47 trim and stuff

My dad trimmed out the fenders on the 47 today. It takes a couple hours to bend them around and make them fit right. There are a lot of guys out there that just throw the trim on with out thinking about how it fits.

Here is the front fender, the fender light holes are drilled, I have to jack the bike up and mount the light tomorrow.

Here is a pic of the floorboard and rear brake pedal. This 47 is pretty early, it should have plastic grips and metal floorboards.

Some Oley treasures!

Here are some of the goodies my daddy brought home from oley.

Here is a 42 EL bottom end. It is a pretty high (for 42) serial number. This has original paint (white) late style lifter blocks. A couple of my friends have original paint 42s with earlier lifter blocks. I guess the factory changed lifter blocks sometime during the 42 production year.

N.O.S. 51 to 53 sergeant stripes!!!!!!!

I had to stand on our mock up knucklehead engine to take the pic of the parts. Check out the tach drive on the cam cover, it is driven off of the cam.

Christmas comes at least every week at Carl's Cycle Supply

I got my axle stay castings back from the foundry today, it is unfortunate that the casting numbers don't need to be used for repairs, because they are so cool. I have to drill the .375 hole in the back, and trim the pour hole.

Here is a pair of the repair pieces to turn your sour pear frame into a sweet peach. I am going to write up a quick repair article for the amca and aaok.com showing how to use these in a fix. I am pretty excited about this project and am happy with how it is turning out.

Hanson windshields

Rolled up and ready to block the wind and bugs

rolled down for a sleak profile. Some guy was selling these windshields for 800 bucks in oley, My daddy and John bought one. They are really neat,

36 experiment

I pulledthe front rockerbox assembly off to modify the return fittings, and see how everything was wearing in with each other. The rocker pads that hit the valve stems were centered, the custom rocker arm thrust washers were holding up well, and the shafts were good too. This is a really cool pic, there are not very many bikes you can do this with.

Here is a 38 to 47 fitting compared to a 36/37 fitting. See the difference in the hole size. It is a .030 difference. My bike has reproduction baby food jars on it, and they have the later style return lines, I figured since the lines were bigger, I should run the later fittings. I think that modifying the fittings will help me make the bike a little more oil tight. I will know this weekend.

Here is a pic of the modified fitting. I brazed the end of it, then I drilled it with a .090 drill in the lathe, then reinstalled them. The logic behind this is ----> 36 and 37 ELs have the same amount of vacuum as later bikes, I think that the smaller hole will make the suction stronger, and hopefully suck more oil out of the baby food jars.

knuckle lower tins

Here is a pic of a cracked lower tin. I straightened out the bottom tin before welding.

Here it is all welded up!! I used some really tiny wire and a tig welder.

That is some mighty fine penetration. I like to sand the welds down with 3m roll lock discs.

1 and 3/4 seat jewel die

I got the three piece die for forming the metal shell for the 39 through 41 accessory jewel that harley sold in their accessory books. I have wanted to make this part for five years, I am making head way on it. This makes me so happy.

Here is a finished piece on the male piece of the die. You can see the female die in the upper right corner.

Here is the third piece that forms the inside chamfer. I still have to figure out how to crimp it all together, I will probably spin/crimp it on the lathe.

The first two are repros, the second from left is polished. The second from the right is an original jewel that I destroyed for reference. The end one is an intact jewel.

Primary check. Floorboard check. coil check. This bike is coming along, I am trying to get it done for a local show this weekend.

I took the chainguard off of our original paint 37 to take some measurements for one of my friends that is making up some reproductions. Check out the grease on this thing. HOLY MOLY

The 37 chainguard is in the middle, the one on top is a 36 to 38, and the one on the bottom is a 40 to 57 chainguard.

The 40 to 57 chainguard has a longer tail section, I didn't notice this difference until today. The radius is also different . Check it out!!! WHOA MAN

custom motersyckles

High pipes!!! This bike is coming along well, I still have to set up the primaries and put the lights on.

The seat on this bike is off of a wrtt, it is an original pan that was recovered by Dan Pugens. I really like this bike!

Here is a pic of the other bobber and my girlfriend.

I am going to print up some new business cards.

I broke my house key today. It was bent, and when I tried to straighten it out, it snapped in half.

Here it is brazed back together!!!

After a half hour I had a finished product, almost as good as new! It works well. Yeah yeah, I know it only costs $1.15 to copy a key.

dinky day

wa wa wax Today was kind of a dinky day, Jesse and I cleaned the shop and took care of a bunch of small projects. I finished wiring the 47, built a couple of headlights and talked to a lot of my friends in Oley--apparently I am missing all of the smoking hot deals on good knucklehead parts.

Here is the dash for the 47, check out the cad plated side plug, what a beauty!

Yes that is snow in the pic. I was joking about the weather turning while I was on the phone with one of my friends from California, somebody must have heard me because it started to snow an hour later.

chopped up brake pedal mount

This brake pedal bracket was bent in half. I don't know who wrecked the bike that this bracket came off of, but i would bet three dollars that they either walk with a limp, or they're dead-- or both(limping zombies). Either way the bracket was messed up, so I didn't have to feel bad about cutting it up.

Here it is bent and starting to take shape.

Welded up!!!

Finished ground and mounted, this is a slick looking set up, I still have to make some short floor board brackets for this thing.

Randy's 54

check out the nipple plug on the oil pump. I have only seen these on 54s, they are kind of an odd ball deal

Check out the late 54 only d-rings with six mounting holes and two ribs. I have only seen two other sets besides the ones on this bike. This bike also has an oil sight gauge, which is the coolest accessory of all time. I should have 500 of them in about a month.

We built this bike five years ago for our neighbor Randy, He broke the throttle cable while doing wheelies with the bike. The outer cable broke inside the handlebar, right by the spool. It was kind of a challenge to fix it, but I got it done, and put 40 miles on it, this bike is really nice, I love the sound of the dual exhaust!!

BB47 almost done!!!

Motor pic, I am still hung up on floorboards and a chainguard, ugh

I still have to trim the fenders, and put the fender light on, the bike will look completely different with the fenders trimmed out.

a couple wiring detail shots

This is a great pic if you are trying to figure out how to wire up your bike. Check out all of the 1946/1947 wiring flags-- I made every one of them. I am glad that I have a girlfriend, because I can't imagine what a girl would say if I tried explaining the joy I get out of having the correct flags on m wiring harnesses.

Here is a pic of how the wires are run to the stoplight switch and oil sending unit. I made the push on terminal for the oil sending unit too! 47 is the only knucklehead that used a green wire for this application

1947 circuit breaker to coil wire.

Crimped, squished and soldered

Here is the tool for crimping it, You have to bend over the center before you crimp the tabs around the wire's cloth coating.

Here it is laid out.

Stripped wire, this is where it all starts.

B.B. 47 progress

My dad set up the primaries on this 47 today. I am going to wire this bike tomorrow.

I put the exhaust on, and the tool box. This bike is coming along nicely, should be done pretty quickly, I am hung up on getting the floorboards, bat terry top and chain guard painted.