Daytona bound!!!

I am heading out for daytona today with my good friend Brian Klock. I have some fun stuff planned for the AMCA and the limpnickie lot. I am having a kickstart and handshift demo on wednesday and a linkert carb class on Friday. My dad is letting me take his 39 el for a demo bike, and the president of the amca is bringing his chief, major props to these guys for letting complete strangers start and shif their bikes. These guys are true enthusiasts. I hope that I get a good response, and people enjoy this project.

cut down floorboards

Here is a cool pic showing all of the different stages of the process. Layout -->cut up--> welded--> ground and ready for mounting

I c-clamped the two ends to a big thick piece of aluminum while I welded them together

Here is a cool checkerboard thing a ma jig.

Here is the board all laid out and ready to cut. I found the center of the board, and measured out from the center line. I have the numbers at work, should post them, because I will probably lose the piece of paper.

fitting 41 to 46 tank trim

Here is the finished tank, holy moly, it is a beauty

Here is what it look like after a little bending.

Here is how it fits from the package, see the big gap in the center.

I match the radius of the strip to the radius of the tank. You can check it next to the tank right below the mounting strip

finished 46 exhaust

Here is a pic of the finished product, They are nice and clean, all of the brackets are pretty well hidden.

Here is the straight on shot, this is the first exhaust that I have ever made. I just used pieces from old drag pipes that my dad has had around the shop for a long time. I think that it turned out really nice, it took a lot of time.

Here is the bracket that I made for the top pipe, it is 3/16 thick, and drilled and tapped for a 5/16-24 bolt.

Here is the mount before I welded it to the pipe. The spacer goes through the top hole for the sidecar mount in the axle stay. It is shoulder is .750 and .150 long. The main section's diameter that goes through the hole is .585 and 1.000 long. It has a .315 hole that goes through the center of it. This is a good set up, and I will probably use it again.

2008 sturgis magazine handout

Last year, the city of sturgis interviewed a bunch of motorcycle businesses. They interviewed me on behalf of our shop. It was pretty neat to be included in it. My favorite part, is when they asked me what I would be doing if I didn't work on motorcycles. I said "I haven't really thought about it, I don't know how to do anything else, so I better make this work"

39 all cleaned up

I got the fenders switched out, and the rest of the bike cleaned up today. Man this thing is amazing. I remember when we were first restoring this bike, it seemed like the most important thing in my life. It was all I thought about. The bike has over 16000 miles on it now, and is a great running and riding bike. I am taking it to daytona next week, should be fun,

painting emblems

I painted a bunch of letters and spears in emblems yesterday. This is very difficult and time consuming, It takes me about 45 minutes to do the letters on each emblem. I use a coligraphy pen. The trick seems to be to put little dots of paint in and push the paint against the stamped in lines that make the letters. this means that you have to rotate the emblem a lot, so that you are always pushing the paint into a nook or cranny.

I hated cleaning the grease off of the chainguard. I think that this was probably the dirtiest, greasiest 1939 chainguard in the country.

THis is what happened to my dad's front fender when he ran into Richard Watson's chief. Luckily no one was hurt, I guess they just got up, laughed it off and gave each other a hug. Richards indian shatterred into six pieces...

Here is a pic of the bike before it got cleaned up, I should be done with it today, will post pics tonight.

I love this bike with all of my heart!

Probably the sharpest definition in history

Pretty cool stuff, the radius seems to be off a little bit.

Whoa man, that is a thing of beauty

panhead rocker block tool

Here is a pic of the new tool I made, the ground plate has four 5/16-20 holes tapped into the ground steel plate. I can torque these down to oem specs, so that they distort the same as when they are bolted to the head. It is kind of the same principal as torque plates. I would like to get some 7/8 grips for the handles. Then I can make motor noises while they are being honed.

In this pic, you can see the pic that is drilled in the oil cavity to convert the blocks to full flow oiling. An 8-32 allen screw is put into the o.g. hole. This process can be reversed easily if the desire to convert it back to oem specs arises.

The bottom blocks have .002 to .003 thousandths ground off of them. The dowel pins are pulled out of the top block and it is sanded. The dowel pins are put back in. check out the beautiful shiny surfaces on both pieces. OOlala

Period fishtail

First I cut two slots 180 degrees from each other in the pipe.

Then I heated the pipe up with a torch and bent the tang up. I should probably measure the angle of the bo-dangle, but I just estimated it.

In this pic, I have welded in a triangle plate to fill in the gap.

This is the finished product after some grinding and polishing. The whole process took about an hour.

Taillight/centerstand clip/ license plate bracket hole layout

The owner of this bike had one of his friends replace the center section of the fender with new metal. It was an ok repair and is not noticeable once the fender is painted, but the holes for the tail light are missing.

First I masked off the fender, found the center line of the fender. Then I did some layout, it helps to have an original fender to go off of, I used the fender flap from a 1940 rear fender. In this pic the holes have been layed out, and the .125 center holes have been drilled.

This is what the finished product looks like. I left the tape on the fender when I drilled the .250 holes. You have to be careful not to drill into the tire. I can attest to this statement, because I have done it. Be careful when you pull off the tape.

1936 to 1939 spark plug wire clip

Here is the finished clip, the whole process took fifteen minutes,

In this photo you can see the rebent clip, I just have to trim the end of it.

I tapped a 5/16-24 hole in the male piece. In this photo I have a 1940 and later clip bolted to the piece. I will modify the later clip to make it look like the earlier one.

This is a piece of ground steel that I e.d.m.-d out the profile of the early choke lever clip on.

1946 AGT 80% done

Here is a 46 that I am just finishing up for one of my friends in Milwaukee, it is a medium green and light green. This bike is really beautiful in person, it has a bit more flash than the restorations that I am used to doing, but I really like the bike, and am having fun working on it.

The light green looks white in this pic, the closest thing I can compare it to is 1955 hollywood green.

I love all of the different finishes in this pic, lots of stuff going on.

A moment of silence for the departed

My soldering gun died today, we had a lot of good times together, and have worked on many old bikes together. Thanks for the memories, and rest in peace.

Mar from Japan

This is a pic of Mar and Me in Davenport 2008. The bike in the back ground is our original paint 37 EL, I will post more on this bike later.

The effect that 1936 Harleys have had on my education

Here is my 36, I dropped out of college to restore this bike, the fact that I couldn't sit still or stand college also helped me feel better about getting out of that place. I assembled this bike in three and a half hours with my dad and friend David Monohan at a tech seminar in Davenport a couple of years ago.

Here I am at the ripe age of 19 with John's freshly finished el, I never got to ride this bike, which is a bummer, I have already made up for the lack of miles on this one, by riding my 36. Notice the blue gloves, this reinforces the pedestal statement from below.

This is the bike that I put off college to restore. The first 36 that I restored with my dad. I remember how great it made me feel to be able to be trusted with the work on this bike. I have done a couple since this one, and am working on a couple more, but the first one is kind of like your first girlfriend, you put it on a pedestal.

re tubed 36 frame

The tubes are spliced underneath the floorboard tab, A hollow sleeve connects the original frame tube with the new one it is held in place by four .375 plug welds and the seam is welded. All welds are ground filed and sanded smooth.

The original downtube was cracked right at the neck forging, so I cut it off smooth, and drilled out the original tube. I found some 1.125 d.o.m. tubing and cut it at the proper angle. I had to drill the id of the 1.125 tubing out so that I could fit the 1" tubing inside of tit. All of the shiny areas are from plug welds being welded then ground smooth. I have to retecture the neck casting, then braze the joints for the right visual effect.

Frame is together in this pic, sidecar loops need to be welded and brazed on still.

This is a frame that I had to change some tubes on, and weld some brackets onto. It was a fun project, kind of challenging, but fun. Notice how the toolbox mount isn't welded the entire length, the slash cut tubes, and the 760 number on the footboard tab. I plug welded the tubes in the neck, and the frame tubes into the 1.125 tubes, the frame is straight and structurally sound in pics, but had to be restraightened after all of the brazing.

First Post

I am looking forward to reading through this site in a couple of years, and checking out the posts relating to bikes that we are building, parts we are making and trips that we are going on!!