Well here it is 2024. The years are flying by like the high line poles, to quote the late great Merle Haggard. I just turned 77.
I finished building a classic style chopper for a young guy who thinks he wants to be part of the lifestyle.
The bike came out nice and he loves it.
Shifting back in time, in 1970 I sold the bike I rode from Nevada to Oklahoma on in ‘69. I cruised back to Reno for a few months and fell in love with a girl there. I was riding with a small club in Oklahoma.
There wasn’t much going on and I guess I was just bored. Anyway, I sold my bike for $1100 and took off to Reno in a ‘62 Chevy. When I arrived there, she touched me but had a young child and a husband in LA. She ultimately decided she should go back and make up with him.
It was just as well; I didn’t have a Job or any money. I worked in a gas station my friends owned but they couldn’t afford to keep me on, so I drove on down to San Francisco to visit my old friend Roark.
Roark just got married and lived in a little apartment off Market street. I crashed on their couch for a few days and hunted a job up and down market street. Nobody wanted to hire a kid from Oklahoma. While there Roark took me to Winterland to see The Band. Fantastic, they had a giant light show and everybody passed joints around. Good thing Roark drove, I would have been totally lost and stoned. We also went to Fillmore West and saw John Sebastian and Buddy Miles. Stoned again, it was like going to a drug flee market.
I headed back to Reno after a couple of weeks. A guy named Crazy Mike let me crash on his floor. I was completely broke by then, so I sold Mike my Chevy for $225. His neighbor had a ‘56 Ford Ranch Wagon. It ran but only had reverse. They wanted it gone, so they let me have it for 10 dollars.
We towed it to my friend’s gas station and he let me borrow the rack for a little while. I pulled that old Fordamatic out and replaced the forward clutch plates. Stuck it back together and it worked perfectly. That was my first automatic transmission repair. I learned everything from a Motor’s Manuel.
I had about $100 left so I headed for Oklahoma in that Ford. That’s when gas was 30 cents a gallon. I went through Colorado. It wanted to see Aspen, so I went over the Independence pass and down into Leadville.
That old Ford ran great. It had a 292 with a 4 barrel. Real familiar with them, I had one in high school. I installed an overhead oil kit on it in Reno because they were bad about turning a cam bearing and blocking the oil passage to the rocker arms. You could tap into the pressure passage where the oil pressure sender was and run a line up to a hollow rocker cover bolt and oil the rocker shaft that way.
Just before I topped Raton Pass that line broke and I lost oil pressure. I didn’t notice it till I was out of oil. The motor got hot and stuck from the pistons swelling up, I guess. I thought I was screwed, but I was almost to the top of the pass. After letting it cool down and fixing the broke line. The thing fired right up again. It sounded a little loose but I made it to the top of the pass. I shut it off and coasted all the way to a gas station in Raton, New Mexico. I put three quarts of 40 weight blue velvet in it and two pints of STP. I made it all the way back to Oklahoma with no problems.
I think this was the spring of ‘70. My club buddies welcomed me back, and I got a job building bikes in a Texaco station. The owner, Lee Wallace looked for a way to make extra cash at his station because selling gas and tire repair and oil changes just wasn’t enough. So, he would buy any old Harley we could find, and I would fix it up, chop it a bit and we would double our money on it.
I split the profit with Lee. This job lasted till late in the fall. During that time I had to have my own bike. I saw an ad for a ‘47 Harley in the paper. Just $500 dollars. It was in Ada, Oklahoma. I talked my mother into co-signing for a 500 dollar loan at the First National bank.
We took my Ford wagon down to Ada and there was a bobber Knucklehead with chrome tanks. The back fender was cut off at the hinge. It had a solo seat and a springer front end. It fired right up and I was going to ride it home. But I got a couple of miles down the road and an overhead oil line broke and sprayed oil all over my leg so we loaded it on its side in the back of the wagon and took it to Lee Wallace’s Texaco station where I tore it completely down.
I had an old friend from California who had a Knucklehead he had been working on for years. He helped me build the engine. Turns out it was a 47 EL with UL flywheels. The 61s had a smaller bore than a 74 and a shorter stroke so to run UL wheels you had to cut about 3/8 of an inch off the piston skirts and use a 1/4 inch stroker plate under the cylinder to make it taller.
The old motor had been built this way probably in the ‘50s and it ran great for a long time but it was pretty worn out when I got it. Because of the short stroke of a 61 the pistons had a higher dome on them than a 74. The UL flywheels have a 4-1/4 stroke which was 1/2 inch more than a 61 at 3-3/4. So a 1/4 inch stroker plate under the cylinder was necessary.
Nowadays you can buy pistons with higher wrist pin positions so stroker plates are not necessary. Also the UL flywheels are 1/4 inch smaller in diameter so it is necessary to add an 1/8-inch to oil scraper in the cases. My cases had been done by a professional aluminum welder. I really scored a classic.
I was able to trade those beautiful chrome tanks for a Sportster tank, would Love to have them back today. The way Knuckle stuff is selling now they would probably bring $2000-$3000–thanks to Mike Wolfe.
I found clean set of rear radius rods off a ‘30 something Ford pickup in a junkyard. I cut them off and slipped them over the legs on my springer. I made a really clean 8 inches over stock front end. I raked the frame to about 40 degrees and molded it. That was my first raked bike.
Clayton plating in Oklahoma City charged 100 dollars to chrome a springer back then. For an extra twenty I got gold plated springs and a gold plated arrowhead from a wrought iron fence on top of the sissy bar I made out of 1/4 by 1-inch strap.
We had a machine shop fit a new crank pin and true the wheels. I fitted a new set of pistons and rings. I think we had to go .060 over because It had been bored a couple of times before. When I got the thing back together, I had the best looking bike around. I rode it all winter of ‘70-‘71. It was a bear to start but seriously fast when it ran.
I started college that fall on the GI bill. They were paying about 400 a month for a full load and I kept working at the station but some guy on a Honda tried to race me right in front of the college. I had a jockey shift on the original transmission with a 28-tooth countershaft sprocket from a VL. It had so much torque I would just ride the clutch and take off in second and just run off and leave everybody, so I was chugging along in second gear and this Honda is winding out through the gears and I’m staying right beside him when my rear jug exploded.
The head hit the frame right under the seat. It locked up. I had to call a buddy with a truck to rescue me. To this day I can’t remember who helped me. It was probably Lee Wallace.
Anyway, I found some stock Knucklehead cylinders somewhere and built it back with 74 FLH pistons. It was easier to start but not as fast as it was. God, I wish I still had that bike.
I’m thinking I may sell my ‘51 ford with the ‘51 Cadillac engine and buy an S&S Knucklehead and build another one. I would set it up just like the Shovel I just built except. I would make it a four-speed with a jockey shift. Probably ratchet top jockey this time and a tin primary and mechanical brakes. They stopped just as good as modern discs if you kept them in good condition.
They make an electric start kit for stock Pans and Knuckles that goes on the kicker side of the trans. You can keep the original oil tank, primary and clutch and it works fine. I hope they are still in business.
–Bill May
