the middle, and just tight enough to where you spin it and watch the needles. You are looking for runout, or watch the little needle things.
To adjust, depending on the crank, you get a HUGE hammer and piece of brass and WHAM. then take another measurement.

You'll never get .0000 but the idea is to get as close as possible.

Yes its crude, and old tech, but you can still use it today.

 

Hulk SMASH!

 

Very cool. Like a set of beefy bench centers.

 

Ah thats cool!!

For some reason though I read truing stand, but my brain said balancer LOL

Makes a lot more sense now

 

Old-timers used to get a lot accomplished with low-tech
tools back in the day.

 

They had an extremely well calibrated sense of how to swing that hammer.

 

That thing is awesome! I love old tools. It will probably still be doing its thing after we're all just memories

 

Dig it.

 

LMFAO!! That's awesome.

This reminds me of working with the Alpha guys over the summer. I had completely rebuilt the clutch on Kaleb's bike and he told me to make slight adjustment on the clutch lever free play. I said "A cunt hair?" He was like "What's that?". So first I had to explain to him what a cunt was and then the term "Cunt Hair" and then I went into the blonde, red, brown, black how they are different measurements. He looked at me verbatim and goes "You fucking American's will do anything to not use the metric system". I almost fell over I was laughing so hard.

 

My brother once told me about walking out of a car parts store when he moved to Louisiana to see an old guy resurfacing an engine head by swirling it around on a level sidewalk that he'd poured water on. I guess he felt the machine shop was too newfangled.

 

Without water, I had a mechanic teach me to do that at the track to deglaze brake pads. His rider at the time was Jeff Farmer, and Jeff was spanking the Vance and Hines boys in the 600 class.

 

Lol I’ve skuffed my fair share of clutch plates on concrete at the track.

 

You can buy one new:
Here
K&L has sold a version for years and I believe they still do. Works for truing lots of shafts and wheels. etc.

 

I showed Dave (Wymans wrench) the pic this am, he said "the museum may want that thing back," ck with em..

 

A little sand added to them from the concrete pad at Jennings...