Saturday, December 31, 2011

making stuff fit

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.






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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.













Friday, December 30, 2011

NOS 65 mufflers and tank trimming

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.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

misc 46 pictures


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.






Tuesday, December 27, 2011

misc pictures.

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.

Monday, December 26, 2011

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

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

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas

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

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Carl's Christmas present and 55 pictures


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.




Wednesday, December 21, 2011

cake topper and misc

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.