weekend Pictures

We were fortunate enough to have our friend Paul from Chicago come over for a weekend visit I have known Paul for a while and he is a true bike enthusiast and has owned a ton of different bikes over the last forty years. I always love hanging out with him and talking about old motorcycles. Whether they are British, European or American, there is always something to talk about.

Another neat thing about Paul is that his uncle was Harry Molenaar Harry owned a dealership from 1933 till 1990 and played a very important role in saving a lot of very special bikes over the years. He was also into flying planes and he owned a race track and would have races all the time. Paul and I have been talking about spending a weekend together so that we could go through old photos and advertisements that he got from Harry for a few years and we finally nailed it down. I made a lot of copies of cool and unique stuff and will try to inject them into the content on this site from time to time.

Here is a cool picture that I took for Mr. NOOt

This promotional cut out was on Harry's desk for a long time. He gave it to Paul. It is promoting a Hill Climb in 1932 that was put on by the Swastika Motorcycle Club which was made up of a bunch of German immigrant members. The artwork is amazing on this piece.

I doubt that this club kept its name 12 years later after World War 2 was over. It is a really neat piece of history nonetheless

High temperature for today is 16 degrees

The expected high temperature is supposed to be 16 degrees. Weather like this always makes me think of summer time riding, So I decided to post some old pictures from this summer rather than whats going on in the shop. It is supposed to be in the forties tomorrow and sunday so I am pretty excited to go ride bike. Cold and hot are relative to your surroundings.

Here is a cool picture of the colonel/Reverend/sir Stanley D Miller, Brittney and I. I had a great conversation with Stanley the other day and he is back to riding motorcycles and being the old bike and good will ambassador that we all know him for.




I always love seeing my dad's 39 loaded down and ready for action. This bike gets a lot of use and holds up well. three years ago we put our first set of 39 prototype gears into this bike and they have over 18 thousand miles on them and have held up extremely well.

Here is a picture of me giving Yoshi's son his first motorcycle ride. He really liked going up and down the road. I wish that I could say my first motorcycle ride was on a 36 knucklehead. it is all good though.

Here is a picture of Mr Lock Baker cruising around on our 47 El. He stopped by the shop after the rally and hung out for a day. It was pretty cool Go check out his website, he builds some really neat bikes.

Here is a picture of me after taking one of my friends 36s for a spin. This was the first 36 that I ever drove. It is a nice bike and it was fun to take it for a cool September spin.

Here is the number 1 designer Casey giving his son Cole, a ride on our original Paint 46 knucklehead. Cole and his brother Carson are awesome little kids.

This is a great picture of Miss Brittney, I took this picture on our first trip together. We rode up to North Dakota to hang out with Delmar and talk about machining and old bikes. While we were in North Dakota, a huge storm showed up and we ended up not being able to head south till the next day. That trip was 150 miles and the longest trip that she had ever gone. We rode over 7000 miles the rest of the summer. Brittney sat on a pillow and put her feet on the top frame tubes. She is a lot tougher than me.

misc

My dad is just about done with this 58 motor. It is turning out well and should be buttoned up tonight.

I think that this is when bikes look their best. I had to pull the exhaust off and blast everything so that I can drop it off to get painted with hi heat paint.

I got three sets done, I still have another set to do, but its all good.

video of valve in valve guide on bb55

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn4tZSF-iSo

55 motor tear down pictures

Here is the 55 panhead motor on the bench. Notice the anodized aluminum pan covers and six bolt d rings.

Cam cover off. Everything was very nice. The cam was actaully usable. The breather bore was very nice and did not have any scoring in it.

The exhaust valves still had the original caps on them . My dad's first 53 panhead had these on it. The exhaust valves had little caps on them so that the valve could spin 360 degrees. The thought behind this was to allow the guide to wear evenly and last longer.

Check out how tapered the valve is. I guess the valve cap idea was not that good of an idea.

and the poor guide! I am not sure how to take these out. The guide is so worn out that it is paper thin around the edges.

here is a picture of the exhaust valve collar with the special keepers.

55 detail pictures

Dan and I started pulling the motor out of the 55 today. This is the original paint original owner 55 that was dropped off at our shop to be mechanically gone through. The bike is very nice and has barely had any work done to it. I tried to take a picture of the torch welds on the smallest parts of the tanks in this picture. There is also some light rippling where the sheet metal shrinks down when it is formed in the die. This is a pretty neat feature that is evident on most original paint bikes.

I am not sure why i took this picture, but there are some cool details in it. The clip on the seat post is the later style, I am not sure when hd switched. It only has one hump for the wires to go through and it is centered with the openings on the other end of the clip. It is also cad plated, earlier clamps are parkerized.

55 only intake manifold clamps!!!!!!

Here is the inside of the primary cover. This is the only 55 style primary cover that I have seen with out the inspection plug by the engine sprocket. Have any of you guys ever seen one of these. The bike did not have a compensator sprocket, which seems kind of odd. Please chime in with any info if you have it.

The wheel is pushed all the way back, the chain is still super loose and grimy. this bike was ridden hard and put away in a dirt shed for 30 years. I am glad that we are going to go through it and clean it up before firing it up. I would hate to damage good parts because of nastiness being built up inside of the motor or trans.

The front motor mount bolt had a cotter key in it, the back motor mount bolts had flex lock nuts on them as did the transmission plate to frame nuts.

just about ready to fire the 39