After 3 days of cold winds under a solid blue sky, on Wednesday temperatures started to rise. Florida looks again like Florida. Had breakfast this morning with several members of the American & European press. Italian reporters are here in big numbers. Good, they came with their beautiful wives and girlfriends. Attendance is growing by the hour. Too soon to put out some numbers. I assume they will be OK taking in account the squeeze on every American wallet.
On Beach Street, the Riverfront is revived with the presence of Paul Yaffe, Eddie Trotta & Tempest Cycles. The Limpnickie Lot got acknowledged by the 1st visit of Willie G. Davidson, his wife Nancy, son Bill and daughter Karen. Didn’t talk much to them but they sound in good spirit about the future of the company. Downtown, the Harley-Davidson products & accessories exhibition inside the Convention Center is a little bit disappointing. Sign of the recession, displays are less fancy than they used to be (a lot of money saved not trucking these past huge displays). Outside, the Genuine Harley Ride-In Show still attracts about 120 motorcycles with this year a heavy presence of antique and pre-Softail era bikes. At the Speedway the main reason to go seems to be the demo rides of Harley, Victory & Boss Hoss. Rally goers are taking a very close look at the new Indian Chiefs. At Destination Harley in Ormond Beach, past the procession of bikes and cars getting parked (expect 30 minutes for a motorcycle and 45 minutes for a car), you get a chance to visit JP Cycles, PM, RC Components, then choose a Harley among the 1300 in stock (I didn’t count! but I have a reliable source) offered by Bruce Rossmeyer in his dealership. (Picture “Dirty Trumpet” by Blings Cycles). To follow…
About the “real Harley years” and perfected OHV motor:
IMO, to truly appreciate the 1958 OHV motor, a person must subscribe 100% to World War 2 engineering. Only then can a person appreciate the 1936 Knucklehead and appreciate the A-ha ❗ moment when William S. Harley figured out he could use the timed breather valve suction to pull accumulated oil from the top of his cast iron heads. Talk about a real-life Frankenstein monster…the Knuckle is more related to a Flathead than a Panhead.
From 1936 to 1958 the OHV motor progressed, with a series of continual small improvements over 22 years to arrive at the 1958 motor. If you follow the history, then you can understand why creating the larger diameter pinion shaft, wider bearing surface and bearings were made, to support the (right) flywheel and clearly see that 1959 was the last year of the old Harley-Davidson®. 1958 was the last step to OHV perfection. Whether the ’63 and later top-end oil line benefited the motor or not is debatable, since turning off the throttle would send more oil up to the heads on OHV motors from 1948-1962.
1959 was an important year, not for the motor, but for the transmission. When the neutral switch boss was added to the ratchet top, it was the foundation for the * “Sport Shift” rocker clutch jockey shift, which is the keystone link to ocean surfing (weight compression and release). “Sport Shifting” is still relatively unknown, because it just is. The difference, is the shifting pattern that the (34006-74) FX shifter cam provides.
1960 was okay too, the motor stayed the same, but it represents the year model when Harley-Davidson departed from the historic motorcycle design of the exposed 8″ headlight, in a streamline style that chased English design. The motor became more complicated in 1961 and weight began being added. IMO, 1960 was when Harley became a hog.
* My advise is to not ride “Sport Shift” unless you can control a skateboard. That said, I don’t believe you need to be able to perform “Ollie’s” or “Stale Fish” maneuver’s on swimming pool rims, but you must be able to make at least 300 degree turns on two wheels and at least 180 degree back-side tuns on two wheels and know whether you ride a skateboard “goofy” or “regular foot”. Ask a kid to show you, since they know it all.
Sweet bike!
Yeah it is. Triumphs and BSA’s had a respectable piston size. They were always accepted with everybody.
The compression and un-weighting I spoke about is illustrated in that 17″ MacBook Pro ad to the right of this column….that guy on the wave (on a sport-shift) would be in 3rd gear, in the apex of a banked turn and getting ready to shift back to 4th. As soon as he does, he’s going to be launched on a spring-loaded trajectory that will take him just under the lip of the wave where he’ll either get caught by the neck and thrown on dry reef, or change direction at the top and jam down the front face of the wave and way-y- out into flat-water, then crank another deep gouging bottom turn, and repeat the same pump sequence before he flys over the top of the wave getting launched into mid-air. All takes place in about 5 seconds.
Asphalt is slightly more forgiving and traveling up a canyon road with no intersections, you can twist full throttle and still not choke a Linkert carburetor. When you get to the top, your head will be buzzed and spinning.
Kirk,
RE:
“….you can twist full throttle and still not choke a Linkert carburetor….”
Speaking of Linkerts:
While looking over some old scooters at Arlan Ness’ (to get a look at a stock Linkert choke linkage), there was this Panhead with 2 front heads and two polished brass Linkerts (one sticking out-a each intake port), raked back at just the perfect angle….. Talk about “old school cool”…….. !!!!!
VERY tempting.
By the way, are Cotton’s foam floats still available….???
This new cork float doesn’t look like it’d float too long in tap water, let alone gas.
-nicker-
Sure Cottens floats are available. Good ones too. Won’t log and swell. You can contact him over at http://hydra-glide.com/
It’s a bummer we can’t free-breathing motors in California anymore. We began losing our freedom in, I don’t know 1990 or so, whenever they created the helmet law. Our friend and builder Pat Kennedy left the state because of that. He and Brooke moved to Tombstone where he could ride free and even carry a open-firearm. Wild West over there.
Now with all of the EPA hysteria going on…..trying to set the standard for “overkill” on the pollution issue. How much does a motorcycle pollute the air anyway? Not much. Not everybody rides their old iron everyday. Bikers don’t have any clout left here.
Seeing those guys over in Cuba, riding around, jumping on their bikes to visit people, no helmets, they have it over California.
Still out here, if you have a clean set of cases with OEM numbers, there are some sympathetic Hwy. Patrol inspectors that will pass your bike as an exempt original, if you apply for a duplicate “lost title” from the DMV. It’s nothing you can count on, or build an industry on…but it’s a last ditch possibility. Don’t let them do the same to you in your state.
I know one thing for sure, if you have someone in your corner with clout and you speak up, you can back the state down…just like the M/C industry did with that first TARP money… they forgot to include motorcycles and motorhomes and boats…something like that and we squawked and Nancy Pelosi quickly added us to the list.
You have to make some noise though or they’ll ignore you. But they won’t if you keep quacking. The government is like a slow moving sloth and if your prepared you can win.
Hey, speaking about laws and freedom, check out book “Orwell” from Keith Ball. This book is like 1984 but with bikers and it is all about freedom.
We will be discussing it in our next book club. Oprah kicks ass!
My ’59 motor in a ’55-57 frame will be on the road soon. I got way-layed by a home bath re-model that involved concrete footing in our 59 yr. old home and a cast iron tub trap lateral that I had to carefully core-drill, chip and jackhammer to uncover. It’s taken all of Feb. and half of march to get squared away.
I’ve altered an OEM style oil filter bracket so I can use the OE style ’58-64 external oil filter plumbing. Bottom line is, using the ’58-64 motor with a 6V, 2-brush generator, I had eliminated the 3-brush generator and made a more reliable machine using stock style Harley parts and further crammed more hardware into an already jam packed chassis. Hid the horn under the left fork tin. This baby is stripped down to riding essentials.
I’ve written one episode of “Mechanical Horse” which focuses on re-manufacturing a V-Twin replica motor and points out assembly tolerances to look out for.
If you decide to invest a Ferrari® amount of money in a Panhead kit, we at http://hydra-glide.com will guide you through the dark passages. But, you have to have a camera and you have to ask BEFORE you commit to areas of the build you are not familiar with.
I know as much as anyone about these kits. We deal in 61 and 74 cu. in. motors only (because hop-up adds too many uncharted problems and solutions to the mix).
Hydra-glide.com is a free site and accepts donations. It is not my site, I’m just a hanger on, but my motor and drive train deep-resources for Knuckle and Pan are only a phone call away if we get stuck.
“Mechanical Horse” is a “drama-free” series proposal that may or probably won’t get picked up by a network. They want to see 12 episodes, which I would have no trouble writing, but I need to see a lump sum of cash before I write any more. I have my shop studio of 750 sq. ft. to tape the first 2 episodes, and then we’ll need to knock a wall out of (vacant) Dumont’s bar in El Cajon (next door to http://stettsironhorseranch.com) so we’ll have more shop space to finish the season’s taping.
Matters not too much if we don’t get picked up. I still have a Knucklehead bob to finish and that will be available at hydra-glide.com to view. All under the heading “Repop”, you have to register with the site to view.
Panhead’s site is in the Netherlands, so while we’re sleeping over here, there’s always pot of coffee on and someone’s in there working 24/7.
“While looking over some old scooters at Arlan Ness’ (to get a look at a stock Linkert choke linkage)”
If you want to see the Linkert choke linkage install procedures, motor over to http://hydra-glide.com/ and if you register you can view the “Repop” section. Scroll down to:
“Linkert Choke Wire and Lever Installation”
That rod needs some mods or it will never fit. But once installed correctly, you get that nice 3-bump click-feel. Something about that spring-ball resistance says “Good Morning!” everytime I operate the mechanism.
RE;
“…see the Linkert choke linkage install procedures, motor over to http://hydra-glide.com/ …”
GeeZuz… now ya tell me.
-nicker-
Enjoy the ride… I wanna ride one of it, pretty cool…
Ill be bc for my business here in Daytona you may checkout my site at
http://winwininspections.com/about/