Don's 42

I spent some time today tying up loose ends on the the 42 and doing some final tweaking and adjusting. I got the squashed birds and saddlebags mounted for good. This bike is so nice.

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.

picturesque riding pictures

My dad and I took the 47 and 42 into the Palm Garden for lunch. The bikes ran great.

My dad took Andy's 47. This bike is stellar. I love black 47 knuckleheads.

I had to adjust the clutch push rod and I chose to just leave the derby cover off until later.

I am pretty happy with this bike. There are still some growing pains to sort out. I should have it ready to roll in the next week or so.

footers and 42 exhaust

Here is a cool picture of cement being poured into the footings. They will do the stem walls tomorrow then we can set the barn on them.

I finished up mounting the exhaust on Don's 42 this afternoon. I love how this bike is turning out. It should be done very shortly. wooo hooo. The yellow bike in the back ground is a 54 that we did for our neighbor a few years ago. We are servicing it for the summer.

I am working on the rear brake and other stuff. Check out the n.o.s. foot board mat and brake pedal stuff.

Pics....

my dad, Brittney and I went out riding yesterday and raced go karts. It was a blast.


I am fitting the oil lines on Don's 42. Check out the short oil line nut. HD switched to the shouldered nut sometime in 43 or 44.




One down two to go.

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.

mystery bike and knucklehead pics

Here is a neat picture of my fathers grandfather's brother back in 1918. I do not know what the bike is? Do any of you guys/Pete have an idea? HEre is a neat picture of Don's 42 foot board mat. I used nos mats on it, and they are beautiful. I am plugging away at Andy's bike. Here is a good pic of how the front brake cable should be routed. I should have this bike running soon. I cant wait.

carbs and wiring

My dad is making good progress on the batch of carbs. Here is Don's 42 carb all finished up and ready for service. This is the only silver carb that we are doing in this batch. Check out all of the nickle plated hardware. this is so damn neat. Here are some more waiting for assembly. HEre is a pic of Randy's m74b installed and ready for action. I am putting the tanks on this bike today. I should fire it up in the next day or two. This stage is always very exciting. I spent the morning sorting out the tail light and brake light. All of the other wiring worked like it should.

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.

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.

The dirtiest part of a knucklehead

I am working on seat posts today while I wait for a few parts for rear brakes. Here is one of the bashed in seat post springs from Don's seat post


Here is a picture of the replacement spring all cleaned up with the other seat post parts. All seat post parts are natural finish. HD did not feel the need to plate any of this stuff because it is always covered in grease!



Here it is all put together and ready to install, my cannonball scar seems to be healing up pretty well. I have another set of x rays in a few weeks and hopefully The doctors will give me the go ahead to start lifting more than 15 pounds of weight with my left arm.





Here is the seat post installed. The bottom of don's bike is just as clean as the top. I love knuckleheads.

knucklehead pics

I put the vent and return lines on Andy's 47 last night. They look great.


I spent two hours last night trying to get some original horns to work. No matter what I did, I couldn't make them work. My dad came out this morning and spent a half hour on it and it was fixed. He is so damn sharp. I am very lucky to have him for helping me out on projects.



Here is a repro 41 and 42 front brake lever perch. I looked for an original one for the last two years and could not find one, so I pulled the original one off my dad's 41 and made some copies. This is a terrible business decision, because at the most I will probably sell two of them, but I have them for the bikes that need them. I have to look at the big picture in cases like this.



here is the side profile. I still have to sand down the parting line and polish it, but this piece is almost done.

brakes!!!!

I am in brake mode for a while. Here is a pic of a sunnen pin hone arbor for honing out the rear brake pedals for an oversize stud. I used to have to make these studs from scratch, but colony just came out with new standard and oversized pins. This saves soo much time.


Here it is after it is fit to the pedal. I like to have .010 to .015 clearance.



Here are the rear brakes that I am sorting out. I have most of the parts, but need to order springs. I love doing things in batches, it makes life so much easier.

rising tides

I have been making the best out of my few extra days in South Dakota. I worked till 11 last night and prepped and ground a bunch of castings and welding. Here are the squashed birds that we are going to use on Don's bike. These are for 41 and 42 deluxe sport solo bikes and impossible to find. My dad's op 41 had a mint one on the front that I pulled a mold off of to make some for my bike.


I spent this morning installing the steering dampener on Dons bike and putting the front fender on. This bike is soooo beautiful The pictures do not do it justice.



I set up the holes for the lower horn bracket and drilled the wire for the fender light terminal. This is all very tedious work. Lots of fun though. I am kind of on the fence about using this hub cap, I think that I might end up putting a cms one on. They are smaller and make the wheel look a lot bigger. What do you guys think?




Here is a pic of Dave's wl motor finished up and ready to install. WOW!