perks of the job, primaries and wheels

Pete's cam cover showed up for his 40 motor today. It came packed with a couple of old shirts to prevent it from getting scratched.
oh cool the shirts kind of fit. they don't look as good as the cam cover and Pete's 40 cases.

Dan and I laced up a bunch of wheels yesterday. the shiny set is for Pete's 46, and the other ones are for original paint or funky bikes. We are going to do another batch in april for two sidecar bikes! which is nuts.
I know it is kind of over kill to paint the inside of the 65 primaries with Dolph's er44, but I like overkilling things.
Here are all the parts that we are sorting out for the 38 clutch and the 45 wl clutch set ups.
Here is the motor/ trans mount for Doug's 39 it has the big numbers still and the early wrap around reinforcement with smooth seat post. later 39s had the small numbers, later wrap around reinforcement and a relief for the big 74inch motor that was supposed to come out in 40 but didn't meet the deadline.
These wheels are for our 40 el and Delmar's 45 EL. They are kind of funky, but will look nice once the bikes are together.

some HD museum pictures from this summer and misc. photos from the last two days

Here is evil Brittney. I though that this cut out was pretty neat. I have only worked on one sportster in my life and it was one of Evil's. Dale Walksler owns it and let me change the clutch on it, it was a pretty cool experience. It was neat to get a picture of Miss Brittney at this display in the museum.

Here is the first magnum 45, This bike is legendary, it is a wr bottom end with a sportster top end.

I think that this is a 16 Harley mail delivery rig. This bike is so cool, I would love to build something like this. Check out the lettering and the striping on the box, it is unreal.

I spent the morning working on lists of painting, plating and polishing that still needed to be done on this batch of bikes. There is another sheet, but I didn't get it in the picture.

and here is all of the stuff rounded up for blasting, straightening and re finishing. This should wrap up the rest of the black paint for the five bikes we are working on right now. Some of it will be powder painted and some will have to be body shop painted.

WOOO HOOO we got some more 42 to 57 brake crossover shaft spacers in. These little guys are one of the few parts that Harley made that didn't have a part number. There is a similar adapter for 45 front brakes, but the male threaded portion of it is smaller than the male thread on these spacers which is 5/16 32.

Here is the 1938 only dash base for Jim's 38. It doesn't have spacers on the side mounting screws, and they are a 10 32 machined thread rather than a self tapping screw like 39-46 dashes. The post that the speedo light knob goes into is also shorter than the 39 and later posts. It is nickle plated, The dash base on my dad's 40 and 41 el are also nickle plated. I took this picture before I rebuilt the speedo light spring plate and the generator socket.

These are the wires that I am going to use on Jim's 38, they are new old stock and in good condition. I will have to cut them to length, but that isn't too big of a deal

45 and a 55

Delmar and Gerald came down to hang out for the afternoon. Gerald borough his 25 jd motor to get in the mix. It is pretty nice, but has a few issues that need to be addressed. Delmar brought down a gas shut off rod that he made. These are so nice. The three of us have been working on figuring out how to make old bikes from the thirties through sixty five gas tight, and are on our way. There is still some work that needs to be done on this, but we are getting there.


KNURLING
N
U
R
L
I
N
G is so cool. These look just like oems.



While Gerald and Delmar were here, I took advantage of their strength and had them install the motor in Ed's 55 panhead. This looks so nice. I still can't lift anything over 15 pounds with my left arm.




Gerald asked if I needed any other motors installed, so I had him put Dave's 45 motor in. HEre it is. THis bike is going to be so cool.

Carb pics

Some of our friends From the motor company are flying my dad and I out to York to do a tour and talk to some of the employees on wednesday. We will be back on Sunday. So I am trying to get some projects ready for Jesse and Ray to work on. My dad is gearing up to do a batch of carbs.... like 18 of them! All of the bowls in the front row are for early nickle plated carbs, that are still off at the platers.


Here is a dirty nasty bowl for a 45 that probably has not been cleaned since it was new!



This raised casting code is in all 38 and earlier aluminum bowls




The upper left bowl is for Jim's 36, the lower right one is a bowl that I have been holding on to for years. It is the hardest to find linkert bowl of all time, It isn't mentioned in any books, I have only seen two other ones. It is for super late 38s. It has the early casting date on the inside, and is machined with a fly cutter before the drain is drilled and tapped. Later ones were counter bored-drilled andthen tapped. Anyways, I am going to put it on Jim's 38 carb. I have to do a wild fix on the stem hole, but it will be worth it.

motors motors and more motors

My dad is almost finished up with Jason's 65 motor. We are waiting on a batch of cad plating that is supposed to show up next week. The box has Jason's original cam cover screws, lifter block bolts, and d ring bolts in it. We have some set up ones in the motor now and will switch them out as soon as it shows up. I love how industrial and massive this motor looks. 65s are soo cool.


Here is a pic of Bob and Dave's 45 motors side by side. These things are cool




Here is a stamp from a project I am working on with a friend.

rising tides

I have been making the best out of my few extra days in South Dakota. I worked till 11 last night and prepped and ground a bunch of castings and welding. Here are the squashed birds that we are going to use on Don's bike. These are for 41 and 42 deluxe sport solo bikes and impossible to find. My dad's op 41 had a mint one on the front that I pulled a mold off of to make some for my bike.


I spent this morning installing the steering dampener on Dons bike and putting the front fender on. This bike is soooo beautiful The pictures do not do it justice.



I set up the holes for the lower horn bracket and drilled the wire for the fender light terminal. This is all very tedious work. Lots of fun though. I am kind of on the fence about using this hub cap, I think that I might end up putting a cms one on. They are smaller and make the wheel look a lot bigger. What do you guys think?




Here is a pic of Dave's wl motor finished up and ready to install. WOW!

charter flight tips and 45 motors

So I have some mixed news and a life lesson to share with you guys. I was supposed to fly to South america to hang out with friends on Sunday Morning. I booked a charter flight, but I missed it due to extreme blizzard conditions. 18 inches of snow fell in Aberdeen On sunday. The thing that I did not know is that charter companies do not refund or transfer the money that you spend with them to other trips. The next available flight that I could get on was four days after the one that I missed due to weather. I am still going on my trip, but instead of having 7 days in the sun, I will have two and a half. The lesson that I learned and the mistake that I made that hopefully some of you will learn from too--is to not book charter flights during winter. The good news is, that I get an extra two days in the shop to build cool bikes and work on neat projects :)


Here is Dave's Bottom end. It is a 45 WL, it is sooo nice



Top end installed




Heads installed! I have to put the manifold on to align the cylinders, then we can torque everything down, adjust the valves and GO! I love detailed out 45 motors, they are so nice looking

circuit breakers and the tedds blues

Here is a pic of a repro oil filter bracket. click this picture and zoom in where the radius meets the flat part that the filter bolts too. there are two cracks on each side of the bracket. These need to be welded up otherwise the bracket will break, which is exactly what you don't want a part to do.


The two hairline cracks are really the easy parts to fix. the orientation on the bracket is off quite a bit. IF you just bolt it together, the oil filter sits at a 10 degree slope and is not parallel with the wheels. You can fix these problems by heating the bracket up, twisting and bending it. The first one I did a few years ago took me five or six hours of messing around, now I can usually do them in three bends which is about a 45 minute job. I got the oil filter where I want it, but now the line from the motor to the filter is too short! I will make up a proper line in the morning and move onto the next task on this bike. A lot of people complain about poor quality reproduction parts-- I used to as well. It is still better to have something to work with rather than make it from scratch



I put some surgi lube on the door knob for my dad's room and shut the door to cheer everyone up this morning.




Here are a bunch of circuit breakers that my dad fixed up over the weekend. You have to completely dis assemble the bases, clean them, re grease and re assemble them, other wise they make all sorts of noise which is very annoying.





Here is one installed on John's 38 bottom end. they are sooooo beautiful.

wheels and saddles!

I mounted five tires this morning, I was in a groove lol.


I tried to take a picture of the center of the rims, but it didn't really work out the way that I wanted it to. Harley didn't polish the center of their rims, and neither do we. This is a neat detail that a lot of people fail to replicate.



I also got some genny saddles in the mail today, shoot me an email if you want one. They turned out great, I used up the prototype ones and am ready to sell them to the public.

I built a bunch of hubs and wheels today. I like to plug fit the bearings. What ever size is a tight fit, you drop the roller size down 2 sizes. Here is the chart for the nine hubs that I did today.


Here are all of the parts that jesse cleaned up for me. What a bunch of work.



I knocked out all 9 hubs and started lacing up wheels, here is a wheel for a 48. I like to set up the endplay for the star sleeve after the wheel is laced up. It is just easier.




And here is the same wheel laced up.






And eight more!

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!