V-Twin 101

Harley- Davidson Asked Me To Go Back To School And This Time, I Did Not Need Any Saving From The Bell Completely Clueless Would Be A Good Way To Describe This Look

- Debabrata Sarkar

This wasn’t going to be a day of standing around and drinking chai, all the while directing ‘chotu’ to tighten another bolt and adjust another wire. No. This was going to be two entire days of being chotu with spanners in hand and elbows dipped in grease. That’s what goes on at a university with Harley- Davidson written on the front of it and learning the basics of tearing down and re-building an engine is the class that I have signed up for. Two days of referring to workshop manuals, two days of following precise processes, two days of essentially putting my money, err, wrench, where my mouth is.

A brand new Milwaukee Eight motor mounted on a work bench under John McEnaney’s watchful eyes, just to ensure my, ahem, trained hand doesn’t stray too far from the course. In case you are wondering who John McEnaney is, well, let’s just call him Harley-Davidson’s equivalent of Yoda. Not only does he have an example of each of the nine motors that Harley-Davidson has ever put on a production motorcycle stashed away in his garage, but he has also built each one of them and overhauled them himself. And, by the way, he also happens to lead technical training for the Asian region for Harley-Davidson.