My son finally came out.

Our son- Lockheed Olsen was born on May 24th.   He is the most amazing thing that I have ever been a part of.  He was born at 3:45 am and weighed 9 pounds and 9 ounces he was 22 inches long,   brit had a beautiful and relatively quick labor that only lasted 5 hours.   We stayed with our friends Kevin and Amy on Minnesota for six weeks and change while we attended the rest of the prenatal appointments and waited for him to come out.   It was worth the wait and amazing.

Knuckleheads and baby bump

We have been in fin repair and valve seat removal mode at the shop.  It's amazing how beat up these heads can get over 60 to 80 years.  As you can see there are a few ways to get the fins back on.  Sometimes you cut them out of regular steel and weld them on, sometimes you build them yo with steel or silicone bronze rod or you can also use old pieces of cast iron fins and braze them to the cylinder.   The next hurdle is grinding and sanding all of them down and blending out the repairs.   

Brittney is 38 weeks and doing really good. She has just as much energy as when she wasn't pregnant.  We are going to have our son at a birthing center in Wisconsin in about two weeks. I am so excited to meet him.  It's crazy to think that I am planning having a son right now. 

65 panhead, 1955 panhead, 36 knucklehead and maternity photos

We got Jason's 65 finished and put about 300 miles on it,  my dad is driving down to the Texas road run and delivering it this weekend.  This bike is massive,  I didn't try to ride it with the buddy seat on it,  I am too short!  Jason is a lot taller than me and will do just fine on it.  

1965 didn't use a side cover on the battery,  I think it looks nice with out it.  The battery that we used is a champion battery and it is nice and black, some of the other modern batteries are clear or have a bunch of writing on them.  The mufflers are new old stock and sound great.  The tour pack is something that Jason supplied and it is really cool. It has an early latch on it and also a handle so you can Cary it with you

I got to take my 36 out for the first time this year. Sophorn put a windshield on it, which ended up being more of a challenge than we anticipated since the summer shields were designed for standard rigid bars and I have Flanders bars on my bike.   

I am making good progress on the 55 too it should be done and running next week.  This bike is phenomenal and I feel so lucky to get to work on such a nice pristine example of an original bike

The rear header pipe was missing when they brought the bike to us.  My dad had a nice old original superior rear header pipe in his stash of parts.  It fit up really nicely and matches the rest of the bike well

Britt and I did our maternity photos with the bike. It was fun.  Here is a link to the rest of the photos http://jaceejphotography.blogspot.com/2014/04/brittney-matt-maternity.html?m=1

South Dakota weather in less than 24 hours

Here is My dad took the 65 out for a spin yesterday and put over a 100 miles on it. It was a beautiful day and great for riding bike.   He came back with a small list of tweaks and adjustments to do and sort out

Here is a shot out the front door of the shop that I just took.  There is a full on blizzard going on and we are expecting 6 to 10 inches of snow.   This weather is good for working in the shop and have fun with wrenches. 

The 55 is going good. I finished up the wiring, hooked up the primaries and am going through the odds and ends on this bike.  

55fl update and photos

The 55 is coming together fairly easily.  It's a pretty unique experience to work on a bike that is so unmolested and complete.  Everything is just falling into place and working out pretty good.  It hasn't gone without its challenges.  I'm working on the exhaust and primary setup todayd

The biggest challenges have been worn out parts and corrosion from sitting.  It's going good and we have freed up almost everything and gotten it back to working condition.  I am having difficulties getting the toolbox lock freed up. This came in a box of parts that came with the bike and it was frozen shut.  I have even soakig it with ob blaster for a month and working the lock back and forth. 

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Here is a cool shit of the brake drum we replaced the sprocket and dust ring and left the original paint on the drum.   A lot of times the paint is burnt off if the drum from the brakes heating up, this one has really nice paint.  Which means ken either didn't like to stop or rode the bike on lots f rolling hills and prairie terrain 

More engines!!!

Here  is bob's 39 engine.  It is turning out to be a really nice motor.  This is going in an airway blue and white 39s

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The cam cover and cases have never been polished or really messed with.  I love the texture of sand cast parts.  

This is a 46 fl stroker motor that my dad is putting together for a customer out west.  It looks stock, but is a little hopped up.  It will be a ton of fun for Tim 

We don't do a lot of panheads with mags and black cylinders,  this one is coming along nicely and will be sweet when it's done.  This 52 is going to be awesome 

1955 fl

We have overWe have also been picking away at Bev's 55.  This bike was a high school graduation present for her husband back in 1955.  We have gone through every nut bolt, washer and seal to make it mechanically perfect while maintaining as much of the originality and history as possible.   The color is Hollywood green and it is a one year only color.  I don't thing that there is any other color that Harley offered that embodied the fifties as much as this color.  It is awesome 

We have over 100 hours in cleaning and detailing out each part on the bike.  It is challenging on stuff like this because you have to be so gentle when you work on it, if you use the wrong brush or too much pressure you can damage the original paint or plating.  The bike was in really tough shape when it was brought to us a couple years ago.  The trans had been run with put oil and the top

End was toast.  It's all sorted out now and will last another 60 years or more. 

The rear head needed a new exhaust port welded on, on this photo you can see that some of the original patina and Iowa dirt was left in tact through the process of repairing the damaged head.  The combustion chamber is perfectly cleaned and sorted out while everything on the outside is as it was the last time it was ridden.   

Here is the original paint frame and bottom tree before going together.   All of the plating is original too.