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.

EH 1939 knucklehead cases.

Eric's 39 cases got finished up. They turned out really nice. This motor came to us all rebuilt by a hd technician, Eric paid him to rebuild it, and the mechanic did not realize that the gen saddle was broken off until the motor was put together, I guess this kind of weakened Erics confidence in the rest of the repairs, so he sent it to us to go through. There were quite a few other issues that could have potentially turned into large problems, so I guess it is a good thing that we checked it out.


This turned out pretty good.



drum roll

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.

York PA trip

Harley flew my dad and I out to the factory in York late last week. The York Factory makes trikes, touring bikes and soft tails. We were given a great nine hour tour from our friend Zach who works in the machining department. We got to see how they make springers, tanks, fenders, frames and all sorts of other neat parts. It was really cool to see the whole process and the new building and assembly line. Out of everything that we got to see, I think that the most fascinating part for me was the machining and manufacturing that was going on. We were not allowed to take pictures or video inside of the factory, so I don't have anything to share with you guys.



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Here is the car they set us up with, it was sweeeeet!

Here is a pic that zack took of me silk screening a black line tank. We had to put on hazmat suits and walk through a bunch of air baths to get sterilized. Delmar and Gerald met up with us to take the tour too. The paint shop was probably the most intriguing part of the tour. HD really does a great job on finishing their parts and making their bikes look as good as they perform.

Here is a pic of most of the crew that flew out in October for the wrench and ride project. Full details will be in the next issue of hog tales. Thanks for the neat memory and trip hd. I walked away from the tour with a new found appreciation for precision manufacturing, and the huge amount of detail and effort that go into making new motorcycles. There was also a lot of neat info and set ups that we got to see that we can apply to fixing up the old bikes that we work on. It was a great experience and even kind of got my wheels turning about buying a new bike--someday.

New 38 EL to redo and OFF to York PA in the morning

We got a new bike to build the other day, it is a 38 knucklehead. I am very excited about doing another 38. I think that as far as stock bikes go, 38 els are the best. They had enclosed rocker arms and a normal transmission. Plus the striping on them makes them look sooooo long and sleek, kind of like a bullet. Anyways, I have to finish up Jim's 38 before I can start on the next one.



Garreth did something that is really cool. He filled out a 38 order blank. I laughed so hard when he emailed these to me. It was one of those why didn't I think of doing this years ago moments. From now on I am going to have all new customers/ bike projects fill out one of these. I wish I would have done this fifteen years ago when I first started restoring hummers.



And here is a picture of me feeding duke a pancake. Whenever I take these pictures, I usually have someone else throw the pancake, but I was all alone in the shop, so I tried to do all things at once. The pics are a little blurry, but it kind of gives it a high speed feel.




HD is flying my dad and I to York to hang out for the rest of the week. Jesse and Ray will still be at the shop if you guys need orders filled or questions answered. We will be back on Monday. Have fun and be safe. I will take a lot of neat pics for you guys.

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.

parkerizing

We have been parkerizing all day. it is going pretty we.. here is some stuff fresh out of the oil.


here it is in the parts washer getting the oil rinsed off!



and laying out on the fresh paper. I will post a pic of the paper after all the stuff is done. this is a pretty big batch