sporatic holiday update!

I got some waxes for hendersons today. these are the front brake shoes for a 28-31 kj and deluxe. The pieces that look like pluming fittings are 1928 only choke mechanisms. These have been in process for eight months, and I am very happy to see some progress being made.



Ryan got the rest of his frame pieces ready to go back together. It still has to be welded in this picture, He made the jig that goes in the axle plate slots.



Here is a fixture that I made yesterday for mounting the left side floorboard tab.




Here is the fly wheel for my sears. I bought some blanks from Paul Osbourne. They machined up nicely.

some neat pics!

Guys

I have been working really hard on customer bikes and still trying to keep Ryan busy with his free motorcycle contest bike. I have been doing daily updates of his project over on the amca board, you can check it out by going to www.antiquemotorcycle.org and clicking the birth of a bobber banner. My computer time has pretty much been dedicated to his project, but I am still working on a bunch of cool knucklehead stuff, and I have some big bike and science experiment updates to do as soon as I find the time to do it. Thanks for your understanding and enthusiasm!

INDUSTRY GIANTS TO DIVULGE WEALTH OF INDUSTRY INFO!!!!

I got this email this morning. It is a press release for the upcoming vtwin show in Cincinnati. I am on a guest panel. I am pretty excited and honored to have this neat opportunity. It is kind of surreal to be described with words like giant, successful and bike builder lol. Wish me luck!

Industry Giants to Divulge Wealth of Industry Information at V-Twin Expo-- Cincinnati, OH (December 15, 2009) V-Twin dealers and exhibitors will soon be making their annual trek to the 10th Annual V-Twin Expo by Easyriders held in Cincinnati, February 6-8. The V-Twin industry's premier trade show, the V-Twin Expo is an opportunity for those in the industry to ascertain the overall state of the industry from veterans and colleagues.
Scheduled for Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at noon the seminar entitled "Two Wheeled Passion : Opportunity in the Wind" is sure to invigorate participants and re-energize their passion for the motorcycle industry. Sponsored by Hot Leathers and The Legendary Buffalo Chip this seminar will give audience members the chance to converse, listen and learn from an impressive selection of successful and established bike builders. They will be discussing how they have managed to capitalize on their passion within the current climate and how they have successfully turned difficulty into opportunity.
Participating bike builders will include industry giants Kevin Baas, Brian Klock, Gary Mauer, Matt Olsen, Dave Perewitz, Roland Sands, Kirk Taylor and Paul Yaffe. During the session this veritable roundtable of specialists will be discussing how the industry has changed since they first started out, what they have done over the last several years to adapt to the current economic climate, what opportunities have arisen over the last several years as a result of refocusing on their business and how these opportunities have changed their business.
In addition they will challenge participants to search with themselves to explore their passion for motorcycles and look for current opportunities in the marketplace.
The seminar will be co-facilitated by legendary motorcycle photographer, Michael Lichter and public relations specialist, Ken Conte of Rise Above Consulting. At the conclusion of the seminar Michael Lichter will be announcing the theme to his heavily anticipated 2010 motorcycles as art exhibit at the Legendary Buffalo Chip during Sturgis Rally Week 2010.
A light lunch will be provided and audience members are encouraged to join the conversation, ask questions and take advantage of their time with these leading industry magnates. The purpose of the seminar is to assist retailers, media and builders in understanding that there is opportunity within the motorcycle industry and how to capitalize on it. Please RSVP to sarah@riseaboveconsulting.com
The V-Twin Expo will be held at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, OH and will host over 370 exhibitors and thousands of V-Twin dealers. and is not open to the public, only registeed dealers. For more information, visit www.vtwin-expo.com.

Heads!

This is Ryan Mackey, he won the AMCA bike giveaway contest. He flew in on sunday to start working on the project. I am really impressed by how smart he is. I was worried that I would have to do a lot of the work on the project, but Ryan is a natural.


In this pic my dad is pressure testing intake inserts in heads. This is a very important step in rebuilding motor.s If they leak you will have a ton of problems every time you fire your bike up.





This is what they look like when they leak, check out all the bubbles, this insert will have to be replaced.

Toy Run

My daddy and I went down to the sioux falls for the toy run for the crippled children's hospital.
We originally planned on bringing the 39 down for ole to ride, but he hurt his hand a couple of weeks ago, so he couldn't drive a bike.

Here is my dad heading over to the legion to pick up santa



All of the kids got presents, and some of the kids came out of the hospital to sit on the bike. It was a really special experience. I was really impressed by the whole operation and inspired by the nurses and staff that work with these kids every day.

Took the day off to work on my sears!

Here is the left case for my sears motor. It is pretty unconventional when compared to a set of pan or knuckle cases. There are two sets of flywheels in a spacke engine, go to www.pre1916scramble.blogspot.com to see some pics of my bottom end.




These are the shafts out of my friend Marty's top fuel motor. It made 800 horsepower. He kept pulling tapers, so he made up these hex shafts, and cut hexes into the flywheels with an e.d.m. He couldn't true the flywheels, so the machine work had to be 100 percent accurate. This is a cool idea that I plan on adapting to the sears.

UPDATES!

Jesse and I started to work on this 49 today. The rear fender needed a little repair, so we pulled it off.


Somebody cut the chainguard insert out, so we are going to weld in a different one from another fender and paint it to match. The bike has a lot of other details that need to be gone over as well. It should be a fun project.



I showed up at work early this morning and mounted Tim's exhaust. We just got it back from the painter, and the safest spot to store it was on the bike!




Here are a couple sets of panheads that my daddy has to finish up. They are ready to go together! One set is for a 65 and the other set is for a 48. They are so different from each other.

Larry's Oil Tank Repair Fix part 1

This is my friend's 46 oil tank. Somebody messed up the oil line fittings. So I had it sent to The infamous world renowned Larry Medwig. Larry did the fix, and sent me the pics to post on this site, so all of you could see how the pros do it!


HEre is a standard repro fitting from colony.



Getting ready to cut the hex off.




Where did it go! Larry is the man!

Larry's Oil Tank Nipple Repair part 2

Here is one of the nipples getting cut off.


Time to cut off the messed up nipples



Here are the old ones next to the replacement ones.




WHOA





The holes have been drilled out in this pic, and now they are being de burred

Larry's Oil Tank Nipple Repair Part 2

Here are the new nipples in place.


Here is the silver solder, and flux



Don't forget to flux the joints that are to be soldered.




In this pic Larry is soldering the nipples into the tank.





And the finished product! Larry makes it look so easy

The last couple of days!

My daddy finished up the transmission for Doug's 36 today. I love the way that these look when they are set up for with the chrome package. Check out the 36/37 kicker arm and clutch arm!


Early 36 kicker covers don't have a boss for the vent, and the case is spot faced where the fitting goes in. The casting is completely different when compared to later 36 covers. The top is different too, check out the stop for the clutch arm, I wish that hd would have kept doing this, it is a cool deal.



Here are some of the wheels that jesse laced up yesterday, they are very beautiful! He did three more sets, but they are all getting trued up.




Here are some prototype stainless steel pushrod clips that got mailed to us for approval. These are correct for 1940 to 1942 knuckleheads. The clip part is .020 to thin. The die is being modified, and we should have them in a month or so hopefully!

DB36 end of the day pics

Check out the crashbar, headlight and rear brake pedal! This biks is really coming together. I am in love! I am going to hook up the brakes tomorrow, and install the front fender light!


Check out the cad plated tabs that rivet to the headlight ring. This is a difficult detail to do, but it is totally worth it.

DB36

Yesterday The postman brought us some crashbars from my friend Larry Medwig. He pinstriped them, and they are beautiful. I love the little arrows on these things. The crashbar is the early 36 style, which everybody calls a three piece crashbar, but in reality there are over 25 pieces to it!


Check out the little square. I love this motorcycle!



And I finally finished plating the lower spring plates. They are a real hassle to do. They are gun blued, then clear coated. All of the reproduction ones are parkerized, which isn't quite right. They are good now though, so that is all that matters!

UPDATES!

Tim headed back to the uk today. we wheeled his bike out for a couple pictures. It is 80 percent done. He did all of the work and did a good job. It was fun having him around and teaching him new things. I am looking forward to seeing him in Daytona in February. This working relationship was good practice for when Ryan shows up in a couple weeks to rebuild his 45 that he won in the essay contest. I am a lot better teacher now, than I was before tim showed up.



I also got the wheels for my sears, they are awesome! I have a different set of rims that I am going to lace up to them. The front hub is aluminum, and the spokes are stainless, so I can get the front wheel put back together lickity split, the rear hub has to be re plated though.



There were a couple of these little tubes in some of the boxes I thought that they were neat.

Wiring shots of TIm's bike

I ran these wires a little shorter than stock ones, they look great!


Since Tim is running a mag, he cant put it in the stock position, We relocated it to the clutch pedal backing plate, It is a tidy set up, and I like it a lot.

Tim's bike!

Here is Tim on his rolling chassis.


Here is the motor before the pushrods were installed. It has parkerized early 36 frogeyes. It looks really neat



HEre it is installed in the frame with all of the oil lines on it. My friend doug did all of the nickel plating, it is perfect!




Here is the jewelery pic. This is one of the prettiest motors that we have ever done. Check out the nickel plated pushrod tubes, parkerized frogeyes and all of the other neat details. I really like this one. It is difficult to improve on the looks of a knucklehead engine, but we did it this time.