Harley Ironhead Rocker Boxes

Life's a bitch...   Thank God there's Harleys...

Here's some pictures of the mounting of the rocker shafts and rocker arms into the rocker boxes (also called rocker arm covers) of our 1973 Harley Davidson XLH Ironhead engine.

Before we reassembled these rocker box units we checked all parts for excessive wear, and we cleaned and polished the rocker boxes so they now look like new. (Or even better?) To enhance the Oldschool image that we are trying to achieve, we replaced the original Allen type rocker shaft end caps with a set of new chrome plated hex style end caps.

Here L is pushing the rocker shaft in place through the valve rocker. Note the end of the valve rocker arm visible near L's finger in the square hole at the bottom of the rocker box.

We fixed the rocker shaft end caps into the rocker boxes using LockTite, of course.

For that extra oldschool Knucklehead touch we went for the hex style rocker shaft end caps by Colony Machine.

(Colony part #7142-4 Rocker Shaft End Plug Kit - Sportster 1971-1985)

These end caps are in fact no more than a plug to prevent the rocker shaft from falling out of the rocker box while you are riding your bike...

Here's both finished Sportster Ironhead rocker arm covers with the Colony Knucklehead look-alike rocker plug set mounted in place.

Note the cylinder head in the background, and the ultimate target in the far background.

April 2009