Matt Olsen's Blog

pictures from the last week

2012-02-01T14:22:00.009-06:00

I got back from north dakota a little bit ago., I went up to work on a frame welding fixture at my friend Delmar's. It is too complicated to go into detail and I took over 50 pictures of the entire process, Check out the pics below to see it. Basically the transmission is fixed in place and the axle plates and motor can be moved up down forward and backwards. The neck, axle stays, motor and transmission and motor will be in line with in .003 of an inch with the adjustablity in mind. This is a welding fixture for the frames that we retube and will make the process a lot quicker and more efficient.

Check out the ribbed float bowl, have you guys ever seen one of these???/

Here are some shots of the fenders for the 55 that we are working on. This isn't the original paint one, it is a restored bike.

We still have some final welding and machining to do, Ihope you like the pics, they are pretty detailed and if you are a machinest, I am sure you will aprreciate them. Have a great day.

trimmed out tanks!

2012-01-25T12:51:00.002-06:00

Last night Miss Brittney and I trimmed out Vern's tanks for his 46. The emblems are new old stock and fit the tank perfectly. The emblems are just a shade lighter than the sky way blue. Which gives it a really nice contrast. When I was 15, I bought every color of new old stock war time emblem from Frank Fritz at Davenport. I bought one at a time over the course of the weekend. I still have them in my tool box.

This is probably my least favorite part of restoring a bike.

And the other side!!!! Man oh man this bike is slick.

Miss Brittney bought these old card organizers for the shop last week, so we made up a angle iron cage to hold them together. I welded some tabs with holes on it, so it can be bolted to the bottom of the work bench. SPACE MANAGEMENT!!!!

snow pictures and misc. pics

2012-01-24T13:01:00.005-06:00

It finally looks like winter in south Dakota. We got four inches of snow and it feels great. We had unusually high temperatures in December and most of January. There was even a day when the temperature was 60 degrees in January, my dad was able to take his o.p. 41 for a ride. This is unheard of for most everyone that calls the Midwest home.

I am working away on Vern's primaries.

My dad has been working on this 47 bottom end this week. It was put together previously with big intake valves and a few issues. We took it apart and checked it all out.

Here is the bk 47 motor almost finished. It is coming together nicely and should be done soon.

Here is a picture of a clutch pedal that is worn down. I built it up with weld and re staked it, but didn't take any pictures. whoops

chino bike almost switched over and 1946 knucklehead wiring detail shots

2012-01-23T12:39:00.003-06:00

WHOA look at this bike mechanic.

Miss Brittney did a good job on this project. Go check it out at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis from March till August along with a bunch of other great bikes.

here are all the wires going up to the switch. I should get the handlebars back from powder paint later this week or next week, then I can move onto cables and the h bar switches.

Almost all hooked up.

The wires on the relay are just for show. The relay is not necessary when you are running a cycle electric 12 volt generator with a built in regulator.

Brake light switch wires.

Miss brittney prepping the Chino bike for the Eiteljorg Museum in Indy

2012-01-22T16:24:00.003-06:00

About a month or so ago we got a call asking us if we would loan the Chino bobber to the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis for six months. My dad said it was no problem. We put together the chino bobber recreation a couple years ago for a show in sturgis, It was based around my dad's 53 panhead with some dulled down parts. It had a cool superior muffler, wla bags and a 49 and 50 rear fender. We never fired the bike up in that configuration. After the show, we put the pepper red sheet metal on it and the backwards facing seat so my dad could haul Mike Lichter across the country on the cannonball run.

This was and is the perfect project for miss Brittney to take on. Here is a picture of the bike about half done.

Here she is taking off the goo gaw stuff.

She found this butterfly inside of the left tank.

Tanks are off

Here she is putting the 48 to 50 tanks on the bike. There are still a few things left to do on the project, but it should be done in about an hours worth of work. Good job Brittney.

Vern's 1946 FL knucklehead

2012-01-22T16:08:00.002-06:00

I got a lot of stuff done on Vern's 46 since the last update. The rear fender is on for good as is the rear crash bar.

The front fender and lower horn mount went on very easily. I love final assembly. Pre fitting all of the parts makes this a breeze.

Vern wanted to go with 12 volt electrics because he plans on riding this bike a lot. That means that batteries are more common, the lights are brighter which makes the bike safer. This also solves the problem of finding coils, batteries and light bulbs out in the middle of nowhere if they happen to fail. Plus it only takes three or four hours to switch a bike from 6 volts to 12 volts and the conversion does not damage any original parts. I trimmed the coil cover down and will have it powder painted gloss black next week.

The wiring under the seat is almost done, I just have to make a ground wire and put an end on the positive wire.This is very nice and tidy. all of the wires are shellacked with model airplane dope and the correct 46 47 wiring flags are installed.

I took this picture to show the oil lines. They fit up very nicely, because they are all re cad plated originals that have been with the bike since it was new. Check out the parkerized fitting nuts on the overhead oil line. This is standard practice for 43, 44, 45 and 46 knuckleheads. 42 overhead oil lines were nickle plated and 47 overhead oil lines were cad plated.

46s

2012-01-17T17:58:00.003-06:00

I spent the morning working on loose ends on Wayne's black 46. My dad went out for lunch and picked up the sheet metal for Vern's 46. The paint is so nice. Mike did a great job on it as always. The color is Skyway blue which was used in 41, 42, 46 and 47. These pictures make it look lighter than it actually is.

Check out how crisp and clean the rivet and hinge definition is. This is one of the first things that I look at on bikes.

Here is Vern's 46 up on the lift. The bars are just for pushing the bike around, The bars that will be on the bike for good are in getting painted.

Oil Tank and coil mounts installed. You always want to put the ubolts for the coil in before you tighten up the front oil tank mounting bolts.

And rear fender!!!! I still have to put the fender clamps and rear crash bar on, but you get the idea. 46s are so damn cool.

52 motor pics and misc

2012-01-16T12:52:00.003-06:00

Here is Bob's 52 bottom end going together. We did his frame and transmission a while back and he sent us the motor to check out and make sure everything was ok.

Just need to put the heads on and then it is off to the west coast. Thanks Bob!

Here is a 28 jd that we have to go through the motor on. It is a nice original bike, but the motor is stuck.

I spent the morning sorting out the dash wiring on the 46. I had to replace the socket insulators on the dash. It is a bit of work, but I got it sorted out and working!

misc.

2012-01-13T14:49:00.002-06:00

Here is a 57 motor that my dad is putting together.

This is a pile of frames that the tubes are getting ground out of. Some guys try to heat up the castings and pull the tubes, we like to grind them out, It is a lot less invasive and doesn't damage the precious original parts.

I spent some time pressure testing heads and luckily only one of them leaked. these large port heads are for a 46, there was only one missing fin, I welded it up, but it still needs to be ground.

Here are the holes that had to be welded up in the exhaust ports. This is a pretty common issue with old heads. The exhaust pipes and ports get a little worn out and somebody drills a hole in them for a screw. This is not a good fix.

back from a 2600 mile trip and a week on the road

2012-01-11T12:55:00.003-06:00

Miss Brittney and I went to Minneapolis to build a custom frame, pick up a batch of parts, drop off a paint job and pick one up, then we went to Indiana, then Illinois then back to Minneapolis, and back home. It was a whirl wind adventure and it feels good to be back home working in the shop. I took a couple hundred pictures, and will post some over the coming months. Here is a picture of miss Brittney by the Ohio river in Indiana.

Here is the frame before we put it together.

We worked on it with our good friend Chad Pearson from Pearson Customs. it is quite a bit different from a stock frame, so we used his adjustable custom jig for building chopper frames. The frame we built has pretty much stock dimensions, but all of the tubing and other pieces were different.

After Chads, we went down south to a surprise birthday party for our friend Doug. Scott and Brooke came up from Kentucky to hang out. I got to ride the 29 jd and the blue 46, they were both really nice running bikes. Scott rode one of Doug's 36s. I took this picture of him leaving the garage.

Here is number 5. I love seeing this bike whenever I am in town.

After the surprise birthday we went up to the National Motorcycle Museum in Anamosa Iowa to pick up a 28 jd. The museum is truly overwhelming. I went to the grand opening two years ago and it was awesome then. In the year and a half since I last visited, the place has filled up with bikes, memorabilia and tons of stuff. You could get lost in that place. John has a motor wall with all sorts of motors from the teens all the way through the mid fifties. This was the only one that really caught my eye because I had no idea what it was. It looks European, but I have no idea, can any of you guys fill me in?

Here is a cool comet bike next to some other wild teens and pre teens motorcycles. John has so many off brand bikes, whenever I leave that place, I walk away with some cool tid bit of information about old motorcycles. Go there and check it out if you are ever in the Midwest.

making stuff fit

2011-12-31T16:32:00.004-06:00

I spent most of the day sorting out parts from all over the world and making them fit together. Here is the rear brake drum for the 47 that we are building for Glen in PA. It has a sleeve that is precision honed for bearings to fit into, the only problem is that the sleeve did not fit over the corresponding nub on the hub and it was out of round from not being properly honed.

So I bolted it to the table of the mill and co axed in the hole down towards the center of the race because it was more round.. If you get in a rush to hone out holes they can bell mouth and not be concentric.

BORING
O
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after I got the brake drum to fit on the hub, I found out that the axle would not fit through the hollow axle. At first I thought it might be plating build up on the axle so I diamond lapped it, but it still wouldn't fit through the hole.

So I went to the trusty sunnen pin hone. I did not have any standard length arbor, so I used the little blind hole one. It worked well.

Here is a blurry picture of it all put together. We still have some cool plans for the brake drum and backing plate, but it is set up well enough to start on the frame.

My dad is just about done with this show motor. Man this thing glows.

NOS 65 mufflers and tank trimming

2011-12-30T19:59:00.002-06:00

some nos mufflers showed up from our friend John today.

oooo ahhh. These are for Jason's 65.

Here is the seam on the bottom.

both halves of the fin are spot welded together before they are chrome plated.

I spent the morning trimming out Wayne's 46 tanks. Here is the tank before i started.

Emblem is mounted. 41 to 46 harley tanks only have the trim strips primered, they were masked off before the tank was painted.

Here it is with the trim strips clipped on. I like to get them started, then tap them off with a rubber hammer, it is a really intense experience. Hitting a perfectly painted tank with a rubber hammer is not my idea of a fun Friday afternoon.

It is pretty difficult to resist putting the tanks on the bike to see what it looks like after they are trimmed out. I love the black shift gate and lever. This bike is very dark and detailed out.

and the other side. This bike should be done shortly.

misc 46 pictures

2011-12-28T14:28:00.002-06:00

I got the rear chain and brake on Wayne's 46, it turned out good. With that stuff sorted out I was also able to finish up the foot boards. I am going to bolt down the top motor mount and trim the tanks today

These buddy seat pegs were only used on 43-46 bikes and are really rare. Because of material shortages during the war, rubber and other materials were difficult to obtain for manufacturing stuff, so HD and other manufacturers used plastic, synthetic rubber and or completely eliminated rubber from parts. They used steel foot board mats and knurled steel buddy seat pegs. these things are so cool and I have wanted to put a set on a bike for a long time. I have been buying them up since I was 15, so some how i ended up with a few sets.

And the other side. I have to parkerize the clutch pedal for this bike still.

misc pictures.

2011-12-27T12:57:00.003-06:00

Here is a 1958 motor that my dad just finished up for a customer in Las Vegas. He inherited the motor from a relative and had it rebuilt by a harley shop that set all of the clearances up like an evolution motor and messed up the finishes. He sent it to us to go through and sort out for him. It turned out really nice. and will last a long time.
Here is a picture of the shiny chrome and polished 49 pan shovel motor that my dad is putting together for a show bike in Wisconsin.

This is a valve travel indicator for shovelheads, I had never seen one of these used before. It is kind of a cool tool. Itook a few pictures so you guys could see it too. The dial is set to zero and then the allen screw is turned in until the coils bind on the valve spring, this tells you how much the valve will open

Here is a picture of the spring completely compressed. The dial indicator moved .650 of an inch

More 58 engine photos.

The other side of LV58

Here is my friend Sean's frame, it needed the lower tubes replace because of cracking, so we cut them out.

Here is the front motor mount and footboard tabs from Sean's frame

and the prettiest parts washer in the world.

some HD museum pictures from this summer and misc. photos from the last two days

2011-12-26T11:58:00.005-06:00

Here is evil Brittney. I though that this cut out was pretty neat. I have only worked on one sportster in my life and it was one of Evil's. Dale Walksler owns it and let me change the clutch on it, it was a pretty cool experience. It was neat to get a picture of Miss Brittney at this display in the museum.

Here is the first magnum 45, This bike is legendary, it is a wr bottom end with a sportster top end.

I think that this is a 16 Harley mail delivery rig. This bike is so cool, I would love to build something like this. Check out the lettering and the striping on the box, it is unreal.

I spent the morning working on lists of painting, plating and polishing that still needed to be done on this batch of bikes. There is another sheet, but I didn't get it in the picture.

and here is all of the stuff rounded up for blasting, straightening and re finishing. This should wrap up the rest of the black paint for the five bikes we are working on right now. Some of it will be powder painted and some will have to be body shop painted.

WOOO HOOO we got some more 42 to 57 brake crossover shaft spacers in. These little guys are one of the few parts that Harley made that didn't have a part number. There is a similar adapter for 45 front brakes, but the male threaded portion of it is smaller than the male thread on these spacers which is 5/16 32.

Here is the 1938 only dash base for Jim's 38. It doesn't have spacers on the side mounting screws, and they are a 10 32 machined thread rather than a self tapping screw like 39-46 dashes. The post that the speedo light knob goes into is also shorter than the 39 and later posts. It is nickle plated, The dash base on my dad's 40 and 41 el are also nickle plated. I took this picture before I rebuilt the speedo light spring plate and the generator socket.

These are the wires that I am going to use on Jim's 38, they are new old stock and in good condition. I will have to cut them to length, but that isn't too big of a deal

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T19:16:00.000-06:00

I hope you guys had a great christmas and that Santa claus brought you everything that you wanted and neede

Carl's Christmas present and 55 pictures

2011-12-22T14:30:00.006-06:00

This is sooo cool. Thanks for the neat piece of harley history Bill

I took this cool picture of Daisy May Spinning in a circle this morning. She is wearing a big gold chain, but you can't see it because of the slow shudder speed and because she is so fast.

The dash, speedo and ignition switch fit up pretty nicely, I had to do a bit of shimming and tweaking but over all it wasn't a big deal

pre green photo

We always pressure test our oil tanks and gas tanks and spray them with soapy water, This is what you want to look for when you are checking for leaks.

After I wiped the water off, I could see a crack in the metal

Here it is all tig welded up.

and metal finished and bead blasted. It is as good as new.

This is the puncture that was on the left tank. This tear was caused by the screw that holds the throttle cable to the frame being too long. I didn't get a good picture of it after i fixed it, but it was the same deal as the tear on the other side. I will probably have some tears in me by the time I am 56 just like these tanks.

cake topper and misc

2011-12-21T12:34:00.003-06:00

Miss Brittney and I got this awesome cake topper from our friend buzz in Connecticut yesterday. It is so cool, it has a 36 el on it and a bride and a groom, I don't know how it could be any better.

I took this picture of this front 52 head to show you the hole in the intake port. Somebody put a helicoil in the top of the head for the pan covers and drilled too deep. There is no way this bike would have ever idled correctly with a .186 hole in the intake port. Check out how deeply the seats were cut in the head. They were able to get a mediocre area for the valve to seat, but the thing that they over looked was the valve protrusion. The upper valve collars were hitting the pan covers, plus the spring tension was off. These seats are getting replaced!

Here is Ed's 55 panhead, we are trying to get it off for paint this week. It will be hollywood green, so that is pretty neat.

Here is the headlight lens for Wayne's 46. I put his headlight together and installed it yesterday.

We also put his horn on. This is the first 46 that I have done with a ride control. That is what Wayne wanted, and I think it looks pretty cool.

waxes

2011-12-19T13:59:00.002-06:00

Dan dropped off some waxes for different prototype parts that we are working on this winter. Here is a squirrel that Miss Brittney made out of clay, Dan made a mold out of it, and poured two waxes. I am not sure what to cast them out of, or what to do with them, but it is still cool.

The business end.

Here is a wax for a clutch pedal and the right side stand.

Five waxes ready to go. I am going to cast them in 4140/

This was difficult to read on the original stand, but shows up well on the wax because it is all the same color.

more discovered motor bikes, exhaust pictures, and 65 pics

2011-12-16T14:54:00.005-06:00

My friend Greg called the shop the other day to talk about the cool 39 that he just bought in southern Ohio from the second owners family. They had owned the bike since 40 or 41. The bike was repainted/ mildly restored in the seventies. Which is a bit of a bummer. Check out how nice the bags and seat are!!!! holy cow this bike is so neat. Greg got on the list for the next batch of mufflers, I am honored that a muffler that we make will be on such a cool and amazing bike.

This has the later 39 chain guard and transmission case. The grips, gas caps, paint and mirrors were changed, but other than that the bike is untouched. It makes me so happy to know that bikes are still out there and being pulled out of sheds and barns.

What a great layer of dust. This bike had a big windshield and leg shields on it at one time. Congrats Greg, I am happy for you.

Chris Heir came out to take some fancy magazine pictures of Jim's 39. It is supposed to get up to 36 degrees on Sunday, so hopefully I can take this bike for a spin.

I am starting final assembly on Jason's 65. Here is a picture of it before I put the transmission in it.

Dun dun dun! There are a lot of pieces to this thing. I like the challenge, it is going to be a king of the highway cool motorcycle. I have to do a really good job on this bike because the owner is going to be the pastor at our wedding. lol

Yesterday, my dad and I picked the exhaust up for some bikes from the painter. We ceramic paint them and the paint works pretty well and has a good shine to it.

Check it out! I love putting pipes on bikes.

Wayne's 46 with painted pipes on it!

Exhaust installed on Vern's bike! I dropped the sheet metal off for this bike a few days ago, it is going to be skyway blue and I would like to put blue emblems on it. Big wheels keep on turning

THEY ARE STILL OUT THERE

2011-12-14T14:55:00.005-06:00

Darcy brought this cool 47 fl over this morning. He bought the bike a month ago up by the canadian border from the previous owners widow. This bike is really nice. It was dolled up in the fifties or sixties and has pretty much been a complete bike since 1947. The serial number is 47FL61xx and it is in a late frame with steel foot board mats. The grips are panhead grips. The bike was originally black and the sidecar was skyway blue.

We fired it up and Darcy gave my sister a ride down the road and back.

Somebody went through a lot of work to doll this bike up. They took apart the original wheels and chrome plated the rims, spokes and hubs! The front end and front brake were chromed too. One of the strangest parts on the bike is the trim on the top of the sidecar and the back of the sidecar, it was chrome plated steel. all the other trim that is on the bike and the sidecar is stainless.

Early narrow brake lever!

This was another odd piece, The rear fender has narrow braces and 4 holes for mounting late 47 saddlebags. Wide brace fenders started showing up in late 46, although Harley didn't throw out their narrow braces and they continued to show up on bikes for quite a while. I have seen several original 47s with narrow braces, one of my friends told me that he owned an original paint 48 with a narrow brace rear fender. I guess that just shows that hd was a manufacturer and some of their changes were a progression and not necessarily a cut and dry deal.

I believe this mileage to be accurate, the bike is nice and tight.

I was kind of surprised to see steel foot board mats on a bike this late. The coil wires and nuts have been changed, as has the derby cover. Check out the original mud flap. That is a pretty cool piece.

The tail light wires were poorly rigged up after the fender was painted. Check out the square clip on the left frame tube with the dash to seat terminal loom and the oil pressure switch and positive wires run through ti. This is pretty cool.

There doesn't appear to be any black paint on the clutch pedal spring, most of them were black.

The exhaust was all rotted out, so Darcy put some corso pipes on it with an original muffler. I took about a 100 pictures of this bike, so if you need any detail shots or questions answered comment and I will post them. Have a nice day.

46 FL ready for paint

2011-12-13T09:24:00.002-06:00

I finished fitting the dash and tanks on Vern's bike yesterday. I will tear it down sometime today and take it over to get coated in skyway blue. This bike is going to be beautiful.

Check out the fit between the tank and the dash and the speedo and the ignition switch. This is very cool. Harley didn't start using a gasket between the dash and the tanks until 47.

STRAIGHT!

The rear fender on this bike was very rough, the main section of the fender had been cut into two pieces with a cutting torch back in the day and crudely welded back together.

weekend Pictures

2011-12-12T19:08:00.002-06:00

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

2011-12-09T12:25:00.004-06:00

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

2011-12-08T17:17:00.002-06:00

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

2011-12-05T13:27:00.000-06:00

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

55 motor tear down pictures

2011-12-05T12:45:00.003-06:00

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

2011-12-03T20:57:00.004-06:00

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

2011-12-01T15:15:00.001-06:00

loose ends on the 39

2011-11-29T15:47:00.002-06:00

Here is a cool old headlight bulb that I used in the 39.

Original head light lenses have this number cast in them.

Check out the cad plated plug for the speedo reset button. in 1938 HD started using a magnetic speedo lock for police bikes. This required putting a 3/8 hole in the left side of the dash. If the bike was for police duty, it would have a little spring mounted reset knob riveted to the dash base and the hole in the dash would be left open. If the bike was or is a civilian bike, it gets this little plug installed. There are two little tabs on it that get bent over and hold it to the dash.

The dash fits amazingly well on the up side. I love the cad plating and parkerizing next to the blue paint. Check out the short knurl gas cap, this was the style of cap that came out in 36- sometime in 41, hd started getting caps with longer knurls on them.

WHOA I love the look of 39s with six inch air cleaners. This is just about buttoned up and I hope to be riding it soon.

Happy thanksgiving everyone

2011-11-25T19:17:00.002-06:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I had to run around and take care of a bunch of stuff and didn't have much time for the blog. I hope you guys had a great holiday. Here is a cool picture of Miss Brittney and my friend Cris's 15 harley at the Harley Davidson Museum. Here is a 34 single. I would love to find one of these bikes. it is the last year they were produced I was told they were just put together out of left over parts. I love diamonds on top of fenders.

Here is the factories original paint 48 and 49. They are pretty magical bikes.
This is a pretty nice 56, some of the stuff has been messed with. Over all the bike is pretty sweet.

The Best motorcycle blog post of the year

2011-11-15T19:32:00.001-06:00

http://knucklebuster1939.blogspot.com/2011/11/hillclimbers-history-aw-french-and-ohv.html

go check this link out. It blew my mind

riding pictures and old enthusiast pics

2011-11-15T17:33:00.007-06:00

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
O
W
E
R
S
L
I
D
E

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

2011-11-14T14:07:00.002-06:00

Mega post

2011-11-13T17:50:00.004-06:00

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

2011-11-08T12:47:00.004-06:00

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

2011-11-07T13:50:00.003-06:00

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

2011-11-06T10:40:00.002-06:00

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.

2011-11-02T17:42:00.002-06:00

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

47,48,49

2011-10-31T13:42:00.003-06:00

This weekend Dan pulled the motor out of Jerry's 49 for rebuild. This is a really cool old bike that needs some sorting out. The frame is cracked in half and the motor is a bit tired, we will sort it out this weekend. I am excited to work on it, the bike is pretty much un tampered with.

We got the wheels done for Glenn's bobber, they are very cool. We are going to run a juice brake on the back and spool hub on the front.

ooooo aaaaaa shiny

This is an out of focus picture of a nickle plated spool hub

I scored this really cool muffler tip for Gareth's 38. It is an original 37 to 40 muffler tip with the end trimmed off

This was a popular performance up grade back in the day. Guys would cut the end of the fishtail off and open it up with a pry bar for more flow. I think the only effect it had was to make the bike a little more loud , which kind of makes you feel like you are going faster. I will be working on another batch of mufflers this month, so let me know if you need one.

I spent the morning on John's 48 fender. Here it is before I started.

These are nos top horn mounting bolts with original 10-24 flex lock nuts. HD started using flex lock nuts in this application sometime in 46, before that they used normal nuts with internal tooth shake proof washers except for nine bolt horns. . . .

And after a bit of drilling and bolting. I still have to mount up the mudflap and sort out the front brake, but it should be sorted out this afternoon.

farmer stuff and fender trim

2011-10-30T12:24:00.005-06:00

My dad spent yesterday trimming the fenders on John's 48 and Jim's 39. This is something that I have been very intimidated by for a long time. My dad does a really good job at it, so I always save it for him. The trim needs to be twisted and bent around to each individual bike, then polished and installed.

wow!

This bike looks like an entirely new bike with the fenders trimmed out. WOW. Good job dad

HEre is the front fender for Johns bike. The trim makes it look like an entirely different bike. It is so cool. Brittney and I spent yesterday helping Delmar put up electric fence at his dad's place. His dad had to have a minor surgery and needed some help. A lot of people helped me out after my crash, so I figured it would be a good idea to pay into the karma pool in case I need it again, plus it was a ton of fun to spend time with some of our favorite North Dakota friends.

Here is a picture of Brittney and a cow. This cow just kind of free grazes at Delmar's parents house. He seemed pretty nice.

Brittney wanted to take a picture of us with the cows. It was fun to play farmer for a day. I am glad that I get to work with motorcycles and not have to work with cows year round.

After we were done fencing we went and checked out Delmar's new tractor. Delmar told me he thought it was a late twenties tractor, but he isn't sure.

This is such a rugged unit.

One of the back tires was an s3 tire which means it was made out of synthetic rubber during world war two. I have seen a few mc tires like this, but never really paid much attention to other vehicles

Check out the tall knurl eaton gas cap. This has the same dimensions as a hd cap and it has a super cool gas gauge in it!!!

I would love to find one of these that was functioning, have any of you guys ever seen something like this? Please advise.

After the tractor we checked out this cool old iron that is gas powered. What a neat set up.

go buy this bike.

2011-10-28T12:14:00.001-06:00

My friend Kevin is selling his 47 knucklehead in order to buy a house. Lee from Lee Speed shop built the motor, he does a great job on things. It is really cool. If you are looking for a good knucklehead, this is one.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/?cmd=ViewItem&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649&item=250919685852&sspagename=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT#ht_500wt_1182

46 updates

2011-10-28T12:01:00.003-06:00

I made some progress on Wayne's 46 last night and this morning.

Oil lines are installed. The feed line and vent line fit up fairly easily, the return line took a bit of massaging, but it is all good.

I finished up the wiring under the seat post. Those are correct 46 and 47 wiring flags that we make. Notice how the positive wire loops up through the clip on the left frame tube and then wraps around the two tail light wires.

Check out all the cool details and contrasts in plating going on in this picture.

I have another set of exhaust to fit up this weekend, then I can get a batch of pipes painted up. It is neat to be working on another batch of three bikes that are red, black and Blue, the last batch were the same colors. HD didn't really offer that many options in these years.

summer time photo and new bike progress

2011-10-27T11:36:00.003-06:00

Hre is a cool picture of my 36 and my dad's 53 somewhere in Michigan this summer. Brittney and i took a three thousand mile trip with some friends all over Ohio and Michigan. The only problem that we had was on my 36, I had built the bike two weeks before the trip and accidentally hooked the generator power wire on to the wrong terminal on my ignition switch. We got it fixed and everything worked great the rest of the trip. I guess that is what happens when you get in a rush

I routed the front brake cable for John's bike this morning.

Here is the handle and all the little clamps and oiler.

I spent the morning riveting the footboards for the 48. This always takes a while.

Tool box and kicker pedal installed

I built up a couple of kicker pedals at the same time. Here is the one for Jim's 39.

parts and parts

2011-10-26T12:01:00.003-06:00

We got a prototype top motor mount today. Check out how the edges are radius ed in the corner. Originals have sharp corners, and always break. Hopefully this will make top motor mounts last a little longer. I am going to add a little material on the top edge of the mount. This is a part that is engineered to be the weakest link kind of like a brass gear in a lathe. If you think about it, a top motor mount is a lot easier to replace or weld up than an engine mount on your case, or the top motor mount on your frame. I have friends that have made indestructible top motor mounts and broken the top motor mount tab off of their frame.

Here is one that is not welded together yet.

We got the buddy seat for Jason's 65 today. It turned out amazing.

I wrapped it up in saran wrap and will deliver it with the bike when it is finished. 65 flhs are too tall for me, There is no way I could muscle one around with a super soft buddy seat on it. Chuck and Jo did this seat and it is amazing. Every detail is spot on and perfect! Thanks Saddle Shop

When I was in Milwaukee I was hanging out with my friend Paul, He showed me this awesome accessory. I borrowed it from him and will be making a few up. My mold making friend Dan is coming in next week to do a sculpture, so I will have him make the mold when he is in town.

Do any of you guys know what this is for? My friend Matt in South carolina has one on his 41 fl.

cool race bikes in milwaukee

2011-10-25T13:35:00.004-06:00

My sister Lindsey, Brittney and I went to Milwaukee to hang out with some friends and talk about old motorcycles. We stopped by our friend Mike's place to look at different old board track bikes. Brittney sat on a bunch of them to get a feel for what frame configuration she likes the most.

Excelsior Big Valve!!!!!!

This is Dewey Sims bike, Matt walksler's frame is just like this one. Mike went over 104 mph on this bike which is so damn cool

This is the bike Mike has been racing lately, it is the most beautiful bike I have ever seen.

Here is a cool 11 single.

This is a crazy single cylinder cyclone in a hd frame with a merkel fork. Guys back then mixed and matched whatever parts they could get their hands on in order to go racing.

After Mikes, we went over to John's house to check out old 16 mm film that his great grandfather Walter Davidson shot back in the twenties through 41. It was an amazing experience.

This is John's 69 flh. It was his dad's favorite bike. He was riding it with the sidecar on it and the sidecar came loose and he crashed the bike. During the crash, the footboard and mount snapped off of the primary among other things. we pulled the primary off and I will weld the bracket back on for him.

John's 48 wiring

2011-10-25T13:22:00.003-06:00

I spent the morning at the chiropractor and wiring up the fender on John's 48. There are a lot of twists and turns in the fender, so it is easier to just put one wire through at first.

With the one wire through, you can solder the tail light and brake light wire to the wire going through the fender and then pull both of them through.

Here is the finished product after a bit of pulling and pushing.

f

2011-10-20T19:28:00.001-06:00

here is a cool picture of my dad line lapping cases.

stanley miller update and 48 and 38 pictures.

2011-10-20T16:35:00.003-06:00

I had a great hour long talk with stanley yesterday. He is back at home and on the mend. He told me that the deer knocked the fire out of him. I am so glad he is ok. He starts physical therapy next week. I am sure he will be back to the Stanley that we all know and love in no time.

Miss Brittney has been helping out in the shop lately, here she is cleaning some 52 cases that she just blasted.

I picked up the sheet metal for John's 48 this afternoon. Daisy may approves.

I am pulling the sheet metal off of the 38 to drop off at Gilby's. The bike is going to be hollywood green, which is a great color. We did one a few years ago, it is in the photo section of our website carlscyclesupply.com

This bike is getting close. Next week should be pretty intense.

One of the tanks and the dash.

good bye 47 and hello case machining

2011-10-19T11:50:00.003-06:00

I took Andy's 47 on it's last ride today, this is always a mix of emotions. I am happy with how it turned out, but at the same time sad to see it go as well as excited for Andy to get his new bike. The bike turned out well and I am looking forward to doing the next one.

I know there is a shadow in the picture, I should have turned the bike around.

Here it is all loaded up. and headed east

We have shipped a ton of bikes through allied over the years. We only had one claim, where they accidentaly cracked a tail light lens on a 46. They covered everything it cost to fix and replace it. They are a great shipping company and am glad we work with them.

I am almost done with the dash wiring on the 46.

My dad is prepping cases for motor season. Here is a set of 52s that he is doing the cylinder bases and motor mounts on.

Check out the finish it is flawless.

38 fender photos

2011-10-18T19:06:00.002-06:00

I finished up the fenders on the 38 today. I still have a little bit of work to do on fitting the dash to the speedo and tanks.

I will be dropping this stuff off for paint at Gilby's this weekend!!!!

here is one of the front crash bars that we had made up. We have sold a lot of these to a lot of these over the years and everyone likes them. They fit right up, have the right profile and short tabs. We are our number one customer, so we have to make the parts fit lol

cool pictures of brand new cam cover for 58 flh

2011-10-17T09:02:00.001-06:00

pictures from the weekend

2011-10-17T07:48:00.003-06:00

My Dad is moving along on bottom ends. This is a fryer that he has filled with motor oil, he heats up timken bearings in it and then assembles the left case on the flywheel. The hot oil expands the bearings so that they slide right on to the shaft.

Cooking

Miss Brittney went over to Mikes to drop off some sandblasting and took these photos of the sheetmetal for Johns 48.

It is looking good. It is just drying right now and still has to be wet sanded and buffed. I cant wait to build this bike. Next week should be pretty exciting, we have the 46 sheet metal getting finished and hopefully this will be done as well.

This is our friend Mike from Canada, He is having a 39 knucklehead built for him by one of our friends. He had never ridden a knuckle head or hand shift bike before, so we set him up on our 39. The next day we had a friend Sean come by the shop and we taught him how to ride a handshift bike too.

This is our friend Fracois from the Switzerland/France border. He flew in to hang out for the weekend and ride and work on old bikes. We had a great time. He has a few bikes and restores them to the same level that we do, so we had a lot to talk about and were like old friends.

I had him disassemble the 38 bobber heads, and then a set of 46 heads.

Here he is making a puller for use on circuit breaker studs and idler gear studs.

The floor for the barn was also poured, so that is pretty exciting. we are going to have a beam placed perpendicular to the two long beams and will be able to free span the entire room.

John's 48 paint job pictures

2011-10-12T13:23:00.003-06:00

Miss Brittney and I headed over to Mikes to check out how he paints sheet metal. We saw this turtle in the middle of the road, so we stopped to help him out.

Here is Brittney saving the snapping turtles life.

Here is the flight red paint for John's bike.

This is all the sheet metal. It took two weeks worth of work to get everything this far.

The salmon colored stuff on the tin is sealer.

Here is Mike spraying the stuff down with compressed air.

Here is the rear fender with the base coat on. It gets two coats of base coat and two coats of clear

After each coat mike wipes down everything with a terry clothe, then sprays it with compressed air, then puts on another layer of paint

Here is a cool picture of him spraying clear on it. He uses a special clear only gun that has a large spray pattern.

Another picture of clear getting laid down. After this dries, he will wet sand and buff everything, then we get to start finishing up the bike!!!

38 pictures from sunday, exhaust fitting stuff and welding

2011-10-10T15:31:00.006-06:00

I did some aluminum welding this morning, here are some missing fins on a 55 head for a motor we are rebuilding.

Here they are after a bit of welding . I love aluminum welding it is like laying down little bricks.

Check out the epoxy that someone used to glue in the cam bushing! wow.

I don't know what to say about this, except never glue in bushings?

I worked on fitting the exhaust on Jim's 38 some today. I have to fit the clamps on the muffler still, but it is almost done.

I still have to fit the clamps on the muffler, but it is almost done. Check out the angle on the pipe going into the saddle it is a smooth transition and the pipe lines up well with the saddle.

Smooth

Check out how nicely the header pipe fits into the head!!!

c.b. to coil wire clip on the center stud. it is supposed to be on the stud to the left. I kind of like the idea of putting it here, it is a little more clean.

My dad and I were pretty excited when Dan pulled the cylinders off of the 38 and we saw the cut down fl pistons. We both hoped that the bottom end had btsv flywheels in it, but we were sadly disappointed. It has 74 wheels in it. I think the pistons were cut down for less rotating weight rather than clearance issues.

Here are the stroker plates. They are .050 thick. The tops of the cylinders had .060 macnined off of them. I am guessing that this was done before the stroker plate.s

I scraped the carbon off the top of the pistons to see how big they are and found that they had been polished mirror smooth, which is pretty cool

HEre is the breather. They must have misplaced the elbow that clamps on the end of it, so they plugged the end and cut these grooves in it.

correct 38 only throwout bearing. This is a good bearing but was replaced by the big bearing in 39. 37 throwout bearings are bigger than this. 36 are three pieces!

This is a later style clutch finger. I thought you always had to use the earlier style fingers with the small bearings, but I guess that is not always so.

Here is the inside of the right case. The left case had the same problem. This motor did not have enough end play and the two races were not in line. This caused the flywheels to roll over a burr on the races and encapsulate the bearing cages inside of the early blind hole races.

pictures from the last few days

2011-10-09T12:42:00.005-06:00

Here are the rims for Doug's 39. We should be putting this thing together in the next month or so. Pretty exciting.

Jake came back out to work on the barn. He told me that the concrete business has been tough because of how wet everything was in SD this year. He is trying to fit a summers worth of work into a few months. This is the fill for the floor of the barn.

Here they are putting in some sand. Now they are workin on the pex tubing. Construction is very interesting to me. I am glad that I do not do it for a living but enjoy seeing the processes involved with stuff like this.

One of our friends son is getting married, so we gave him a knucklehead for a wedding gift. Now he can say he is piecing together an old bike. The head in question is a mid 38 to late 39 head.

The intake threads are a little damaged, this will be a challenge to fix.

...

This is a 52 motor that we just got in to rebuild. The owner is from PA and had recently had it rebuilt, he said it was making a funny noise so he turned it off and pulled the cam cover and found some cracks.

the end play on the flywheels was ok, but the crank pin was sticking out quite a bit, it was hitting on the case and caused these nasty cracks. It is a real shame because the cases are mint, matched and virtually un touched. We will weld this up and re build the engine.

More crack age. In the letter he sent along with the motor he said that he really wants to ride the bike for more than a 100 miles in a day with out having to worry about it. When my dad called to discuss this with him he asked if he forgot a zero lol

Dan finished up the pipe for the 38, now he can pull the motor and go through it with the others.

piston pin tool, head badge and 47 pictures

2011-10-07T12:38:00.002-06:00

It is a great day to go for a ride.

My friend Tim stopped by and showed me this cool ajax head badge for a really old bicycle. It is heavily embossed and sooooo nice looking. I would love to have the opportunity to meet one of the guys that made dies for parts like these. It is amazing craftsmanship.

Here is the tool for installing original style piston clips. It works really well. We just finished up a set of panhead cylinders for a friend and he does not have this tool, soooo....

I made him up a blue print. ifigured it might be of help to some of you guys too. Check it out!

47 saddlebags from Chuck and Jo at the saddleshop

2011-10-05T10:48:00.004-06:00

I started mounting the bags on Andy's 47 yesterday and finished them today.

Here they are all mounted up. We sent an original set of bags to Chuck and jo at the saddleshop to copy. They did an amazing job on my sears seat, henderson seat so we figured they could do a good job on the saddlebags. I have never seen craftsmanship like this on leather work. it is so cool.

They copied the latches, plates, rosettes and all the other details. They even made the rivets that hold the plate onto the bag and nickle plated them. The quality of the parts and attention to detail are spot on.

All of the spacing of the rosettes, buttons and rivets are perfect. All of the double stitching is parallel and perfect.
Thanks Chuck and Jo, go to their website at http://www.saddlerestoration.com/ to order yours.

construction pics and 38 stuff from the weekend

2011-10-04T21:49:00.003-06:00

This is Ace from Kentucky. He stopped by the shop on Saturday after reading about my dad and I in Hog magazine, HE showed up on his ultra and went right to work helping Dan and I out on the barn. The timing of his visit and his willingness to help out Dan and I was amazing. We made a new friend and got a lot of work done.

Here are the beams that we built for the barn over the weekend. they are 42 feet long and made up of two by twelve boards sandwiching in some type of wood. Dan did all the hard and intelligent work. I made coffee handed him screws, switched batteries and was there for emotional support. I learned a lot just by watching though. construction is cool, especially when you are working within the confines of an existing structure. it is like making cool engines, but on a huge scale.

Ace stayed in the center while we lifted the beam up on each side. We would space it up four feet on one end, then space it up another four feet on the other. etc...

And installed. These upright beams were a super tight fit and are all anchored in. There will be a 14 inch i beam placed perpendicular to these two beams and supported by steel uprights. Construction is very interesting and I am learning a lot. I am glad that I do not do it every day, I think the novelty would wear off quickly.

Dan and Ace did such a good jobon the barn I turned them loose on the 38 project.

Everything on the bike was easy to take apart according to dan and Ace. None of the fasteners have any corrosion in the threads. I saw a bunch of rust and nasty deposits in the intake manifold which makes me feel a lot better about taking the engine apart to prevent damage to the bike upon starting.

This is about as far as Ace and Dan made it on the 38. Dan will finish up the pipe on saturday, then we can throw it in the snow and forget about it in hopes that it will be rusted up and similar to the other side by the time we get the motor rebuilt.

38 motor installed and fin repair pictures from this morning.

2011-10-04T21:39:00.002-06:00

I got the motor for Jim's 38 bolted in for good this morning. It turned out nice. It needed an .011 shim on the right front motor mount and 0 on the left. This thing is falling together. THis is always the fun part of building a bike. All of the hard work that takes years is done and the pieces just fall together. woo hoo for final assembly.

Check out the gen strap

Early Skid plate.

GL 47 motor finished! and loctite saddlebags

2011-09-30T12:41:00.002-06:00

Man O man this bike is going to be so cool. This is a very nice detailed out motor. Click the picture and zoom in.

UNGH

whoa

and we got the saddlebags for Andy's 47 today. I will mount them up this weekend, then we can ship out the bike wooo hooo.

1985 pictures

2011-09-30T10:58:00.002-06:00

My Uncle Ricky set me up with these old pictures from a trip that he took to North Dakota after sturgis in 1985 to visit my parents and I. This is a picture of me with my dad's knucklehead when I was three months old. Ricky said that they came over to see the new kid in town- which was me. This is such a cool picture.

Here is a picture of my parents having a blast with some guys that I do not know.

Carl and Deb cruising down some North Dakota road.

Here is my mom and Uncle Ricky. My dad and Rick used to run around California together in the seventies, he has been a great as long as I can remember.

Stanley Update and misc. Wiring and cable pictures

2011-09-27T16:15:00.002-06:00

I was digging through some old business cards and found this cool old card from Stanley Miller. Here is an update email that I just got from my local friend Mark Lafluer. I have been getting quite a few emails asking about stan, and it makes sense to post updates here rather than try to keep track of everyone in my inbox. Stan is doing better every day.
Sunday Night/Early Monday Morning... ....Over the Midnight Hour...

I just rolled in from a 1,200-plus mile weekend road trip. Tired, but feel compelled to share with All what I saw in our Man, Stan, today on my way home to Sioux Falls From Chicago.

As Nancy has reported, Stan is out of Expen$ive Care and has been moved to an Orthopedic wing on the First Floor of Saint Anthony's Hospital in Rockford, Illinois.

I went looking for him on the NICU wing on the Third Floor and there was some other guy laying in (what used to be) Stan's bed!

The nurses sent me down to the First Floor Orthopedic Wing. When I walked up to the nurse's station to ask where his room was, Stanley heard my voice and sat straight up in bed.

When I walked into the room, he looked right at me with a big smile and said, "Good to see you, Sharky!" I damned near fell over.

I stayed with him for less than a half hour, but had an incredible visit with him. He is still plenty piled up, but SO much better than he was just Friday!

Stan no longer has the oxygen tubes stuck in his nose, however, he is still in hand restraints. I told him that he needed to be nice to the nurses if he wanted the 'cuffs' removed.

We read a page out of a mutually-approved devotional book and discussed its relative value to Stanley and his current condition. We discussed The Golden Rule, too.

Stanley is FAR from well, but (in my humble opinion) is MILES better than he was just Friday. We had GREAT conversations today!

I reminded him that he has GOT to stop getting all pissed off and rowdy because he can't go home TODAY; that he needs to simply focus on getting well.

He seems to be more aware of the fact that he has been in the hospital for several weeks and that he needs to get stronger before he can go home.

I told him (again) what a STUD he was and that he was the second-most handsome man I've ever seen, me, of course, being the first!

We laughed a lot and cried a little, always at exactly the most appropriate moments. Stanley's World is getting bigger each day, but he has a LONG way to go.

As I was saying "Good-Bye" to Stanley this afternoon, a pretty, young black nurse was about to begin feeding him hot turkey and mashed potatoes. Stan said to me, "I love her!"

I hope he wasn't yanking my chain when he said that, because I told him time and again that he needed to treat those ladies the way he would want to be treated.

I told him that I saw no need for me to return to Rockford, unless I heard that he was mis-treating the nursing staff. Then, I told him, "Don't make me come back here!"

Sadly, I missed meeting Stan's brother, Ben, and Ben's wife, Cindy, by minutes Friday, and missed meeting his mom and dad by a couple hours this afternoon.

Please, All recipients of this message, take just a moment or two out of your busy days, and thank God for keeping Our Man Stan, alive, and ask Him to deliver Stanley back to Texas.

Thanks to All, and may God bless you and your Loved Ones.

Mark LaFleur, Dirty Old Biker
Sioux Falls, South Dakota

I spent the morning wiring up John's bike. I am about as far as I can go until I get some paint back.

lots of stuff going on.

Those are nos terminals that my friend Billy gave me. I gave them to John. They look nice and are in good shape for being 60 some years old.

I set up the throttle spiral on Wayne's 46 and am almost done with the spark. I love early 46s.

JP 38 and Callie

2011-09-25T10:46:00.002-06:00

This is my friend Tarah's daughter Callie, she came to our pre sturgis party a month ago and wasn't really interested in hanging out with everyone, she wanted to work in the shop. She helped my friend change his oil and his tire and ran all over the shop and asked about different tools and parts. She has been hounding her mom to come back to the shop and hang out, so Brittney and I set some time aside to have her come out and work on old bikes. We sorted out all of the parts to get Jim's 38 together and went to town. Here is a picture of me explaining something about switching out bushings in fork rockers.

Here is Miss Brittney showing her how to tap out holes in Jim's frame.

We disassembled the wheels and greased everything up. This whole project was a lot of fun. While I was growing up, I hung out in the shop every second that I could. It was a fun experience to give back and answer a million different questions about stuff and build motorcycles with Miss Brittney and our ten year old friend.

Here is a picture of Callie on the 38.

My friend Dan came down from North Dakota to help with some machining. He spent yesterday cutting out the center of this rectangular bar for sears center stands. we are making five of them up. He did a good job.

Ducati picture and 48 pictures

2011-09-23T11:04:00.002-06:00

Here is a neat picture of a sixties ducati single that I saw last weekend. The owner bought it for 100 dollars. This bike is very neat and has tons of italian style.

I got the oil lines mounted up on John's 48 today. The return line took 45 minutesto get to fit right. what a bunch of work.

I'm starting to route wires on this thing. The sheet metal is getting painted soon and I want it to go together as smoothly as possible.

New seat post and bushing installed. I love 48s. they are so cool

46 detail pictures from this morning.

2011-09-22T10:48:00.002-06:00

an excercise in aluminum welding and 46 progress pictures

2011-09-21T17:01:00.005-06:00

I have to weld up the breather gear area on my friend Billy's 16 j case this week. I have never really welded any Harley cases that old, so I figured I would do a practice run on the closest case that I had. The oldest case that I have laying around is an early 29 DL case that i am going to use in an upcoming project. I figured this was would be a good practice piece. Here it is cleaned up, ground and pre heated.

Here is the weld. IT is really gummy stuff and the root pass was a bit of a challenge but I got good penetration and was able to go in with a nice cold weld. I tried it with the case pre heated at 200 degrees and at 250.

Here it is milled flat and with the letters laid out.

This is what it looked like after a half hour on the big kids etch and sketch and a little bit of grinding. There were some pits in the E which is the weld I did at 250 degrees. The x was done at 200 degrees and has no pits. This could be totally unrelated to heat and be a contamination issue. I will do Billy's case at 200 degrees and see how it goes.

I mounted up the ride control and headlight bracket on Wayne's 46 fl today.

Early 46s had black painted horn buttons and dimmer switches. I think this is a very cool look.

I set up the chain primary, installed the coil and kickstand too! Unfortunately, I did not have cad plated screws for mounting the derby cover and inspection cover, so I will have to order some before they can be mounted for good.

With the coil installed, I am able to start wiring. Here is the circuit breaker to coil wire. The terminal is correct for 36 to 47 bikes. Some have the H on them and some do not. I think it is a pretty cool detail, but it doesn't necessarily have to be there.

THe stanley Miller pappy connection

2011-09-20T13:46:00.002-06:00

When miss Brittney met Mr. Stanley in Wauseon, she said that he looked like Betty Boop's Grandpa. She called him pappy for the rest of the weekend and called him pappy in davenport as well. I just googled "betty boop grandpa" and the resemblance is uncanny.

The picture speaks for itself.

In other Stanley news,

He is conscience and doing well. He is still heavily medicated, but awake and talking. There was a story in one of the update emails that I got about him trying to devise a plan to ride his el back to Dallas. I am so glad that my friend is going to be ok. He is truly an amazing dude and has had an impact on thousands of people.

46 and 39

2011-09-20T13:34:00.002-06:00

Here is Wayne's 46, I finished fitting the fenders, tanks and dash last week and took them over to get painted on my trip to the cities. It doesn't look like much of a bike anymore, but that is ok. I am going to set up primaries on these two 46s, a 45 and a 65 this week. Should be pretty exciting and fun.

Here is the sheet metal for the four six. It is off at mr. Gilby's getting coated in shiny black paint.

Here is Jim's 39. I probably stared at this bike for two hours today. Bikes always seem so much more real when they are on the ground and on their own kickstand. Man I love 39s.

REBUILT 40 frame and flood run pics

2011-09-19T21:47:00.002-06:00

I ran to the twin cities to take care of a bunch of business this weekend and saw this amazing factory straightened 40 frame. When you got in a frame twisting accident back in the day, you could have your local dealer disassemble your bike, ship your frame to the factory, and they would re straighten it, repaint it and ship it back. whoa check out the stamp. I have only seen one other frame like this.

this toolbox bracket threw me for a loop.

uhhhhh

6 UNG
N

When HD straightened frames for the dealer, they stamped the frame in this forging.Somebody asked me if these numbers were some type of code at davenport this year. That is a pretty interesting question. I do not know the answer, but due to the rough chronological order and lack of a pattern, I would be willing to guess that they are just a way that the factory kept track of the frames after they re straightened them and shipped them to the dealer

The next day I went to the flood run with kevin baas. it was fun to ride old bikes for a couple hundred miles in Minnesota.

I got to ride the 47 and he rode the strange brew. the bikes worked great.

When we got back to Kevin's house, we pulled the plugs in his 58 so that his five year old son Mason could practice kicking over the bike.

Sunday we went to a car show and swap meet. I had a great time. I bought some cool stuff , but only took two pictures. One was of this delorian and the other is below

This is a pedal car Oscar Meyer wiener mobile. I don't know what demographic of kids these were made for, but I don't think that there were very many parents camping out in front of walmart to buy these things to put under the Christmas tree. In retrospect, I wish I would have bought it, but I guess you can't have it all.

Stanley Miller update from Steve Klein

2011-09-16T09:06:00.002-06:00

Hi everyone,

I have gotten fifty or sixty emails asking about Stanley,Here is an update from one of our mutual friends in Texas. I think it is easier to post it, than to send to all the people that are asking about our friend Stanley. He is an amazing guy and will pull through this.

_____________________________________________________________________

BEGIN COPIED MESSAGE

Dear Friends of Stanley Miller;

Noon today marks approximately 1 week since Stanley met his unfortunate timing with his motorcycle accident. Obviously family members from across America and beyond are at his side, listening to medical staff, understanding the testing and medical treatments necessary for multiple issues at hand and focusing on his needs as they move forward. It has only been one week.

But it has been a very good week indeed.

First…. The outpouring of friendship, concern, positive comments, some light hearted stories and prayer for this family on Stanley’s behalf has been wonderful. All of us have been in hospitals with loved ones for extended periods of time and we all know that family members do not get enough rest and do not quit worrying, ever. Hospitals take a toll on families physically and mentally as we all know.

I wish to communicate on behalf of Stanley’s entire immediate family that the outpouring of emails, stories, photos, prayers and offers of help are very much appreciated by them all. It takes the edge off of long days and nights of observation until Stanley starts a faster recovery. It allows some momentary respite away from worry levels to be able to read a story and smile.

THANK YOU ALL FROM THE FAMILY.

I wish to attempt to encapsulate what Stanley’s current situation is, without stepping over any family privacy lines, to simply offer some reassurance to hundreds of Stanley’s friends around America that he will be fine. This memo is more in line with my intent to offer sensible timeline expectations to all of you for his recovery and to hopefully help all of you manage your worry level, expectations and also your future prayer time commitments as well.

Here goes for this week…..

A week ago Stanley unfortunately hit a deer while riding with friends at a vintage motorcycle event in the Midwest. His injuries are numerous and although not life threatening, are serious enough to take a lot more time to correct and heal than we all had hoped for. In other respects his injuries are certainly less serious than many of us across America may have momentarily surmised. (Simply a result of basic human nature to expect the worst no matter how hard we try not to) He is a very lucky man on many fronts.

As of this morning Stanley is still sedated. Sedation simply allows physicians to do X-Rays, CAT Scans, set broken bones, and monitor healing better. It also allows patients to remain calm and let their body start healing. Let’s look at the reasons here:

Head injury

Stanley obviously did hit his head sometime in the duration of his accident. He did have a helmet on. The helmet did save his life. As noted in a previous very early email, Stanley did have some blood exiting his ears at the accident site. Here’s the good news to focus on…He was coherent, awake and did communicate what family member names and numbers were in his cell phone and who to try to contact first, to the staff in the life flight helicopter. That’s good news all the way around when it comes to concerns about head injuries. In fact one of Stanley’s comments was relative to having to pay for the helicopter J (Now I know you all are smiling here. If he is able to bitch about something, he will get past this all eventually.)

Many of you have expressed careful concern (not on a broadcast email basis) that a hard enough hit to a human beings head can sometimes lead to many, many issues, both short and long term. Thank you for not causing panic a week ago with this one. The good news is simply that he had a helmet on, the bleeding was minimal and his brain has absorbed what small level of fluids that surrounded it at the scene of the accident. He was also coherent and talked to the medical team on the scene and in the helicopter. All very good indicators that Stanley is in fact pretty hard headed physically J

Ribs

Nine ribs are broken. Six are broken in two places each. And to make matters “much more sore”, he has broken ribs on both the front and back sides. OUCHY OUCHY x 10. Plates have been

installed on both the front and rear ribs to assist in their healing. This process and method is extremely tender and painful at best, but necessary. (Note: If Stanley had issues in airport security scanning before he will have more to deal with in the future. (I always just assumed he could not get through airport security because of his brass balls?) Sorry to any ladies reading this. Mom…I am also sorry!

Bone Fractures

As you all remember, he also has a fracture in his shoulder. It has been dealt with and now must simply heal. By itself a shoulder fracture is a very tender place that can emit a lot of pain.

He has a couple of vertebrae in his spinal column that were also cracked, but apparently the minor size of the cracks and their locations are more minor in nature. More Good News!

Foot Injury

His little toe was “road-rashed” pretty darn bad a week ago. Skin, muscle and tendon were damaged badly. This has been repaired and the very next day the prognosis was that remaining muscle tissue was pink indicating it had good blood flow and would all grow back and heal with time. (Note: I would not buy Stanley a soccer ball for Christmas) However I will personally tell all nursing staff that we friends approve them telling Stanley The Little Pigs Story at any time he get’s grouchy…. “And this little piggy went wee, wee, wee all the way home!”

PAUSE FOR A MINUTE HERE

For all of us who wince at a paper cut or by stubbing our little toe really hard on a piece of furniture in the middle of the night and get teary eyed regardless of our toughness level…. Please reflect adequately for a moment at any one of the pain levels associated with 9 broken ribs, or a shoulder fracture, or a torn up little toe. Any one of them can only equate to many, many times the pain level we could imagine. Not to mention a whole bunch of sore muscles, joints, and associated black and blue areas from his body tumbling and sliding a week ago…Not what a human body was designed for! This is simply the reason for sedation. Mask the collective pain levels and let the body heal.

Sedation

Physicians allow patients to “come out” of sedation at benchmark times to see and measure how a patient is able to react to these multiple levels of pain in their bodies. If the patient is still unable to handle the pain at an acceptable level for the timeline into the recovery process, the sedation is re-administered to give the patient further rest so the body may continue healing at optimum level. That is simply where Stanley is at today. Yes the Doctors have allowed him to “start to wake up”, but his bodily reactions are not what is wished for, so they let him return to “sleepy land” again. Normal, Normal, Normal.

I am told that it is not uncommon for patients with these types of injuries to be sleep induced for from 2-3 weeks and sometimes longer. We have only worried about Stanley 1 week so far. Please be patient. He is a very lucky man!

Other Issues:

We all are quite aware that Stanley is a strong minded individual. He has high expectations from those that wait on him in normal life. He can be impatient. He can be tough on people. Trust me…I am quite sure family has communicated to hospital staff what likely personality outcomes could possibly come from Stanley when mixed with pain and suitable pharmaceuticals.

If we all need a topic to pray for, I would suggest it be that Stanley uses his known mental toughness to recover and also to understand that all these hospital people are there to help him do so. Yes Praying for World Peace may be easier to achieve, but this is what we should all pray for. It is what Stanley needs to devote his limited and recovering energy levels on when he is able to be awake full time.

Refuting Rumors J

· Stanley is not having a facial. He is handsome enough the way he is.

· Stanley is not having Botox injections (Ditto above)

· Stanley is not having a “Manhood Reduction Procedure”. (No personal observation knowledge here…but there is the continuing legend of such that only he can deal with long term)

· No we cannot ask Neurologists to reprogram any electronic components of his brain to alter past history. Jim Mosher tried unsuccessfully to pass 70,000 volts through his body years ago and it was determined after this that even with massive quantities of electro-reconfiguration of brain components, it is just a very risky set of issues with this Big Texan Boy. Some of us can pee on a 12V electric fence as a child and be damaged for life..Stanley can pee on a Nuke Power Plant and walk away.

· Although he is now known as Stanley Miller, “Action Hero”, Dallas TX and can jump large deer in a single bound, and can accelerate down the road faster than a speeding bullet without his revered 36 Knuck beneath his handsome posterior, he is not The Bionic Man. We cannot rebuild him better. We can only rebuild him and get him back as he was.

I sincerely hope this small level of communication is suitable to allow Stanley’s long list of friends to know he is in fact on the road to recovery. The road will be much shorter than it could have been and also a bit longer than we all had hoped, but it beats the hell out of the alternatives that could of very well occurred.

God Bless Stanley, His Family and his friends throughout America.

Steve Klein

jf 48

2011-09-15T12:35:00.002-06:00

HEre you can see that the dash is a little off center. This is fixed by taking the speedo and dash base off and twisting the part of the dash space that the two bolts go through to mount it to the frame.

Here it is all fixed up and test fit wit the rubber trim strip.

After the dash was fit, I pulled all the sheet metal off and took it over to Mike's to get coated with some flight red paint!!!!

cool pics

2011-09-14T12:12:00.002-06:00

My dad spent the morning prefitting the front fender tip on John's 48 I hooked up the throttle on Jim's 39 and finished up the dash wiring

Miss Brittney got her 23 J motor that she is going to use in her board track bike for racing in Davenport and Wauseon.

This motor has a lot of good features and will work well for what we want to do with it. 23s have the short sprocket shaft and large cylinder bases, We will probably put a later 74 inch top end on it. I am not sure if we will use 61 or 74 flywheels. We have some time to figure it out.

cool tool and gunner lights

2011-09-13T12:29:00.002-06:00

wow, i can't believe this day finally came. I cast up some of these tail gunner lights out of 1020 steel two years ago, and finally sold a set to my friend in Arizona. Original lights were made out of pot metal and broke all the time. I figured 1020 steel would be an ideal metal to make them out of.

I made a die for re shaping headlight brackets

Here is the bottom of it, it is pretty self explanatory

I am going to weld a bar onto the die, so that I can tweak headlight brackets around to adjust the way the light sits on the bracket.

This was squashed flat before I used the new tool on it. I love fixing stuff.

John's 48 fender moves along

2011-09-13T12:10:00.002-06:00

My dad spent a couple days on the rear fender for the 48. It is fit up after quite a bit of work.

Check out how nice the fender matches up with the tail flap and the hinge is level. You have to completely dis assemble the fender, then fit it to the bike- one piece at a time.

Nice and straight, and ready to go to the painter.

it is always easier to fit tail lights and fender tips before paint.

cool pictures

2011-09-12T12:09:00.003-06:00

When we were in Davneport, we picked up some sheetmetal that we had straightened out. here is Vern's 46, I put the front fender and the tanks on and just set the rear fender on. I will bolt it on solid later in the week, then it is off to paint!!!!

My dad has been working on the rear fender for John's 48. I rebuilt an ignition switch for it and mounted the dash base and speedo. When my dad is done with the rear fender, I will fit the dash, then it is off to get painted flight red.

This dash base is perfect!!! It still has mint original sockets for the generator and oil lights.

Here is the other side of vern's 46

Mr. Stanley Miller

2011-09-11T18:53:00.002-06:00

Here is one of my favorite pictures of the reverend/colonel/ sir Stanley Miller from Dallas Texas Riding his 36 and eating an ice cream cone. I have been thinking about him day and night from what I have heard, his condition is improving. Keep sending the good vibes to mr Stanley. A couple of my friends set me up with the address for his hospital room. Email me at amcayouthprogram@hotmail.com if you would like to send him a card or flowers.

BB 55

2011-09-11T18:14:00.004-06:00

Dave and Bev dropped off a 55 panhead that David's dad has owned since he was sixteen. The bike has not run in 35 years. We are going to go through the mechanics on the bike and preserve as much of the originality as possible. The bike is pretty much untouched and unharmed aside from sitting in a dirt floor shed for a couple decades. The color is one year only hollywood green. This was the only year that hd had a package that painted the oil tank, tool box, battery lid, and primary cover the main color of the bike. In 1938, hd also had a green called hollywood green, but it is more of a grass green. There have been a few guys that restored 38s and painted them the 55 color which is a very expensive mistake to make. lol

Here is a copy of the original title that was issued in 55.

Here Bev's husband on the 55 in 1956. The bike did not have dual exhaust in this picture. It has the same style of buco bags that were on my dad's first bike--a 1953 panhead.

just under 31 thousand original miles.

Hollywood green battery top and oil tank!!!!!

This is a one year only fender medallion

Check out the green on the drain plug.

This bike has metal mounts on the trumpet horn and thin manifold clamps.

First year of the diagonal stripes on the fork tin.

Here he is on the bike at a later date. What a cool bike.

Stanley Miller Update

2011-09-10T14:46:00.004-06:00

Here is a picture of my dad and Stanley Miller fixing my dad's 39, his sweatshirt got caught in the chain, and they had to cut it out of the drum and chain.

Stanley was t boned by a deer while riding his 36 a few days ago. He crushed a few vertebrate, cracked nine ribs, broke his shoulder and scraped up his right foot. He also got a lot of blood and swelling in his brain. He was wearing his helmet. He was flown to a hospital in Rock Island.

In the 48 hours since the crash, his head swelling has gone down, they have operated on his foot, and put plates in his ribs. He is on a ventilator and heavily sedated. It will probably be a few days until he can come off of it. I was told that he should be out of the hospital in a few weeks.

I love Stanley like family. We have traveled together a lot over the years and he has been a huge influence in my life. Everybody reading this should keep him in your thoughts and wish the best for him. If you would like to send him a card, he is staying at the St. Anthony's Church in Rock Island Illinois.

vibes pictures and misc. plating

2011-09-10T14:19:00.004-06:00

This is our friend Yoshi, he stopped by the shop with his wife and two kids to hang out and shoot some pictures for vibes magazine in Japan. Here is a picture of us in the shop.

This is a picture that he took of miss Brittney and I riding some old bikes. Check out Brittney's purse, I bought it in southern indiana, it is made out of a dead frog from the phillipines. We have been having a ton of fun with it all week long.

Here are the hubs for the bobber. They are primo. The rear hub will have an early juice brake, and the front hub is some chopper hub that I got from my friend Dave in the twin cities.

We got a package from Pat today which contained the nickle plating for the wheels on Glenn's bobber project. The rims turned out really nice. The centers will be masked off and the sides of the rims will be painted the same color as the bike. This will be super trick.

HEre is a picture of me giving Yoshi's son Kanata his first ride on a motorcycle. He is five years old and loves motorcycles and dogs.

We also got the original fendertips back from pat. I like to send the tips to him, have them stripped and straightened out before they get chrome plated. Once they are plated, you can't really move or bend them to fit because the chrome flakes.

some of the bikes that I rode on monday of this week

2011-09-08T22:56:00.002-06:00

Brittney and I just got back from an insane trip to Davenport. After Davenport we decided to go down south to visit some friends in Indiana. I messed up and posted the pictures in reverse, sorry about that. This is one of Doug's 36s. Jim long restored it for a fellow that sold it to Doug. It is the first36 that I ever rode. I rode it when I was nineteen or twenty. I got to ride it again.

Here is the fifth knucklehead ever made, some of you guys probably remember it being built. I followed it on the blog. Doug has a really neat winding and twisting road by his house that is a blast to ride bikes on. I rode the sears on it last year and had an absolutely amazing time on it. It is one of my all time favorite motorcycle memories. It was nice to ride the road on a modern bike.

Brittney and I left davenport and went to visit our friend Greg. Greg had just picked up this amazing 40 el, he let me take it for a spin. It had chat pipes, and a ton of other really neat features. The bike was a little sketchy to ride, because there were flat spots on the tires and the steering head bearings were very loose and dry, I guess that can happen to original paint bikes that have not been worked on.

And this is the first bike that I got to ride on Monday. This is the coolest 39 of all time. It is original paint airway blue and white and was originally sold new in North Dakota. The original owner's family sold it on ebay a year and a half ago with all sorts of cool extra stuff. The bike runs great, it doesn't smoke, it has lots of power, is very responsive and brakes fairly well. I was very impressed and felt very fortunate to get to ride it. The transmission was a little clunky, but not that bad. Greg and I are the only ones to ride this bike besides the original owners family. WOOOO HOOOO

Here is the crate that the bike came in. This weeks monday was filled with some pretty amazing test rides, but none of them compare to the next test spin that I am going to take in the near future. I don't really want to spoil the surprise, so I guess you guys will just have to wonder.

neat pictures

2011-08-30T05:13:00.001-06:00

evolution in progress

2011-08-28T02:44:00.002-06:00

The top pipe is an original y pipe for a 36 to 40 big twin muffler. Notice how the inlet for the rear header pipe has such a nice saddle to it. This feature is very difficult to copy. The pipe below the og pipe is a nineties and earlier replacement. Notice how the pipe is filleted and then welded to the bottom pipe. The saddle below is a Dennis Corso CO. saddle, this is what is on most of the y pipes that you buy from v twin or J and P or anyone else. I remember when Dennis came out with these circa 98 ish. Everyone went nuts, it was honestly the best thing since sliced bread. They are pretty damn close, but still leave a little room for improvement, which brings us to the saddle below it---- my first prototype saddle!!!! This is a corso saddle with a skirt welded on to it. The mystery part from last week was the skirt. It is still in prototype stages, and I will probably end up having to make it a little bigger, but it is the next step in making the saddle closer to the original style.

Here is a picture of the inside before metal finishing. This took about an hour to do, which is a long time for such a minute detail. Life was a lot more simple when I just relied on other people to make parts and before I knew how to manufacture stuff.

Saturday muffler pictures

2011-08-27T22:51:00.003-06:00

This is a 36 and 37 fin, it is metal finished to a nice peak on the top. These ended up being a bit of a challenge. I am happy with the out come and they are worth the effort.

Here is a re worked 38 to 40 fin. What a bunch of work! I am glad that I got them done after two days of grinding, bending and sanding.

Here is what I started with. You can see where the new rivets are installed and where the fin needs to be cut. Check out the seam on top of the fin anc compare it to the picture above, you can see that it needs to be cut down and re welded. Stuff like this isn't really important to 99 percent of the people in the world, but it is to me.

After the fins are cut to the right length, re shaped, riveted and shaped on top and re welded, they get welded to the baffles. This assembly will slide through the top hat, canister and reducer then be spot welded in place.

I spent the day filling orders so...

2011-08-26T23:24:00.002-06:00

Here are some cool pictures anyways. This is Marty's dual engine drag bike. It is amazing. I talked with Marty the other day about the next motor I want to build/ play doctor Frankenstein with. It should be pretty exciting, but probably not as cool as a dual engine shovel head drag bike.

My dad worked on John's 48 rear fender. It is best to take fenders completely apart and start from scratch for fitting.

48 pictures and early stuff

2011-08-25T12:27:00.003-06:00

We pulled john's 48 out to fit the rear fender today. I bolted on the freshly painted primary cover and oil tank.

NO OIL TANK

OIL TANK!

Here are some of the pieces for mounting the rear fender.

My batch of center baffles for my muffler project showed up. unfortunately they are 1.756 rather than 1.750, so I have to run them through a center less grinder to get them down to size. They have a .040 wall thickness, so the extra grinding operation won't have an affect on the strength of the material.

Here are standard reproduction lower horn mounts. They are parkerized. Originals were not parkerized.

So I blasted them and blued them with gun bluing, then shellacked them. The bottom one is dry, the top one is still drying. This works well and makes the parts exactly like originals.