neat pictures from last nights shake down run

motorcycles, motor bikes tall bikes and bottom ends

Here is a pic of me on my el in front of the shop. I love 61s

Brittney, my dad, ole and I went to the Art and bicycle show in Aberdeen the other day.There were three or four hundred people there, and it was a ton of fun. This is a pic of my friend Trevor on a tall bike that he built. These things are wild. I rode one for half a block yesterday, they do not have brakes and you have to climb up them like a ladder to get going.

Here is a pic of Brittney giving me a ride on her little motorized schwinn. The little 50 cc motor was pretty taxed out with my extra weight on it.

And this is Ole's 39 motor, which is coming along nicely. After this one, my dad starts on another 39, and then another! It is always neat when we end up with a batch of one year or another motor.

crashbar pictures

I am not sure if I posted a picture of this or not. This is neat piece that was on the davenport banquet tables in 1988. Doc Patt's friend Alice made them and gave this one to my dad. I was not there since Iwas only three at the time. It is still a cool piece none the less.

Here is a picture of my dad dialing in a sand cast cover to counter bore it for a later pinion shaft. This is a pretty important step on 36 to 39 motors that are running a 40 and later pinion shaft.
Brittney pinstriped the crash bars on my 36 for me last night. They turned out pretty good.

It is pretty uncommon for the later 36 crash bars to be striped, but I think it looks so cool that I do not really mind. I had the correct 27 piece crash bar on my bike, but bent it and installed one of our late 36 to 40 crashbars since they are so much stronger.

chopper time and 49 pictures

Here is a neat picture of the silver paint on the case from when the welch plug was put into the right case of Jerry's 49.

Check out the red sealer on the oil filter canister top.

This is a 47 saddle bag.

And this is a 48 bag. They are pretty damn cool.

These are some brackets that I cut off of a reproduction front fork. They are for the front brake shackle and the fender mounts

I never thought that I would get to trim a fork. I am sending it off to a friend to section and narrow it for a bobber project.

49 el and cement walls

I pulled the top end off of the 49 today. This bike needed to be gone over and have some odds and ends sorted out. The cylinders had been painted black at one point and time and Jerry wanted them silver. I pulled the tanks, and the top end and found some interesting things. Jobs like this always seem to turn into bigger projects as you get farther into them.

The concrete company sent out some trucks to poor our walls. These are really neat machines. I have never really been around them up close

Here is a picture of the completed work for today. All of the cement will be dry by tomorrow. and the forms can come off. It will be set up enough for a building next week! Cement is amazing stuff

footers and 42 exhaust

Here is a cool picture of cement being poured into the footings. They will do the stem walls tomorrow then we can set the barn on them.

I finished up mounting the exhaust on Don's 42 this afternoon. I love how this bike is turning out. It should be done very shortly. wooo hooo. The yellow bike in the back ground is a 54 that we did for our neighbor a few years ago. We are servicing it for the summer.

I am working on the rear brake and other stuff. Check out the n.o.s. foot board mat and brake pedal stuff.

exhaust pipes and cement work

I pulled off the front header pipe clamps on our 41 yesterday and sent them off to have a few sets made up. Let me know if you want a set. This is the correct style of clamp for 37 to 45 knuckleheads. Check out the short front flex cover. This is the correct style for 39 to 42 knuckleheads. The length of the short front flex cover is 5 inches

This is he clamp that goes around the frame. The tabs on this clamp and the one on the pipe end up being staggered. It is a smart way to engineer things with out tabs and brackets breaking because of undue pressure.

We bought a barn a few weeks ago from our Neighbor. It was built in 1948 and is pretty cool. Here is a picture of where it is going to be put.

This is a picture of the perimeter for the footings dug out

and the patterns and re bar. All of this should be done tomorrow. i will post more pictures.

cool 48 pictures

Here is a picture of John's 48 with the exhaust mounted up.


This is Don's bottom end. This is for an original paint bike, so we cleaned everything up on the inside but left it crusty on the outside.




I love this foundry mark, but I am not sure who it belongs to?

misc. Pictures

Here is a cool picture of the Brass Messengers playing from Saturday night. What a fun band.


This is a pic that Brittney took of my dad, John and I. Good times




Here is a picture Of Brittney using the sunnen pin hone. This is the best tool of all time. I showed her how to use it over the weekend.

And a picture of Mr. Russ's 56 motor. This thing turned out nice. I cant wait to see the bike finished.

HURRY UP

don't "paws" act "meow"







and bid on my friend Larry Medwig's 61 panhead rolling chassis. I guess it is really nice stuff according to Larry, and you should own it, so go buy it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1961-HARLEY-DAVIDSON-PANHEAD-ROLLING-CHASSIS-CHOPPER-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem3a6614ae6cQQitemZ250820734572QQptZMotorcyclesQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories

John's Visit

Our friend John Flew in to hang out for the weekend yesterday. We worked on his 48 panhead and rode old motorcycles all day. What a blast. John was flying from Newark to Minneapolis and sat next to some guy that was reading the new issue of HOG magazine, which happens to have our original paint 37 on the cover, He told his travel companion that he was going to see us and that we owned the bike on the cover. What a small world. It only seemed fitting to let him ride the bike and make the story that much better.


Here is a picture that my dad took of Brittney and I on the 46




We went and raced go karts at Wylie Park. John is from Jersey and had never been to a go kart track. I guess they dont have them in the north east.






Here is a pic of John the first night that he showed up with our original 46. This is the first knucklehead that he ever rode!








We spent most of friday night setting up the controls on his 48. This is a bit of a challenge, but we got them working smoothly. I will post pics of the proper routing later. 48 has a one year only throttle bracket and is kind of difficult to set up.










This is a pic of Brittney and a 41 motor that my dad finished up on Friday. He finished up a 56 motor today and is starting on another 48 motor tomorrow. Lots of cool stuff is going on.

49 pictures and an aluminum block

I pulled Jerry's 49 out to work on today. I have to do a top end on the bike, re wire it with old funky wires, sort out some messed up hardware, and finish putting it back together. This bike is pretty nice, but there have been a few mess ups and fixes over the years that need to be addressed. I cant wait to see this bike next to the restored 49 that we did for him a few years ago.

and the left side. This is a cool original piece. I will pull our o.p. green 49 out for comparison. wooo hooo

I found this neat block that my dad made in machinist school. We never did anything cool like this when I went.

check out how it fits together. I love this thing

41 case picture

Here is a neat pic of a 41 bottom end that my dad is putting together. It is a pretty high number and has short ribs on the cases.


It is all new on the inside and crusty on the outside.



I love how fresh the machining marks are on the inside of the cases . It looks like it was 10 years old. The a 1 date code signifies January of 41.

cool pipes and an even cooler birthday card

This birthday card showed up in the mail from my friends/ heroes Pete and Jackie Hill the other day. When I was eight I used to idolize Pete because he drag raced a knucklehead. My dad had him autograph a business card for me, and I had it tacked to a board next to my bed. When I got in my crash, they called me every week for six months to just talk and see how things were going. They are amazing people and I am a better person because I get the honor of calling both of them my friends. Check out this crazy video of Pete running his drag bike.



I finished up the brackets for all of my dual exhaust stuff last night. I should have my bike running this weekend. I found a broken gas line, and have to fix that. It was an original one that I used, and two of the ferrules broke.





This dual exhaust rear header pipe was designed for a 47 knucklehead that has the shift lever and rod pointed down. I didn't want to put later tanks on my bike, so I had to cut this relief for the shift rod. This took a bit of trial and error. It is all good now though and should work well for the summer.







I also had to lower the pipe one inch so that the muffler would match up and be the same height as the other side. I am going to run the bike a couple hundred miles on my birthday this Sunday and see if any of the brackets break, and then paint it. I have never seen another 36 with duals, it is pretty neat.