born free 4 video

Here is a builder spotlight video on Wil Thomas, I have never met him, somebody told me he designs shoes, but I am not sure on that. He has some cool bikes and is going to be in the born free show in june

Pictures of Brittney and Carl riding red bikes

Last weekend Dan, Brittney and Carl took a spin on old bikes while I was at working. Dan just sent the pics to me, I think they turned out pretty cool. Brittney makes the 41 look big
Here is my dad riding John's 48. This bike is awesome. I took it out yesterday.
Here is an action shot of miss brittney. This shot is timeless.

maiden voyages, transmissions, startes, clutches, nubs

This is an amazing pic of Herb Glass with his new 36 knucklehead that he special ordered in 35 with a 33 paint job on the tank. My friend RL from South Carolina posted this pic on the AMCA facebook page. If you guys have facebook, you should go join that group. there are over 1500 amazing pics on there. It is a nice place with free exchange of thoughts and information with out any attitude or politics
Wayne's 46 is operational and mobile. We have been tweaking it and putting in break in miles on it today. I have not ridden it yet, I will take it out for a spin tomorrow. When we finish a bike, my dad takes them for test rides, comes back with a list of adjustments, we make adjustments, then do the cycle all over again. I like to wait to ride them until after my dad or somebody else runs out of suggestions, then I can ride them with a fresh perspective and ear. There usually are only half a dozen things to work on if that.
Here is a cool pic of the riveted plates for a 38 to 40 4 bolt clutch. I cleaned these nice original plates up for Jim's 38. They are primo. This is the clutch set up that you want to use if you are running a 4 bolt clutch in your bike. the earlier bikes had just steel, fiber, steel fiber etc. and they would gaul up and get sticky.
Here is the primary all buttoned up and ready for service. I am waiting on some rear fender clamps to get painted black before I mount the rear fender.
We are working on a batch of transmissions, there are two 55s, a 37, 38, and a 47.
I got the starter for Jason's 65 all cleaned up and ready to go. I am waiting on a boot for the solenoid, then I can button up the primaries and start on the exhaust!
Here is a picture of my dad teaching dan how to co ax in a hole for the main drive gear race. A couple of the transmissions that we are working on had been run with the races loose in the case, so we had to bore them out for oversize races. When the cases were cut originally, the counter bores for the seals were concentric with the hole that the race goes in, so you can usually pick the bore up off of one of those dimensions, if they are shot, then you have to get a long finger for the indicator and dial in off of the hole that the bearing sleeve presses into.
This is the 38 case for my dad's bobber. it is pretty mint. check out the early drain plug, lack of date code and mintness of the castings.
whoa.
Here is a cast iron nub that one of our friends in michigan made. we are rebuilding his 38 motor for him. He couldn't find the correct 38 oil pump, so he machined these nubs out of a big block of cast iron and modified a 39 40 pump to work on his motor.
Here is the finished product. He did a great job, once this is painted it will be almost impossible to tell that it isn't a 38 pump.
one more pic of the case for my dad's 38, the two studs that the brake light switch go on are the same length as the rest of the studs. this has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I have seen some early original cases with the studs farther out, and some with all of the same studs. Do any of you guys have any comment on this? thanks and have a great april fools day

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 cool pictures from the weekend

st patricks day photos

Here is a neat picture of two rivets. the one on the left is a standard available rivet. the one on the right is a rivet that started out looking the same as the one on the left but had the radius re cut and reformed.

Here is one fresh out of the machine. these rivets are for 36 to 49 fishtails. I couldn't find the right one, so Delmar wrote up a program on the Lynx and I re cut the heads on a bunch of them

Here they are!

This is a cool project that we have been working on for a while. This is a brake backing plate for springers that will accept hydra glide shoes and brake drum which are an inch bigger than stock springer brakes. This is still in the prototyping stage, when we finally make them, they will be steel.

Here is a side by side comparison. Pretty cool stuff.

This is a ground piece of .250 plate for making a fixture.

This is the same plate.

and all finished up. This is for locating different coordinates on a 36 to 69 cam cover and cases. It would take a couple pages of typing to describe it's purpose and capabilities. Basically this plate could rule the world.

Here is a cute little drill bushing before hardening. We hardened it to 50 Rockwell c

This is a handy drill fixture for drilling the two holes in the fishtails for the mufflers that we are working on.

Here it is in action!!!

This is my friend Pete's case. The cam area was badly spider webbed and cracked. We sent it out to our friend M. in New Jersey and he welded in a plate and re punched the hole. IT turned out very nice.