trimmed out tanks!

Last night Miss Brittney and I trimmed out Vern's tanks for his 46. The emblems are new old stock and fit the tank perfectly. The emblems are just a shade lighter than the sky way blue. Which gives it a really nice contrast. When I was 15, I bought every color of new old stock war time emblem from Frank Fritz at Davenport. I bought one at a time over the course of the weekend. I still have them in my tool box.

This is probably my least favorite part of restoring a bike.

And the other side!!!! Man oh man this bike is slick.

Miss Brittney bought these old card organizers for the shop last week, so we made up a angle iron cage to hold them together. I welded some tabs with holes on it, so it can be bolted to the bottom of the work bench. SPACE MANAGEMENT!!!!

chino bike almost switched over and 1946 knucklehead wiring detail shots

WHOA look at this bike mechanic.

Miss Brittney did a good job on this project. Go check it out at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis from March till August along with a bunch of other great bikes.

here are all the wires going up to the switch. I should get the handlebars back from powder paint later this week or next week, then I can move onto cables and the h bar switches.

Almost all hooked up.

The wires on the relay are just for show. The relay is not necessary when you are running a cycle electric 12 volt generator with a built in regulator.

Brake light switch wires.

Vern's 1946 FL knucklehead

I got a lot of stuff done on Vern's 46 since the last update. The rear fender is on for good as is the rear crash bar.

The front fender and lower horn mount went on very easily. I love final assembly. Pre fitting all of the parts makes this a breeze.

Vern wanted to go with 12 volt electrics because he plans on riding this bike a lot. That means that batteries are more common, the lights are brighter which makes the bike safer. This also solves the problem of finding coils, batteries and light bulbs out in the middle of nowhere if they happen to fail. Plus it only takes three or four hours to switch a bike from 6 volts to 12 volts and the conversion does not damage any original parts. I trimmed the coil cover down and will have it powder painted gloss black next week.

The wiring under the seat is almost done, I just have to make a ground wire and put an end on the positive wire.This is very nice and tidy. all of the wires are shellacked with model airplane dope and the correct 46 47 wiring flags are installed.

I took this picture to show the oil lines. They fit up very nicely, because they are all re cad plated originals that have been with the bike since it was new. Check out the parkerized fitting nuts on the overhead oil line. This is standard practice for 43, 44, 45 and 46 knuckleheads. 42 overhead oil lines were nickle plated and 47 overhead oil lines were cad plated.

46s

I spent the morning working on loose ends on Wayne's black 46. My dad went out for lunch and picked up the sheet metal for Vern's 46. The paint is so nice. Mike did a great job on it as always. The color is Skyway blue which was used in 41, 42, 46 and 47. These pictures make it look lighter than it actually is.

Check out how crisp and clean the rivet and hinge definition is. This is one of the first things that I look at on bikes.

Here is Vern's 46 up on the lift. The bars are just for pushing the bike around, The bars that will be on the bike for good are in getting painted.

Oil Tank and coil mounts installed. You always want to put the ubolts for the coil in before you tighten up the front oil tank mounting bolts.

And rear fender!!!! I still have to put the fender clamps and rear crash bar on, but you get the idea. 46s are so damn cool.

some HD museum pictures from this summer and misc. photos from the last two days

Here is evil Brittney. I though that this cut out was pretty neat. I have only worked on one sportster in my life and it was one of Evil's. Dale Walksler owns it and let me change the clutch on it, it was a pretty cool experience. It was neat to get a picture of Miss Brittney at this display in the museum.

Here is the first magnum 45, This bike is legendary, it is a wr bottom end with a sportster top end.

I think that this is a 16 Harley mail delivery rig. This bike is so cool, I would love to build something like this. Check out the lettering and the striping on the box, it is unreal.

I spent the morning working on lists of painting, plating and polishing that still needed to be done on this batch of bikes. There is another sheet, but I didn't get it in the picture.

and here is all of the stuff rounded up for blasting, straightening and re finishing. This should wrap up the rest of the black paint for the five bikes we are working on right now. Some of it will be powder painted and some will have to be body shop painted.

WOOO HOOO we got some more 42 to 57 brake crossover shaft spacers in. These little guys are one of the few parts that Harley made that didn't have a part number. There is a similar adapter for 45 front brakes, but the male threaded portion of it is smaller than the male thread on these spacers which is 5/16 32.

Here is the 1938 only dash base for Jim's 38. It doesn't have spacers on the side mounting screws, and they are a 10 32 machined thread rather than a self tapping screw like 39-46 dashes. The post that the speedo light knob goes into is also shorter than the 39 and later posts. It is nickle plated, The dash base on my dad's 40 and 41 el are also nickle plated. I took this picture before I rebuilt the speedo light spring plate and the generator socket.

These are the wires that I am going to use on Jim's 38, they are new old stock and in good condition. I will have to cut them to length, but that isn't too big of a deal

cool pictures

When we were in Davneport, we picked up some sheetmetal that we had straightened out. here is Vern's 46, I put the front fender and the tanks on and just set the rear fender on. I will bolt it on solid later in the week, then it is off to paint!!!!

My dad has been working on the rear fender for John's 48. I rebuilt an ignition switch for it and mounted the dash base and speedo. When my dad is done with the rear fender, I will fit the dash, then it is off to get painted flight red.

This dash base is perfect!!! It still has mint original sockets for the generator and oil lights.

Here is the other side of vern's 46

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.

Oil tank repairs.

I welded on a bunch of oil tank brackets this morning. This is Paul's 37 tank. It is an early tank and the bottom goes down farther than mid 38 and later tanks. So you have to section the back bracket.Here is is tacked in place


Here it is welded up.



DRUM ROLL

Vern"s 46 update

This is apic of vern's motor hanging out with other knucklehead motors in our show room.


Here it is in his chassis. This bike is going to be sooo nice. We are waiting on the fenders and other misc pieces. Should be coming together soon.



I love the way these bikes look outside in the snow. The handlebars are original standard bars which are more comfortable that speedster bars. Somebody bent them up during the last 70 years, I will have to bend them down and repaint them. My dad has the factory tool that was sold to dealers in the thirties and forties for moving crashbars and handle bars. I will post pics when we do it, because it is so damn neat.





I will bolt the motor and transmission down for good when I come back from vacation.

Progress is progress

My dad finished up Vern's 46 motor. This thing is perfect. This bike was pretty original and low mileage, so we were able to use a lot of the hardware over again. It has .010 over fl cylinders which is soooooo cool. It is pretty risky to sleeve original fl cylinders and we usually try to avoid it. Anyways this bike is going to be blue with cream emblems. I am excited about it. I should be putting the motor and trans in the frame pretty soon.


Ray tore down the shocks for the 65 this morning. I have never taken these things apart before, so I was pretty excited to see how it works.



HEre are all the pieces laid out.




I spent the morning sorting out plating for 16 carburetors. Lots of sorting and organizational skills haha.





HEre is the list, I am almost done. Then I will get all the parts for the remaining transmissions done.