going to montana for a few days

I took some pics of Pete's 46 motor for My friend Kevin today. He is going to get a big back piece. It should be neat.


Here is a pic of the six five with out a motor




And here it is with a motor!!!






Here is a pic of the 48, My dad put in the circuit breaker and timed it.

space ship stuff

Woo hoo, we got some fenders ready for fitting today. the front one is for John's 48 and the rear one is for Ed's 55. Next week I can get these two bikes off for paint!!!!!!!


I have been working away on fitting all of this goo gaw stuff on Jason's 65. There are so many rails, bumpers and ornate details on this thing. What a bunch of extra weight It is a real challenge. But i Like it. I should have it tore down for paint and chrome tonight sometime.




Good god all yall

36 frame pictures

Ahh, more excessive welding. Here you can see where someone welded the sidecar loops to the tubes. Original frames just had one little 3/16 spot welded and then the rest was brazed on. You can also see where the front motor mount was welded on to the tubes. 36 and 37 were brazed on. I think that at one point in time some one was so frustrated with this frame that they decided to weld every available seam and extra spot that they could. This front motor mount was faced on a mill, which is something that is pretty interesting. Have any of you guys ever seen this before?


Here is the infamous 36-mid 37 neck with the large DIF hall mark and machined clearance for the tanks. This is like a piece of artwork.




Check out the lack of a reinforcement strut on the transmission mounting strap plate. This is a 36 deal. One of my friends had a factory straightened 36 frame that had the strut welded at the factory. PRetty cool stuff!!!






UNGHHH

more 36 frame pics and good news.

Here is a neat detail on the 36 frame that I noticed. It is a DIF marking. I have seen these on some loops, but not all of them. The right/upside loop does not have this marking on this frame.


Here is a good shot that shows lots of damage that is expensive and difficult to repair. You can see where the tubes snapped off and were re welded. Also check out the neat fix for the seat post, they welded a gusset tube around the cracked and disfigured original post. You can also see where someone torch welded so many joints on this frame. The motor/trans mount and the foot board tabs are pretty obvious as is all of the extra welding on the tubes.




We fired up Andy's 47 today. I side kicked it for a bit and did not have much luck. SO we rolled it off of the lift, and it fired right up once it was straddle kicked.






This bike is Choice. I can't wait to ride it when the weather gets better.

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!

Bearing cages have been a huge issue for us for a long time. We build anywhere from 10 to 25 motors a year which averages out to a lot of bearing cages. No one makes cages that are usable., and they dont fit right. They are nearly impossible to find and we have been buying everyone we can get our hands on for as long as I can remember. Well I am happy to announce that we finally have some amazing prototypes from Delmar. They are made out of pre hardened steel, and are 29 to 32 rockwell. The originals that we have all measure right around 30 rock well plus or minus one point. These are so cool and will work just like originals.


I am going to put a few sets in our personal bikes and do a ton of research and development testing on them this summer. Hope you guys are doing well. Have a great day

closing in on it

Here is an nos daka ware knob that i pulled out of the stash for the four seven. These were made in Chicago and used on everything from motorcycles to machine tools. The hd thread is three eighths twenty four.


Tanks, emblems, shifting apparatus and gas crossover line are mounted in this picture.




Man o man, it looks like a real bike now.

36 frame

We got this 36 frame delivered to us this morning. It needs to be completely re tubed. I have only had three of these in my possession.


It is difficult to take a saws all and cut off wheel to a frame that is worth more than i make in a year. It is all good.

easter madness

I have spent the weekend trying to sort out the original dash sockets on Andy's 47. I am going to just replace them. Here is a pic of Miss Brittney/ Bettie Bicycle painting some emblems for me. The tank emblems are for John's 48. She did the ones for Andy's 47 as well.


Bare tank, i have tapped out the 4-40 tank emblem mounting screw in this picture. It is the worst and most intense part of restoring a bike. Imagine turning a tap into a sideways tap with a crescent wrench above a tank that costs a grand to paint. ICK




HEre is a picture of the gasket installed. These are nos, and kind of shrink a little. I had to trim the part that goes under the emblem so that the gasket would go farther ahead.






I could not install the screw because of my gimp left arm, so my dad will have to do it in the morning. Good night guys and happy easter.

....

AHHHH I finally parkerized the speedo clip on Andy's 47. It was cad plated with the cable and was the first thing that i looked at whenever I checked out his bike. I am trimming out the tanks today and should be firing it up tonight!!!!


Here is my friend Brittney, she is hanging out and helping jesse lap cases together.




I took this neat picture of different shift arms. left to right 1936 knucklehead only. 1937 to 1946, 1947 to some time in the fifties, and a late one that I have no idea when hd started to use it. The knob is at a crazy angle and it is very homely.

knucklehead line up

I spent the morning setting up the clutch pedal and rod on Andy's 47, and my dad fit up the fender tips on Don's 42. I go nuts over lifts filled with cool old bikes.


These are original fender tips that we had Pat strip, straighten and polish. New chrome does not bend or flex, it peals when you try to bend a part. This means that you have to pre polish and pre fit everything. It is a lot of work and I am glad that my dad did it.




OH man, this is the goods, 1942 deluxe sport solos had these fender tips listed on the order blank. It is kind of a bummer to cover up the nice crown definition.

brakes, dogs and

i spent the rest of the day sorting out the footboard and brake pedal on Andy's 47. Here is a picture of duke checking it out. He approves


OOOO aaaaahhhh. I love metal foot board mats. I think that the rubber mats started to appear sometime around the 5500 serial number range.

the little things

I finished up mounting the exhaust and tyed up the loose ends on wiring Andy's 47 over the weekend. I still have to put in the 47 only speedo light, but this is pretty much done.


This picture is a little blurry, I took it to show the post war self made terminals on the brake light switch and the paper gasket. Some gaskets are brown and others are white? I think that hte later ones are white paper. Our op 41, 46 and 47 have brown gaskets, I am not sure when hd changed it? do you guys know? please advise

snow and knuckleheads

so today is/ was april 15th. It snowed at least six inches in ABerdeen I could not believe it. What a mess. This is the driveway to the shop. Hopefully it will melt away in the next few days. we were up pretty late in the shop hanging out with Ray and decided to check out the clearance on my pipes. Thankfully they clear. This is an original early 36 kicker cover and a 36-37 kicker arm. I am going to go through the transmission in the next month or two and put a later cover and top on it, and also put later gears inside the case. I was so broke when I built this bike that I put old borderline gears in it. Which is ok if you baby it, but i do not baby this bike. I think i have probably gone at least 50 miles in third gear while going 75mph. This is the worlds most abused 36. IT will be a lot better once I put the 58 and later third gear in.

We got a small batch of exhaust back from the painters today. Here is Andy's 47, I will bolt everything down for good in the morning. I am going to focus on this bike all weekend and see what happens. Good night

outer primary progress

I spent the morning straightening out this original outer primary cover for John's 48, it was pretty nice, but still needed some massaging. I also set up the kickstand and clutch pedal bracket. This is all good stuff. woo hooo

crazy 36 dual exhaust progress

it is one in the morning, i am tired and going to bed. Please allow the pictures to tell the story. i am almost done with this good night.

jumping through hoops while no one is watching

My dad and I set up the primaries on John's 48 this morning and I went back to pre fitting his exhaust. Panheads rear header pipes can be a real pain. This is a paughco rear header pipe. it is pretty nice, the curves are nice and graceful and over all pretty nice, it just didn't fit the way i wanted it to, the bottom of the pipe hit the kicker cover studs and was not in the right place. I decided to pie cut it and kick the pipe out. Here is where I marked it. Here is the cut. It is also important to make this clamp fit in a free spot. I took this pic to show you the gap in between the frame and the end of the clamp. This is an easy problem to remedy, you just clamp it in the vice and bend it whatever way you need too. Make sure that your one bolt is installed and tight other wise you will mess everything up. The clamps are supposed to hold everything in place and not put tension on the system. HEre is everything bolted up, I am on lunch and will go out and weld up my pie cut, dress it down and send this off for paint with the other systems. I am kind of jealous of my friends that build custom bikes and showcase their fabrication skills. Most of the fabricating and machining that goes into our bikes is to make the parts look stock.

machining mis matched or welded cases

Here is a picture of the bore for the cylinder skirt being bored out. The cylinder decks have already been cut with a fly cutter. It is important to always dial in on the right case.

cutting the front motor mounts

and cutting the rear motor mounts. These cases turned out sweeet.