loose ends on the 39

Here is a cool old headlight bulb that I used in the 39.

Original head light lenses have this number cast in them.

Check out the cad plated plug for the speedo reset button. in 1938 HD started using a magnetic speedo lock for police bikes. This required putting a 3/8 hole in the left side of the dash. If the bike was for police duty, it would have a little spring mounted reset knob riveted to the dash base and the hole in the dash would be left open. If the bike was or is a civilian bike, it gets this little plug installed. There are two little tabs on it that get bent over and hold it to the dash.

The dash fits amazingly well on the up side. I love the cad plating and parkerizing next to the blue paint. Check out the short knurl gas cap, this was the style of cap that came out in 36- sometime in 41, hd started getting caps with longer knurls on them.

WHOA I love the look of 39s with six inch air cleaners. This is just about buttoned up and I hope to be riding it soon.

Happy thanksgiving everyone

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I had to run around and take care of a bunch of stuff and didn't have much time for the blog. I hope you guys had a great holiday. Here is a cool picture of Miss Brittney and my friend Cris's 15 harley at the Harley Davidson Museum. Here is a 34 single. I would love to find one of these bikes. it is the last year they were produced I was told they were just put together out of left over parts. I love diamonds on top of fenders.


Here is the factories original paint 48 and 49. They are pretty magical bikes.
This is a pretty nice 56, some of the stuff has been messed with. Over all the bike is pretty sweet.

The Best motorcycle blog post of the year

http://knucklebuster1939.blogspot.com/2011/11/hillclimbers-history-aw-french-and-ohv.html

go check this link out. It blew my mind

riding pictures and old enthusiast pics

My dad, Scott and I rode in for breakfast. I took the 48, it ran well in the cold.

FROZEN TUNDRA picture. This is the first time that I have ever wanted a windshield on a bike. It was 40 degrees in this picture, but I really don't have a reason to complain, it isn't snowing yet. I rode the bike for 10 miles today. It was a blast.

Check out the curve of the earth behind me.

This is my friend Scott from Kentucky. He flew in to hang out this weekend and help us work on old junk bikes. It was a fun time.

Rolling

I love it when a bike's odometer rolls over on to whatever the year of the bike is.

Here is a picture of my friend Paul's uncle. I got this image tattooed on my right arm when I was 19. Everybody should have a 36 el tattoo. I did not know that it was Paul's uncle at the time. what a small world.

This guy is telling the three guys on bikes to get out.

What a beautiful woman. I love 39 els, Check out the chrome muffler and little beauty spotlight.

I know how this guy feels, this isn't the ideal position to be in

POWER SLIDE
O
W
E
R
S
L
I
D
E

I want to do this so badly, but with a knucklehead and not a 45

Mike Wilson gave me this enthusiast. I know John Tibben too, he raced krs. They are both good guys.

Here is a cool 37 btsv stuck out in some forest in Michigan. Maybe this is Paul's bike?

I like the guy pulling a bunch of people with his bike in the picture on the right

The main reason that I was looking through old enthusiasts was to find pictures of light colored 39s with black tail lights. There are a couple of modern books that say that 39 and 40 harleys had body colored tail lights. This is not really correct, but there are a lot of experts that have read a book or two that think that it is. SO I went to the archives to dig out some pictures. Here is the first one.

Another one. This picture is great. Look at how the decal points up towards the heavens. When my dad, Delmar, Gerald and I toured York, we got to go through the paint section of the factory, they had a fixture that they set each tank on, once the tank was sitting on the fixture, some lasers would point on the tank surface so that each decal ended up in the exact same spot. If you look at 36 and 39 knuckleheads, the decals are all over the place. They seemed to have a tolerance of an inch. All joking aside, it is much better to have the tank decal pointing up rather than down.

oh hey, check out that 18 inch wheeled bike with a beauty ring and a BLACK tail light.

and here is Jim's 39 tail light. It looks pretty nice black. I bought the license plate reflector at a car swapmeet in the twin cities, and would love to find another. Do any of you guys have one? I have a lot of parts to trade or cash. Let me know, thanks and good night.

Here is a video of the 48 getting fired up

Mega post

I took John's 48 for a ride today. This bike is very nice and fun to ride. It needs a little bit of adjusting. I need to center the front brakes and adjust the seat post up a bit.

ROLLING

John's 48 in motion

This is Bob's 40 frame. It needs new bottom tubes and a seat post. It was an uncut frame until this weekend.
Typical crack

This is Tim's 42 frame. He went boulder hopping with it and busted it to pieces.

It had the seat post repaired previously. I think the old repair was with nickle rod, It busted right through the center of the weld.

YUCk

There is some really weird history with this back bone. THe tube is very flat on the side. It makes me nervous, so we cut it out.

It is difficult to photograph.

More nickle rod repair on the down tubes on Tim's frame.

And the other side

This is the tube underneath the motor mount. This is the wrong application for nickle filler rod.

this tube will be replaced as well

Dan was cutting up one of the 36 frames that we have to retube and complained about the smell of the tube. Once he got the frame apart this little mouse head fell out of the tube. This little guy got lodged into the left down tube on a 36 knucklehead frame. Man o mah.

This is most of the mouse laid out on the operating table. what a terrible way to die.

Here is Delmars frame on the operating table.

Here is Delmar's 45 frame ready for sandblasting.

we cut up eight frames this weekend. it was nice to work on them out side in nice weather. Now we have to prep all the castings and put them back together. woo hoo

1937 btsv at the Harley Museum in Milwaukee

This is the Factory's original paint 37 big twin side valve. This color is Delphine blue with teak red stripes. The Delphine blue was also used as a striping color for the bronze brown bikes. The blue is more of a turquoise. I want to build one of these bikes so bad that it hurts.Check out the smooth top on the muffler and the three tack welds holding the muffler reducer to the body of the muffler.

Black oil tanks started showing up later on in 37, if you look at enthusiasts from the time period they are pretty common. Most people think that 37s all had body colored oil tanks, but this is not necessarily so. check out the cad plated oil line bolts and nickle plated oil lines and brake pedal. I love the contrast between cad, nickle, paint and parkerizing.

Check out the un reinforced wide fender mounts with the grease zercs point inside the fork. This is the style of front end that Palmer's says is a 38 only fork when in fact it is actually a late 37 front end . I have seen this on a lot of bikes. I have even had points taken off of 38s that we have restored because they did not have this fork! It is impossible to get a grease gun into the middle of the spring perch, you have to use an alemite fitting.

FRONT STANDS are the best. I would like to put one on our 37, it has the clip and the special studs, but I am missing the stand, do you guys have any for sale? We have a nos later one for trade

This bike looks like a missile