On Wed, 10 Feb 2016 11:18:16 -0500, Keyser Söze
wrote:

On 2/10/16 10:10 AM, Tim wrote:
On Monday, February 8, 2016 at 10:18:07 AM UTC-6, wrote:
On Mon, 8 Feb 2016 07:40:40 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

Yup. The Japanese invasion pretty much killed off BSA and Norton here
also. The original Indian Motorcycle Co. folded in 1953. They only
produced about 1,000 military motorcycles in WWII whereas Harley
Davidson produced over 90,000. Even Harley ran into some problems
later leading to their purchase by AMF in 1969 who ruined their quality
and reputation. Fortunately, a group of investors led by Willie
Davidson bought the company from AMF in 1981 and refocused on quality.
They also accused the Japanese makers of flooding the US market with
cheap products and claimed that domestic motorcycles and the jobs their
manufacture created was endangered. Ronald Reagan took action to
protect the domestic manufacturers by imposing a 45% tariff on imported
motorcycles over 700cc's.
( Screw the "global market" BS :-) )

We started seeing the AMF problems in 71.. Probably the worst problem
was in the 74 Sportster where the rear fork was bending and the seat
mounting bolt would wear a groove in the rear tire. The fix was
welding a couple struts in to hold it up.
The 71 and 72 Superglides had excessive flex in the fork tubes because
they were using the Sportster front end on an FL frame. They ate
seals.
In 71 they also changed the spec for the main shaft bearing in the
FL/FX transmission (did not account for thrust load) and they went
bad.
There were lots of growing pains in the early AMF years.
It was a good time to be a Harley mechanic tho ;-)

Harley was good about putting out scrap those years. A friend of mine worked for AMF and got an 80 Glide at cost. (benefit of the company) and it always smoked. Finally a dealer tore it down and it had rings missing on the back piston.

The thing always dripped oil and the speedo was way off. All from the factory.

BTW, yes the Superglide front forks. A lot of them starting cracking right below the triple tree. It's amazing how some feel that HD is still such a glorious motorcycle. Then again, the "Big four" Japanese have had models to copy HD's for years. go figure


Back in the good old days, when I was in college in Kansas, I had the
used Honda motorcycle I bought with some of my summer earnings back east
shipped out to Dorothy's state. Well, "the guys" with their Triumphs,
BSAs, Harleys, et cetera, laughed at my poor little two cylinder Honda,
but, unlike their bikes, the Honda started easily every time, didn't
leak oil, and ran smoothly. There weren't many Hondas out there in
Kansas at that time.

Most F series Harleys were "one kick" bikes if you knew how to start
one. They did have a problem with the late 60s Sportsters that had the
magneto. The guys who rode them usually walked with a limp because the
kicker ratchet wore out and they had a habit of just "falling
through". You had to really be sure it caught before you stood on it.

I did have a 350 Honda for a while but it was pretty uninspiring. I
bought it in 20 boxes, put it together and doubled my money when I
sold it. It was about like the 350 Yamaha I bought after a wreck,
fixed and sold but a bit slower.