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
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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

48 pictures

Notice how the throttle cable runs outside of the frame and in between the shift rod pivot and the gas shutoff seat. This is 48 only and a bit of a pain to route and work properly.

Right Tank trimmed, and gas lines installed! We are getting close.

Check out the knurls on the gas strainer cap, they are un marked. We use an indian valve spring cover wrench to tighten them up. It works well and leaves the knurling intact.

My Dad is putting flywheels together. He has a three sets together and another ten to go.

WAXESSSSS

My good friend MR. Dan from Loveland stopped by the shop yesterday to pick up some parts to mold and drop off some waxes. I gave him a couple tough pieces to mold last time he visited, and he did a great job of producing! This is such cool stuff.

These are war time grips and were originally made out of plastic, I thought it would be cool to cast some out of aluminum and brass. I am excited to see how they turn out

I pulled the steering dampener lever off of my daddy's op 37 to copy. The early levers are parallel with the base and the actual lever part is shaped different than post war levers, Now I will have the correct unit for our bikes. i am pretty excited.

misc.

I scored a bunch of nos front brake cables this summer. They are very nice. I used one on John's 48.

My dad is heavy into building motors. We like to use truett and osbourne wheels when original wheels are worn out or un usable for some other reason. They usually need a few balance holes, my dad turns them on the lathe to get some of the weight out of them and reduce balance holes.

With that little bit of material taken out of the fly wheel , you need minimal balance holes. Check it out both of these wheels balanced with only one hole. My dad has things figured out.

I spent the day trimming out Johns Tanks and making all of the wires work. I am going to have to change the socket on the oil pressure light in the dash. I also got the seat t sorted out and installed