1929 water pump motor

My dad got back from the Nebraska road run. On his way down there he picked up a motor that we got a lead on a while back. It is a 29 jd motor. He bought it from the nephew of the original owners. Apparently two brothers owned the bike and rode it around. The transmission broke, so they took the motor and transmission out for farm duty. The chassis got scrapped in a metal drive sometime in the forties. The motor turns over well and has compression, there are a few broken fins and one small chip in a case bolt area. It should be a pretty easy fix.

Everything spins over very nicely, There is a bit too much end play on the flywheel assembly, but that should be pretty easy to fix. We would like to find a chassis for it, or build a cut down. I guess we will have to wait and see what transpires in the future.UH OH, the fan blade is missing.

Check out the different pulleys for running different speeds. This is farmer ingenuity at its finest.

I am told that these are 29 only cylinders because of the fins on the valve pocket connect to the cylinder fins. I guess the primer plugs are in a different spot as well.

It also came with a transmission case which is pretty nice. Do any of you guys have the rest of the parts to complete the transmission?

36 to 40 muffler reducer pictures

Here is a picture of me in a hole. I tried digging for a while and realized that I am a better mechanic than a gopher.

I love warning stickers on machines. This was a new one that I had not seen before.

Brittney and I went up north to hang out with Delmar last night to brainstorm on some parts, tooling and eat pizza. Here is a picture of a prototype muffler reducer with a crimped on end next to an original wl reducer. The reducers had a some what long piece of metal that crimped over the muffler body. Nobody that has made these in the past has been able to accurately replicate this process and they kind of look hokey. Delmar built a machine and the dies to do it, and they are coming along nicely. The radius is a little squared off, but we have a game plan to solve this issue.

My friend Ken Presson sold me this project a few months ago, because he knew he didn't have time to finish it. There were enough pieces to make 20 mufflers, unfortunately pretty much everything that he had made was not up to snuff. I have to make new cans, new reducers, new baffles, etc... Unfortunately Ken passed away last sunday after a long fight with cancer. I will miss him, and am glad that he trusted me to finish this project. Anyways, the left reducer is one that he had made with the end already formed over, the center one is our prototype, the last one is an original one.

This is the crimping machine. It is pretty wild. I have to make a support for the muffler body, but it is pretty much ready to roll (no pun intended)

Here is a picture of the can in the end. It is pretty cool. I hope to have a prototype on my bike for my trip to Wauseon in a few weeks. I have most of these spoken for, but unfortunately i need to sell a few of them to help offset the cost of production, so if you need one email me and get on the list. It is a first come first serve type of deal. Thanks and happy fathers day.

little details that sharpen the big picture

I got all of Don's tail light stuff sorted out today. There are three spots with in a five inches that say hd. It was important to have a strong brand identity seventy years ago, just like today

That is an original rubber gasket!

and the third spot!

I put together Jim's 39 bottom end this morning. The lifter blocks are just sitting on there for effect. This bike is going to be soooo nice. I will be starting on the chassis next week, so if you have a 39-- stay tuned.

Early HD screw machines left a rough finish on the hardware that they made. All of the machining finishes started to get refined in 42 because of the war effort. Anyways, these cam cover screws are reproduction screws that I get from colony and re turn the heads on to rough them up, then I have them re cad plated. It is a really minor detail that hardly anyone notices and nobody else does. What a bunch of work, but it is totally worth it.

Here is a shot of the oil pump!!!!!!! I love the aesthetics of these 36 to 40 pumps.

46 color and emblem options

One of my friends asked me about the different color options for emblems and paint jobs on 46 Harleys, I took these pictures for him and figured that you guys would enjoy seeing them too. 44 bikes had chrome emblems. 45 bikes were only available in gray or a few black bikes. 1945 only had three options for emblem color-- black, gray or blue. Cream was introduced in 46. The four colors for sheet metal in 46 were gray, black, flight red and skyway blue. My favorite combo out of all of these is skyway blue with light blue emblems. I plan to paint my wr these colors some day.

This one is my favorite.

This is second best. This is the set up that we are doing on Vern's 46. It is going to be sooooo clean

Good God, I hope nobody ever did this combo it is so ugly

thai food, shootings, and 42 knuckleheads

Brittney and I had some thai food while we were in Des Moines last weekend. It was pretty good food. I would eat there again.While we were eating, somebody got shot at the barber shop next door to the Thai food place. I have never been that close to a crime scene. What are the odds?

I am chipping away at Don's 42. He decided that he wanted to run 12 volt electrics on the bike, since he plans to ride it and wear it out. I have to change out the generator and light bulbs.

We got the seat and saddlebags from Worsham Castle the other day. They turned out amazing. Michael is a true craftsman. Check him out if you need leather work done.

I hope to fire this bike up in the next 10 to 20 days. I can't wait to ride it.

people and knuckleheads

Here is a cool picture of our friends Don and Jason, they stopped by a few days ago to hang out before they went to the road run in Nebraska with my dad.

This is a picture that my friend Jeff took of Brittney and I this weekend.

And another one. The circus wagon is stylin in this picture. I love the dual exhaust, but unfortunately I am going to have to take it off and put a single exhaust set up on it shortly-- in order to test some new proto type parts.

knucklehead motor and viking parts

I spent the last few days helping my friend Dave out on his motor. It is a 47 motor for his California show bike. It turned out pretty nice. There were some minor obstacles to over come, but we made a pretty big dent in the project in the short amount of time that he was here.

I think that frog eyes are probably the coolest parts of all time. This bike is going to blow everyone away in ten days. Unfortunately for you guys, the bike is top secret and I can't post pics. sorry

Here is a cool picture of some of the neat stuff that we got from the viking meet in Saint Paul last week. Dave brought it over for us since we were on bikes and not able to haul stuff back on them. We scored a bunch of neat consumable parts for different projects.

Check out these little fork rockers that I got. They are so damn neat. Do any of you guys know what they are for. They look very similar to hd 45 rockers, just scaled down.

My dad is a sucker for these goo gaw lights. He is always picking them up.