Happy thirtieth wedding anniversary to

My mom and dad. Here's a cool pic of then back in the eighties and a cool pic of fly cutting a knucklehead

early mufflers, early knuckleheads and early intake overexhausts

 Miss Brittney and I finished up a  batch of early mufflers last week.  We did this batch to help pay for some of the costs involved with our wedding-- which is only two weeks away!!!  Here are six mufflers that we are sending to our friend Katsunori in Japan.  We have had a bunch of orders from Japan for these mufflers,  It is pretty neat.  I hope that we get to meet  them when we go to the mooneyes show in december. 

 I really love how these turn out.  they are a lot of work, but perfect in every detail and every part is made in the USA

 OOOO AAAA

 We still have four that are not spoken for,  shoot me an email if you need one for your project.

 Here is Jim's 38,  I spent the morning bolting the rear fender on for good.   This bike is turning out sooo nice. 

 The fender straps were painted black in 1938,  I wish that all fender straps were painted black,   it is a lot better than parkerizing.

 here is a prototype brake backing plate for a springer.   It is machined out of steel and is for springer front ends.  but it is dimensionally larger than stock springer brakes.   That is because it was made to use hydra glide brake shoes and a drum.  

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Here is a picture of the special cam and centering pin that had to be made for this project.   The springer front brake is probably the only bad part on a knuckle or btsv.   We are going to put this prototype on my dad's 39 and see how it performs for the rest of the summer

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rainbow

 Here are the wheels for the jd that I am working on for my friend John.   It is a 28 j.  

 Here are teh rebuilt rockers.  I put grease zercs in it rather than alemite fittings,

 fork all put together and ready to go

 here is a pic of the new fenders fit up.  They are replicant metal fenders.  They bolted up pretty nicely.  The front fender braces were off just a little bit.  Everything is at the painters right now.  It is going to be cream with red stripes.

 here is a cool shot of the bottom of the rear fork leg.  Check out the anchor for the steering dampener.  This little modification will make it like a modern bike on the highway.   Bikes with out steering dampeners are so squirrely 

photos

 this is probably my favorite picture of my 36 .  My friend Joe Mielke took it for me.  This was right after or before my iron butt runs a couple years ago.   I have since broken the frame while doing wheelies.  I have to re tube the seat post this winter,  then I will put it back together and prep it for our up coming alaska adventure.

 Here are a couple of other pics that my friend Joe took of the born free bike.  This is probably the best pic I have seen of the dash.  It is very difficult thing to photo graph because of the different curves and radiuses. 

 Joe is six and a half feet tall, so his regular photos have a bit of a different angle than ones that I take haha

this is probably the best picture that I have ever taken in my life.  It is from last year and it marked the first time that brittney rode a knucklehead on the highway.  It has been copied and pasted all over the internet since then, so I guess other people must like it too.

Wauseon 2012 photos from the reverend Stanley d miller

One of the highlights of going to wauseon last weekend was getting the chance to hang out with Stanley. Here are four pics that he just sent me from his trip

showclass magazine born free video

Show Class Über Alles from Show Class Magazine on Vimeo.


here is a video that is really long and about show class magazine and the born free show.  There is  a clip of brittney crying at the 16 minute mark

wow!

My dad picked up the tanks for the 38 on his way home from wauseon.  The fenders were painted quite a while ago and the tanks were too,  the painter was having an issue with the decals staying on the tanks.  after tons of work and hardship he got them to stay.  These tanks are soooo nice.  Now I can finish up Jim's 38  I love pre war knuckleheads.  

Also of note, my blog just passed the 350,000 view mark which is amazing to me.   I started this site as a way to keep up to date with customers and friends as well as document some of our travels.   I am glad that so many other people enjoy looking at it too.  I know that it provides a lot of people with good usable info for their bikes and I hope that you guys keep enjoying the site and riding your bikes.  have a great day

Vern's 46 with bags mounted and miles ridden plus brittneys new bicycles

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here is a shot of Vern's 46 it has 47 miles on it.  Everything is working well on it.  It is a joy to ride.  I had to stiffen up the seat post a bit and tighten up the rear brake adjustment.  I will ride it some more this weekend, then I can move onto sorting out the 39 and the  45 wl

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 When I was thirteen or fourteen I saw a skyway blue 46 with blue emblems and I have wanted to build one ever since.  I love the way this bike looks.  It is the perfect knucklehead.   Vern has had this bike for over thirty years, and now it is in good enough condition to take wherever he wants too.   I hope he wears it out and I can restore it again.   We had it judged in Wauseon  and it scored 93 points.  Which is really good considering the points hits we took for having a 12 volt generator, 12 volt coil and fancy headlight.  It would have scored 98 points if we had put the proper six volt electrics on it,  but since vern wants to ride his bike,  it is a good compromise to make for safety and practicality

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here are some of the bicycles that Brittney got at wauseon and in Chicago.  they are in different  states of repair. There are a lot of cool styling cues to pick up from these bikes.   My favoriet is the maroon and red dayton.  We are going to paint her race bike very similar to that bicycle

 

 check out the kiddy seat, it was made in holland and mounts behind the rider.   She also got one that mounts on the handlebars. 

 here are some cool troll doll grips.  do any of you guys know what vintage they are

 check out the koslow bicycle dealer sticker on the seat post.  Koslow worked for excelsior on the big bertha hill climber projects and went on to make his own over head valve conversions for vls and ulhs.

and the right side of verns 46 

cool raw bf bike pictures

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I was looking through some pics on the shop computer and came across these two pics.  I really liked this bike raw.   It turned out nice after being painted, but i think that the paint and plating made it look unreal,   when it was still in the raw metal form it looked more hand built and artisan like. 

 

 here is a cool pic of Brittney and I with the bike raw.  We are getting married in a few weeks on august thirteenth, which is a big part of why i have not posted much over the summer.  There is so much going on right now in my life,  I am very fortunate to get to experience the things that are going on,  it is just a lot,  at least I wont have a big wedding on my list of things to do in the future.  With all that being said  I am so excited.  She is such an amazing person and I am very proud of how hard she works and her creativity.  I am a very lucky guy and am so excited to grow together and push each other to excel and accomplish whatever we decide to do together.

Wauseon Goodies

 Here is a cool 56 panhead that I took a picture of at wauseon.  It was a whirl wind trip to get there and even though we were only there for a short time, I got to spend a lot of quality time with friends and family.  This meet is absolutely amazing.  If you have not been there, you should try to make it.

 This is a nos windshield for an m50.  The box is sooo big and cool. the windshield is neat too,  it is springer sized and we will put it on one of our touring bikes with a springer.

 The furniture was a gift from our friend Paul in Chicago.  It belonged to Harry Mollenaars sister . Paul gave us a dinning room table, a buffet and chairs.  They are 100 to 120 years old,  Harry ate a bunch of family meals at these same tables.  we are going to put them in the barn.   I am so excited and feel very privileged to receive such an amazing gift with such good antique motorcycle vibes and energy.

 one of the oil tanks is original paint and has 10 percent of the decal on it.  we will put this tank on my dad's 40 el

 some nice restorable outer primaries

 More bits and pieces.  we didn't get anything extraordinary at the meet,  just a lot of good consumable stuff that you end up using when restoring bikes.   I like to call this meat and potato type parts

 I love these seats.  One of my friends had a original paint 65 with a rigid mounted sportster seat like these.  I guess you could order them that way.

 more consumable stuff. 

 some cool kicker covers.  these need the typical cracks repaired, but they are workable pieces.   One is a 37 and the other is a 48

 check out the screw in this front rocker box.  It is taking the place of the blow out fitting that was used in late 36 and 37.   luckily we made some of the blowout fittings up a couple years ago

 cool kicker pedals

 brittney found this box of knuckle goodies underneath a pile of seventies play boys

 a cool finned aircleaner cover and primary cover for a shovel head

 some good consumable tail lights and dashes.   we were out of the 55 and later tail lights,  glad we have a few more now. Check out the horn,  I have never seen one like it before it is 2/3s scale of a delco horn and has a 47 indian style starburst grill on it.   This will make a cool bobber horn someday.

 a nos superglide ignition switch  woo hoo.   Someday I will be very happy that my dad bought this.  haha

 check out the light bar that my dad bought in dixon.  These are so cool  we are putting one on Jason's 65 flh

more bits and pieces.  I love old motorcycle parts  I wish that they could talk and tell all the stories that they have been a part of over the years.