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Assembling a "basket-case" in one day "Part 1" |
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Getting There
 About a month ago, I met a museum visitor named Pat. Pat and I had talked about his dads old 1946 Harley, and discussed the possiblities of him selling it. I expressed interest, and a few weeks after his visit, he gave me a call. After agreeing on a deal, I realized that Pat lived in Bloomington, IL, which was right on the way to the Davenport Swapmeet. That got me thinking -- what a great project for a friday at the meet.
Without seeing the bike at all, we headed to Bloomington. We even left a couple hours early to make sure we'd get to the meet on time. We pulled up to Pats at about 7:30 a.m. after driving right through and Pat was out walking his dog, ready for visitors. After a hot cup of coffee, Pat showed us to the garage and began to tell us the story of the bike.
His dad bought the bike in 1963. His dad wanted a Knucklehead for some years, and when this one came along, he took advantage of the opportunity. But there was only one catch, he bought the bike taken apart. Plenty confident in his abilities, his dad knew that rebuilding the bike would be no problem. Well, one thing led to another, and he would post-pone his plans to restore it. Since he never got to the project, the bike had been laying in pieces in the garage for 45 years.
When we opened up the garage door, I knew we had something special. The bike was a '46 Knucklehead, a seventy-four incher, in original red paint with red saddle bags. A beauty, but in parts. I began to take a closer look -- the frame looked great...a little rusty, but pretty darn straight. The forks looked good as well. And the fenders and tanks weren't dented up a bit -- and you know how hard it is to find good sheet metal for these old bikes. This was turning out to be a pretty nice bike.
 I dug in further and found that almost each and every piece, was laid out and sorted just as it had been taken apart more than 40 years ago. The motorsprocket, nut, and primary chain were still sitting in the primary cover still soaked in grease. The transmission and clutch were sorted, clutch plates cleaned and all. The fenders even had most of the hardware still in place. It looked like almost every part was there.
I made my way over to the motor and transmission and it seemed like everything was in pretty good shape. The motor wouldn't turn, but looking at the overall condition of the bike, I figured we could free it up with a little elbow grease at the meet. The transmission was a bit tight too, but we quickly took the top off and found that everything looked pretty good. A little Kroil and the problem would go away.
We loaded the bike up, box by box, into the already too full trailer. I was becoming more and more confident this build was going to go well. We said our goodbyes and we were back on our mission.
Next stop -- Galesburg, IL to see my old friend Don Lipsky.
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