maiden voyages, transmissions, startes, clutches, nubs

This is an amazing pic of Herb Glass with his new 36 knucklehead that he special ordered in 35 with a 33 paint job on the tank. My friend RL from South Carolina posted this pic on the AMCA facebook page. If you guys have facebook, you should go join that group. there are over 1500 amazing pics on there. It is a nice place with free exchange of thoughts and information with out any attitude or politics
Wayne's 46 is operational and mobile. We have been tweaking it and putting in break in miles on it today. I have not ridden it yet, I will take it out for a spin tomorrow. When we finish a bike, my dad takes them for test rides, comes back with a list of adjustments, we make adjustments, then do the cycle all over again. I like to wait to ride them until after my dad or somebody else runs out of suggestions, then I can ride them with a fresh perspective and ear. There usually are only half a dozen things to work on if that.
Here is a cool pic of the riveted plates for a 38 to 40 4 bolt clutch. I cleaned these nice original plates up for Jim's 38. They are primo. This is the clutch set up that you want to use if you are running a 4 bolt clutch in your bike. the earlier bikes had just steel, fiber, steel fiber etc. and they would gaul up and get sticky.
Here is the primary all buttoned up and ready for service. I am waiting on some rear fender clamps to get painted black before I mount the rear fender.
We are working on a batch of transmissions, there are two 55s, a 37, 38, and a 47.
I got the starter for Jason's 65 all cleaned up and ready to go. I am waiting on a boot for the solenoid, then I can button up the primaries and start on the exhaust!
Here is a picture of my dad teaching dan how to co ax in a hole for the main drive gear race. A couple of the transmissions that we are working on had been run with the races loose in the case, so we had to bore them out for oversize races. When the cases were cut originally, the counter bores for the seals were concentric with the hole that the race goes in, so you can usually pick the bore up off of one of those dimensions, if they are shot, then you have to get a long finger for the indicator and dial in off of the hole that the bearing sleeve presses into.
This is the 38 case for my dad's bobber. it is pretty mint. check out the early drain plug, lack of date code and mintness of the castings.
whoa.
Here is a cast iron nub that one of our friends in michigan made. we are rebuilding his 38 motor for him. He couldn't find the correct 38 oil pump, so he machined these nubs out of a big block of cast iron and modified a 39 40 pump to work on his motor.
Here is the finished product. He did a great job, once this is painted it will be almost impossible to tell that it isn't a 38 pump.
one more pic of the case for my dad's 38, the two studs that the brake light switch go on are the same length as the rest of the studs. this has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I have seen some early original cases with the studs farther out, and some with all of the same studs. Do any of you guys have any comment on this? thanks and have a great april fools day

chrome and misc...

I rode Andy's 47 yesterday and it is a real cream puff. The bike works exactly the way I like bikes. It tracks very straight, has lots of power and is smooth.I took this picture with my hands straight above my head and the camera pointing down. Notice that the steering dampener is loose and that I have good looking feet.

Markus rode my 36 with me. This bike looks so cool going down the road. I love knuckleheads.

What a great day.

We got a box of chrome bits from Pat yesterday. I am always impressed with how well he wraps things up. It is like Christmas.

All of the parts except for three pieces were for Jason's 65. I love working with pat, because he never over buffs things and keeps the definition of the parts features intact.

Here is one of the 62 to 65 turn signals. They turned out pretty good. The pot metal is very porous and difficult to polish.

Here it is all laid out.

And the fender tips for the 42. These are the ones that we pre fit a few weeks ago. They turned out great. I am not very good at taking pictures of chrome, they are amazing in real life.

misc pictures and contest

I finished fitting up the goo gaw stuff on Jason's 65. What a bunch of work. I am sending it off for paint and chrome now. There are so many parts to these bikes it is over whelming. I am going to weigh this bike when it is done and weigh a 48 at the same time and see what the difference is. Do any of you guys know? We should start a pool. I am guessing it will be a difference of 83 pounds. Please comment below.


I need a turn signal like this. I have three out of the four. Do any of you know where I could find one




I got this nifty front brake set up in the mail today from my friend Mike Javernick. It is a dual cam springer front brake. I am going to put it on my 36 and test it out. I will keep all of yall posted.

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

misc parts

This morning UPS brought us the parts that we bought in PA last week. A lot of the parts are for Jason's 65, which I am very excited about. With this stuff we can finish pre fitting all of the chrome and sheet metal for that bike and get the plating in progress. woo hoo HEre is an offset for that we bought, One of the front legs needs to be replaced, and it needs the fender tabs welded on, but forunately I have some original ones, so I can repair it with all oem stuff. Check out the awesome license plate frame! This is going to look so cool all chromed and lit up. Two of the lenses are broken and need to be replaced, but I have some.

55 and 65 panheads

The handlebars on Jason's 65 were very loose and squishy so we replaced the rubber insert bushings. They are supposed to stick out .625 from the bottom of the tree.


we finished up cleaning the parkerizing. it turned out really nice. Our oven broke half way through the batch last week and we had to get a new oven. I am surprised that it held on as long as it did. I don't really think that they were designed to be run on high for eight hours straight.



Ray and I are working on Ed's 55. This should be a roller in the next few days.




Here are some of the parts for it. This bike is going to be sweet. It will be atomic blue with black hard bags.

the rest of the weekend

This is a neat old building that some of the first documents of the us were drafted in. Zach told us that the founding fathers used to get wasted here lol.


We hung out with our friend Marty on Saturday. Marty is one of my heros, he is an old drag racer and can fix anything. whenever I have a question or problem he is on the list of guys that I call to trouble shoot and figure it out. This is a twin engined drag bike that he build before I was born. He also made a crazy nitro drag bike that he fabricated from raw materials. I could listen to him talk about that era for hours. The early drag bike scene sounds absolutely amazing, every body was working together to figure out how to go faster. It kind of sounds comparable to the early turn of the century when people were figuring out how to make internal combustion engines work. Now you can order a ready built drag racing engine from a couple of different manufacturers which kind of takes away the excitement of the mechanical process.



This is Billy, Matt and Marty. Billy and Matt are doing apprenticeships under Marty's watchful eye. I am writing a story about Matt and Billy for an upcoming issue of the amca magazine. These guys are all rulers.




We also spent a day digging through old motorcycle parts at a shop in PA. IT was awesome. We spent a lot of money and got a lot of neat stuff, but it has to be shipped home. These are the two pieces I smuggled on the plane. The knob is for Don's 42 and the lens is for Jason's 65. We also got to meet up with our friend John that we are building a 48 for, and Tanya showed up to hang out for a while too. The weekend was amazing.

65 bumper battle

Ray is working on fitting all the goo gaw stuff on the 65 before it gets sent out for plating. The front bumper seemed to fight him all morning. HEre is a pic that shows how it was off to the up side of the bike.


HEre it is after being straightened. It turned out well, as soon as we got the bars parallel to the each other and perpendicular to the front end, the radius found its way "home" and straightened out too. It only took two hours, but the end product will be worth it.

plating etc

A box full of nickle plating showed up today from our friend Doug! This stuff looks so good. Most of the 36 to 39 manifolds are reproduction ones that we make.


These are for the 47 bobber that we are building for Glenn. I pre polished some spots on them, and as soon as i hit the areas with a little bit of compound, these will glow!



HEre are some of the carbs that got plated. Pretty cool stuff!




Ray is still prefitting all the stuff that goes on the 65. It is coming along well, the fender tips and tail light were repro on the bike. I found an original tail light and rear fender tip, but still need an og frong tip. Do any of you guys have one you would be willing to set me up with, shoot me an email at amcayouthprogram@hotmail.com if you do. Thanks

Carb pics

Some of our friends From the motor company are flying my dad and I out to York to do a tour and talk to some of the employees on wednesday. We will be back on Sunday. So I am trying to get some projects ready for Jesse and Ray to work on. My dad is gearing up to do a batch of carbs.... like 18 of them! All of the bowls in the front row are for early nickle plated carbs, that are still off at the platers.


Here is a dirty nasty bowl for a 45 that probably has not been cleaned since it was new!



This raised casting code is in all 38 and earlier aluminum bowls




The upper left bowl is for Jim's 36, the lower right one is a bowl that I have been holding on to for years. It is the hardest to find linkert bowl of all time, It isn't mentioned in any books, I have only seen two other ones. It is for super late 38s. It has the early casting date on the inside, and is machined with a fly cutter before the drain is drilled and tapped. Later ones were counter bored-drilled andthen tapped. Anyways, I am going to put it on Jim's 38 carb. I have to do a wild fix on the stem hole, but it will be worth it.

1965 Panhead Progress

Ray made a lot of progress on Jason's 65 today. The fenders are fit and the bike is on wheels!! The handle bars are just pushers, I have the real ones off getting chrome plated, WOOO hOOO


Nice and centered up. The tin on this bike was pretty straight and only needed a little massaging.



We are pre fitting all the guards and crash bars. The left side crash bar is a little tweaked but should be an easy pull when the bike is up on the lift. This is the first 65 that I have gotten to work on, and they are pretty damn neat. Definitely a lot more bits and pieces than knuckleheads.