Thursday, March 28, 2013

a weeks worth of time

 This weekend we did a huge batch of parkerizing.   Jesse and craig have been blasting for the last two and a half months to prep for it.   This is a lot of work and the process is pretty finicky.   The batch turned out pretty good, and we only had to redo a few parts.

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The parkerizing allowed us to get the rest of the parts for the 55, 65 and this 46 bobber.   This bike was found in a field in colorado and was in very sad shape.  It was a lot of work to fix up these parts, but it is turning out nice.   

 These are keystone plates, they were used on harley race bikes.  The top one is a copy of a stock one.  It is made out of the same blank as the right side one, so it has a hole in it for the case drain.  I didn;t lke the way it looked, so I asked my friend jack to waterjet out a new style one.  I think they will look really cool once  mounted on the bike.
 My friend Jerry sent me this awesome photo yesterday of a painting he is working on for one of the tiles in the Wall Of Death.   Thanks a ton Jerry.  It is a huge honor.   If you guys have the chance to see these guys perform, do whatever it takes to go to their show.   It is a great piece of American Motorcycling history.



 Here it is all shipped up with the frame and headed east.
 Here is Bill's 51 motor.  It is coming together nicely.  The end play is set,  now we just have to take it apart, clean and lube everything one last time, install the cylinder studs and its going together!!  Bill wanted us to build the bike around a reproduction frame, but has since changed his mind and wants to find an original one.  Do any of you guys have one laying around.  we have cash or parts to trade.   Thanks!
 Here is one of the crusty thirty eight motors my dad is working on. My dad spent the weekend patinaing up three sets of cases for crusty bikes.   His first attempts were a little light, then a little dark, but then he finally ended up with this look, which is spot on.   I cant wait to see the motors all together.


 and the saga continues. 




Tuesday, March 19, 2013

motors and frames!!


 My dad has been mowing through bottom ends.  Here are four straight bearing engines that have the flywheels in the cases. 
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Here is tims frame.  We have it all togethere and ready to go.   I have to weld the top motor mount and tank mount on, but it should be done today.   
 the next frame on the list is Jack's 36.  He bought this from the west coast.  It is a real deal early 36 frame.

 the top tank mount was replaced some time in the last 15 years, it is a ferrels one.   They are pretty nice.   The big problem with this photo is the nickle rod  that was used to weld the neck back onto the casting.  If you look closely you can see that there is a line in front of the dif hallmark. Somebody cut the front of the neck off and welded it back on.  When Jack bought the frame, it was painted and this was not visible.
 here is a shot of the front motor mount.  The holes look rough on the top, but they are nice on the bottom,  I have no idea how they got so banged up on top, or why?
 Here you can see the repair of the bottom rail on the left tube and the damage on the right.
 somebody did some serious grinding and cutting on the top of the backbone to fit a pan or shovel motor into this frame a long time ago.  you can also see where th e backbone is cracked in half.
 the flash makes this photograph, not the best,   but the seat post is very relieved for a rear head of a pan or shovel. the seat t yoke is pretty awesome and a big part of what makes this frame so cool.  If you know, then you know.
 uhh.
 here is what it looked like after jesse cut it apart.  we eneded up deciding to cut and replace the top tubes after this photo was taken.
and here it is in the fixture.   Still a bit of work to do on this frame, but we should be able to figure it out.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

old 36 video


Here is a video I put up on youtube a while ago.  It is almost at 200 thousand views.  I like to shoot these first start up videos with sandles on, just to see all of the comments that pop up.   Go check em out on youtube.  It is pretty funny

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

frames and engines and some cuba pictures

 We got petes 46 frame back from being powder coated.   It turned out really nice.
 here are some of the frames we finished up this month.  
 Jesse is making good progress on Tim's 42 frame.  Tim was in a bad accident with this bike, and it needed to have a lot of tubes replaced,  This is probably the second hardest frame we have had to work on.its coming along nice though, so thats good.
My dad is putting flywheels in cases this week.  Here is a quick shot of some of the ones waiting to go together.  
 I really loved this photo of this indian.  The bike looks like a futuristic indain custom. 
 A lot of the cubans would put swingarms on their frames to handle the rough roads in their country.  here is a pic of one in progress.
I want to find some of these bags, just so I can paint them up like this.  This bike belonged to a fellow who had a business with his brother.  they had a nice restored red and white car and they would rent both units out for parades and funerals.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

pictures from the Silver Sands Meet and other stuff thats been going on at the shop


 Last weekend I flew into orlando to attend one of our annual board meetings at the AMCA meet in Silver sands Florida.   As soon as I landed I went over to my friend Docs place for a nice dinner and conversation.  We staid up till the wee hours of the morning talking about old bikes and bench racing.  Doc has been racing since 62 and is a wealth of knowledge.  
 He road races ahrma with indians and this cam norton.  I am really glad that I know him.  I could type for hours and not cover all of the cool stuff that he has done in a short amount of time. 
 He is sponsoring Brittney's Race Program and provided her with a set of brand new racing leathers that were made in Germany.  They fit her perfectly.
 Here is a picture of a 1922 nera car.  These are such cool bikes.  They have hub center steering.
 The silver sands meet was jamming.  I found a ton of good parts, saw an overwhelming  amount of old bieks. and got to hang out with a lot of friends and make some new ones.  The new venue is really nice and a lot of fun.  Here is a picture of my friend Georges 36, it just got judged into winners circle.  It is a primo bike. 
 This is a really nice old 29 that I saw for sale,  
 This really cool four cylinder was at the silver sands meet.
 I saw this cool 40ua for sale at the Silver Sands AMCA meet it was a really nice bike and priced right at 17k.  IF any of you guys are looking for a cheap btsv,  shoot me an email and I ll send you a pic of the phone number.
 Here is a picture of me next to a donked out bagger at daytona.  Unfortunately there is not much good riding around daytona, so people show up to profile on unpractical bikes.
 I saw this bike over at the Eustis meet  I really like peashooters.  theyre so cool.
 Mike finished up the sheetmetal on Doug's 39   This bike is going to be really beautiful.  I laid down the decal on this tank.  That is a pretty long process.
 Larry is getting healed up and started working on Jim's 36 sheetmetal.  Here is a shot of the rear fender in process.  
 Here is a shot of the fenders.   They are so nice and green.  I cant wait to see this next to his thirty six.
 This is probably the weirdest part that I bought in Florida.  It is a big base r11 plug.   I have a few nos r11 plugs for wrs, but they have a small hex.  this is the first one I have seen with a big base and a big brass attachment point.  My friend Mo told me they are for FH harleys, which is pretty amazing
 Check out the electrode!!!!I love these plugs.
 This is a solid works drawing of brittneys top clam and hanlebar risers that my friend Andre is making for her race bike.  It is starting to look pretty amazing.  He should start machining sometime soon!!!
This is a sweet bosch zev magneto that I bought .  It has one big magnet instead of two small ones and this cool logo on it.  Do any of you guys know what vintage it is?  I have heard late teens or late twenties

Monday, March 11, 2013

Claudes old thirty six

 This is a cool bike that just went through our shop.  It is a late thirty six el that was the last bike my friend Ken Presson restored before he passed away last year.   It belonged to a fellow named Claude who owned the bike for 40 years.  He bought it at a junkyard for 25 dollars
 Ken always did really good work.  When I was sixteen I took a bus to davenport during christmas break and hung out and worked with him.  He was a really sharp guy

 I really like how this bike has black rims.  They were available in the parts catolog, and this bike had black paint on the rims before restoration.
 The bike had a 39 transmission and rear brake, so ken had to find the right parts.
 I touched up a bit of the wiring, put an original dash and the correct headlight on the bike.
 We had a skip piper muffler, that we put on it too,   but the new owner doesnt like it and wants one of ours installed