Gear Covers

Timing cover or Gear cover

Made of cast aluminum. The choice of good covers for the timing case of Harley-Davidson V-Twin engines is limited, especially for the sidevalve or early Sportster models. We can only assume it is due to the five bushings for the crankshaft and camshafts, all of which must be properly aligned, pinned and reamed to size. This makes the rebuilding process complicated, as the guys at Cannonball found out when they reissued the timing covers for 1937-1948 U-models.

Just a cover?

No. Even on the ioe models from 1915 onwards, the timing cover was the carrier for the automatic oil pump. In the later models, the timing case cover contains the counter-bearing bushes for the right-hand crankshaft and the camshafts. These bushes are available separately and can be replaced. After replacement, they must be reamed to size as mentioned, preferably and most carefully after removing the crankshaft from the inside of the right-hand half of the engine housing, using specially guided reamers to ensure that the bearings in the engine housing and the bushes in the timing case cover are aligned.