You can imagine how jazzed I was to receive the 120-inch Accurate Engineering Panhead engine from Yellow Freight. I’m a major fan of Panheads. Hell, I was born in ’48, but don’t tell anyone.

Shortly thereafter the Baker Transmission, 6-speed, touring unit with the oil bag under it, arrived. I also discovered that all my grandiose notions for moving the controls forward might fail. I needed the driveline in place to study the space available.

At first we were going to follow John Reed’s DVD instruction on installing the driveline in his frame, by lowering the frame over the driveline, with both on their sides. We discovered that his notion is killer if the frame is bare, no front end or swingarm.

After removing the bars, dash, fairing, tank and seat, we though we were ready for the Reed installation system. We bolted the system together, tried laying it over and dropping the frame on top, then gave up. We pulled the engine and tranny apart and headed in another direction.

I pulled and began to install the driveline mounting gear including the front mount isolator and the top motormount.

All the fasteners are labeled in bags, although we hope to use stainless Allens or even safety wired stainless in the future.

I also pulled the heim joints needed to align the engine and trans. Then I loosened the rear motormounts and tapped the swingarm axle out.

Next I blocked up and padded the transmission, dropping it into the swingarm which by the grace of the Chrome God remained in place.

With all the swingarm axle seals, washers and parts in place we returned the axle, except this time it slipped through the transmission.

It was time for the engine and I was concerned that I would be forced to remove the carb to clear the top motormount, but that wasn’t the case. The engine slipped right in.

With a jack and wood block under the engine, I aligned it with the tranny, dropped in the bolts and went to work. I always watch out for cross threading into aluminum. If it feels strange, I back ‘em out and shoot for better alignment.

Next, I installed the top motormount and heim joint. Before I messed with the controls, I wanted to make sure the chain and driveline was in perfect alignment.

Here’s an example regarding alignment. I bolted in the engine and tranny. Everything looked cool except the rear sprockets.

I looked down over the rear sprocket and couldn’t see the tranny sprocket. That made me nervous.

Then I remembered an odd sized aluminum spacer and John Reed’s mechanical drawing. It replaced one of the rear wheel spacers and moved the wheel about 1/8 of an inch to the right. That helped.

I installed the top heim joint, made sure the frame was level and the engine perpendicular to the lift.

I had to find a bigger bolt for the front motormount plate. I made sure the rear wheel was aligned, then the engine and tranny aligned.

The first time I slipped a Custom Chrome O-ring chain over the sprockets I wasn’t happy. It hit the tire and wasn’t even close to being aligned.

After carefully aligning all the elements the chain jumped into a straight groove from sprocket to sprocket. Next we’ll move onto the foot controls and the rear brake lever. Hang on.

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