This wasn’t a ribbon-cutting-sweetmeat-distributing kind of event with podium, speeches and applause. Rather it was a two-day ‘back to school’ experience with precision tools, sequential night tightening, and a whole lot of learning and insight into what makes a Harley-Davidson Milwaukee-Eight engine tick. All at Capital Harley-Davidson in Gurugram.
A few of us, mostly automobile writers and some Harley-Davidson enthusiasts, were invited for a two-day ‘roll up your sleeves and get your hands greasy’ experience. This meant we had to completely dismantle the Milwaukee-Eight engine on day one and then put it together on day two.
How difficult could it be?
After all, we all had played with Lego and building blocks as kids and had a passion for engines. The classroom session with John McEnaney, who is Regional Lead, Technical Support Asia Pacific at Harley-Davidson Asia Pacific, was an indication of the intricacies and precision that were to follow. John Mac, as he is called, gave us a quick, yet detailed, low-down about the safe practices, procedures and precautions that we were to follow on the workbench. He has owned every Harley since 1942 and knows the engines, shall we say, intimately.We were going to work on the Milwaukee-Eight 107 — the 107 stands for the cubic-inch displacement of the engine. The M8 is also available in 117 cubic inches. While the 107 powers the new Harley-Davidson Softail and Touring range in India, the 117 powers the CVO (Custom Vehicle Operation). The difference between the two engines isn’t just the displacement; the 107 has two counterbalancers while the 117 has just one. There were eight engines mounted on workbenches in the work area that was brightly lit with fluorescent tube lights.
These engines were the guinea pigs on which technicians would be trained. Every workbench had a tool chest, where a range of tools required, and then some, were neatly arranged.
On the table next to the work chest was a laptop with a military-grade cover. This had a soft copy of the engine’s technical manual that told us the sequence in which it had to be dissembled.
Far from simple
The 24 of us were divided into teams of three. On paper, the steps to dismantle the engine were quite simple: first the rocker covers, then the rockers, then the cylinder heads, the pistons, the bottom end starting with the coil, the cams and finally the crankcase.
In reality, it was a little more complicated. Nuts had to be loosened in a certain sequence and every part had to be labelled and set aside. Since the engine is a V twin, there are two of everything, but there are minute differences, so the rockers of the front cylinder cannot be put into the cylinder behind. Special tools had to be chosen from the chest for certain procedures, like pulling out the magnetic coil and locking the timing gear in place.
On the second day, we had to reassemble the engine — and hope that there weren’t any parts or components either interchanged or left out. The assembling takes a long time, as every bolt has to be bedded in sequence and then sometimes loosened to a certain degree and then tightened to a specified torque by a torque wrench. It is precision and care like this that keep engines running for years under many miles of duress and different road conditions. Then there were the piston rings that had to be set in a correct pattern and sequence. John Mac emphasised that there can be no shortcuts here, since the pistons operate in the cylinders often at 8,000 rpm and are the very heart of the engine.
Getting the cylinder on was a tedious process, but with the help of the two Harley technicians we managed, and by the end of the day, the engine was assembled back again. There were no nuts, bolts, or washers left over. Everything was back where it belonged.
To have glimpsed a soul
I walked out of Capital Harley after those two days with a sense of enlightenment. Harley-Davidson has come a long way since opening their first dealership in India in July 2010. As the number of dealerships and owners continues to rise, the company decided that India needed its very own Harley-Davidson University after Singapore, Korea, and Australia in the Asia Pacific region. The company itself has come a long way since their first motorcycle that was built in 1903 and powered by a 24.74 cubic-inch engine.
Today’s high-performance motorcycles need precision servicing and purpose-built tools, which is why the training that technicians get at the University will prove invaluable.
