Can I Get This Forgotten Harley Davidson Running? (I Just Stole It)

today I'm stealing my friend's motorcycle now I'm pretty sure they're on vacation if not this has a chance to get a little awkward we've been friends for over 25 years and I've never seen this motorcycle or heard it run so let's open the door and start digging a good friend will bail you out of jail but a best friend will be sitting right next to you which is kind of ironic because here I am stealing my best friend's motorcycle this is pretty much a twin to my old my dad's old Harley I'm gonna say it's a I'm gonna say it's a late 60s Ironhead but really we all have those people in our lives that we can call for help or just to have a good time and Marshall and his family are those people now I couldn't think of a better way to say thank you for 25 years of friendship and always being there then to get this old bike out of the garage and running for him tell me we have electric start why would we have that man you're kicking Craig that's going to take some of the fun out of this dang it it's really clean my fingers are all nice and straight the tank looks good I say the tank looks good that's like it's a tank okay it's not horrible we should probably keep moving too so we don't get caught really this is the actual first time I'm seeing this motorcycle I've never seen it before [Music] let's get out of here before we get busted don't forget these air filter covers air filter battery box cover all the good stuff let's get out of here Craig I think I hear sirens [Applause] [Music] oh these wheels are so cool you got like that big lip on them uh there's a name for them and I forget what it's called but they're neat well [Music] [Applause] I'm not sure what I got myself into on this one I don't know first time laying eyes on it it's a pretty simple setup battery Kickstart generator right side shift hey I guess first thing we're going to do is we're going to pull the plugs make sure this engine turns over and then I look there's no oil in the tank so it's probably all down in the crankcase so we'll address that make sure the engine turns over try to get spark and then fuel system and once we have both of those we're going to kick like days to get this thing to fire up all right let's see it's the only place that starts the start this is a coil coils up underneath the seat that's interesting it doesn't look hateful okay Dan let me see your flashlight mine's dead thank you I'm not seeing anything obvious in the cylinders everything looks pretty good A little wear on the walls but it doesn't look like it's tight here let's give it a see if we can turn it over that sounds good right yeah put your thumb Over the Hole see if we're building compression on both cylinders see the front one first ready oh yep back one yep okay I felt that okay this here they're not impossible but they're known for being a little finicky all right well hopefully we can get enough fire juice in there to get this run I love how they put the oil pump right on the frame rail it's outstanding choke that's not doing a thing what's that like a little accelerator pump I Wonder is that where points would be let's look okay look at that we found the points so far easy peasy how do they look Craig we'll need cleaned up for sure I'm gonna hit him with a little Emery and turn the key on I'm gonna put 12 volts and if I flip them points we should see if we can get spark let's try that I don't see if that's good enough to at least get some sort of spark through it let's start here with 12 volts I wonder if this is a positive ground system I I need to look at that you need to check that because I don't want to screw that up it's just interesting seeing something for the first time let's I'm going to look here at the wiring quick this is where I have a book somewhere 59 to 69 manual Yamaha Can-Am zoning ordinance my snowmobile that's a spider that was a Jeep okay I guess this is the manual I have [Music] thank you [Music] okay got it and I think so everything's showing that I know what I'm doing I'm just kidding I don't really know what I'm doing oh yeah you'll be fooled there for a second correct I know get in there yeah there I'm grounded that's grounded where do we got light so we got lights up here do we have a light turn on up there I don't see no light yeah I don't think anything's turning on this year yeah it is look where we got a red light up here do we have anything up here okay so we have some power going through the system did we get any spark here from the here at the points oh look right in between there I see it so we have juice going to the points well let's see if we have anything coming here to our plug wires if this thing's gonna have a spark it's gonna be pretty awesome I'm gonna need your help here what do you want me to do and you gotta look for a spark I'm gonna give it a couple boots here give it some hotspot ready yeah [Applause] hey we got spark no this is almost too easy how about the front one check the front one ready yeah we got Spark actually a pretty decent Spark no way okay so we have a spark I don't know my gears and everything with these bikes but it's got to be late 60s early 70s is my guess mine was a 68 and had the same carburetor the tilston carburetor my point setup was different though on this than this one so there's a little couple little differences but it's still right side shift It's gotta be I don't know I'm gonna figure it out though by the time we're done here this is a this is a nice looking bike it's hard to believe it's been sitting since the early 80s now I'm not I'm not even making any of this stuff up that's the really funny part this isn't YouTube magic this is I just went and took my friend's motorcycle out of the garage and I'm gonna see if I can get it running okay anyway we have some spark that's awesome that's actually really awesome we got to take care of the oil let's see if there's any any pumping action probably can't oh wait no it's coming yeah it's like kick it it's cleaning out the crankcase and coming back into the uh coming back into the tank Craig is it possible that all this bike needs is a new battery a new oil do you imagine that like no joke could you imagine that clean up the points this carburetor has to be a little concerned I won't lie oh floats rotted through oh shoot yeah it's not supposed to have hole in it um but dude if we did some like gas plugs change the oil and this thing fires up that would be nutty I'm excited though that's going to take me 18 days of kicking to drain I found a plug on the bottom we're gonna get the old oil out we're going to put some fresh stuff in and a battery and then maybe we'll hit it with a little juice and see what will happen back to the parts book Dan you know how much we all love going to the parts book I love it I'm that weirdo that uh reads Parts books for fun oil pump assembly valve tapers crankcase oil strainer oil separator bushing [Music] yeah that is an accelerator pump on that carburetor what does that mean as you get into the throttle it pumps a little extra fuel into the system I wonder what I have to take that off without messing it up will that be big enough right looks like somebody hammered on it [Music] seems kind of violent what can we do there Dan get a Pneumatic torque clamp totally mackerel that's tight all right do you have the right tool to get that off or get it off I do oh mackerel yep I got the right tool this is your primary so your clutch would be behind here crankshaft comes out goes to what would be like I don't know these have compensators like the newer ones primary chain to your clutch see anything this here would be clutch adjustment that's not where I'm putting oil I guess the oil is going to go in here so now I gotta take that one off I do have the right tool for this though that's what you say now yeah apparently hair dog is this why they didn't fix it it's because everything was crusted shut no this isn't coming apart too bad a little silver breather there okay so that should have drained the transmission in primary and depending there's actually a chance that took away some of the crankcase oil too because that's a lot of oil in there that's a couple quarts and I think I think this is only like 24 ounces or something I have to read the book again but I believe that's only 24 ounces so we probably took out some engine oil too so we're going to get oil and then a battery and then I think we're gonna start kick starting and we're gonna see what happens okay so we're gonna throw 24 ounces of this in and I should probably be using 60 weight oil instead of 2050 but all they had was 20 50. I'm gonna get this thing running and then we'll go through and we'll drain stuff again and put 60 weight in that'll just help clean things out a little share oil so I guess guess we're good there it is tell you we're not going to go as tight as it was maybe it has to be that tight nope it needs to be that tight right there no more no less okay let's get some oil into the oil tank too because I'm pretty sure we drained most of that out through the trans and primary this carburetor really has me concerned these things are notorious for once they're not working they just don't work this thing's gonna run I know it I Feel It In My Bones Dan in my bones right in my bones let's dump this oil in my oil dump I do miss having a 55 gallon drain oil drum but I decided it took up a lot of space in the shop and I don't need it like I used to so now it's five gallons at a time my friend I'm going to start bringing my my oil you're not where am I going to put it Craig where am I gonna put it you've got a barrel you can dump it outside like the rest of us I'm going to cut that out nobody dumps their oil outside you can dump your oil in our flower beds just like the rest of us cut that out you're supposed to put it in a creek on the excited scale of one to ten how excited I am to kick this thing but I tell you what when we heard fire up I am gonna be I might even have you kick it all right I'll do it will you all right well you did okay Dan Dan okay we got oil spark plugs we'll put new plugs in when they come I went to the parts store would you believe they did not have parts for a 19 something 60 something I am befuddled befuddled thought you were gonna say you're a buffoon okay get the tools off here are you about ready to kick it I think so my friend kick it man I hope it's about ready to fire up I'm gonna clean these points a little more I don't want to be uh kicking and kicking and we got bad why won't they put a magnet on the bottom poor design all right could have designed a better flashlight in my sleep let me hit this with a little get some paper here notebook paper works good for this sort of starting fluid because it dries fast okay we're gonna get them points nice and clean just like that okay I didn't touch this carburetor yet and that's kind of by Design yeah because these things are not fun to work on so we're gonna see I'm gonna double check spark here can get grounded and then this is going to come up here okay Dan table up my friend table up we're gonna set the table down a little bit we're gonna kick this we have some fresh oil in the system I have news plugs coming I they didn't have them at the store but they'll be here in a little bit I still got this old carburetor I have not touched the fuel system yet we got fresh oil and I'm gonna double check that we still have spark and then we're just going to spray it a little bit and see if we get any sort of life out of this motor then we're going to tackle the fuel system and take it from there that's all hooked up key on a little spark okay we got spark we got compression oh man I'm really not looking forward to kicking this thing why not ah it's gonna kick like a mule what's going to make this worse than all the other bikes you've kicked I don't know probably nothing it's just in my head but here we are an hour let's see what happens [Music] foreign we need to get some gas to this thing how exciting is it running how long I I'm guessing the sticker said 81.82 so hasn't running 40 years no way no way is that is this even I have no idea what's going on with this carburetor well kind of just figure it out as we go you just pump some gas in it'll be fine that's what I'm thinking well that's no good the hose is split like all over so we're gonna just pull that off oh oh wait what carby's a little loose let's get this squared away here let's not get too Ramy right away let's get this off there gauge your safety Squints yeah that's bad okay okay I'm excited I'm still excited work now am I going to be able to stick this in there oh yeah plenty now let's see if gas pours out the carburetor yep okay so it all just came right out the vent line thing all right let's see if we can get this thing to fire up maybe it'll run under with some gas and some starting fluid some I don't know we'll see Dan you ready my friend I'm ready okay I might need you to do stuff we'll see all right sweet I'm always ready to do stuff yeah get ready with that spray and if it fires just keep giving it little whiffs thank you there you go it is running [Music] [Applause] yes that's like 40 years dude this things has been sitting in the shop doing nothing oh what I got oil oil coming out of that line maybe that Line's just loose that's still looking good um let me grab a wrench and see if that's just loosened up yeah I got some leaking here too okay so probably build oil pressure Okay so we got it to we got it to like fire right so it ran for a second that's amazing that's amazing uh I I still think this carburetor is going to be a huge issue for us you got to figure that out but right now we have some oil leaking out of our oil lines that are feeding the top end here so I'm going to cinch them up hopefully hopefully it's just yeah see that one was loose I think it's just a matter of doing some cinching oh that's tight enough let's clean that off help tell us if we got the leak resolved um figure out how to get gas into that carburetor I wonder what would happen if I just plug that let's try it this is the vent line I'll be honest I don't understand these carburetors very well I've only ever worked on one of them in my whole life I picked the exact wrong set of pliers to do that kind of job foreign so I don't exactly understand all the ins and outs with them but carburetor is a carburetor the principle is all the same so we just have to figure out here what's what that's the spirit that's what I was thinking ouch I hate these clamps they're my least favorite clamps oh for frog snacks I wonder if I could put a cap over this if I can get that to stop leaking I'm getting some really gnarly gas here out of the accelerator pump I'm going to clarify this for everybody all I'm doing right now is trying to get the bike started okay I'm not restoring it I'm not pulling apart the engine I'm doing the bare minimum to get this bike running because that is the first step in having fun so what that'll do is hopefully it'll get my friend excited about it and we can get our old Harleys out and go for a ride take the ladies for ice cream or something like that so if I can at least get it running and I can get it to fire up with a couple kick starts I think he's Ship Shape we can always put tires on it we can always go through and correct little issues as we go but getting it to run is definitely the most important we got it started now we want it to stay started that's running yeah it's borderline I'm going to put this lid on though a little bit so that when it falls I don't get gas everywhere I just get it some places [Laughter] Jank it'll be fine it'll be fine there's a very good chance I'm gonna get zero gas out of this carburetor it's just going to be gummed up it's my gas okay let's do this again it's going to be really exciting when this thing Falls turn that on give it some hits of that we're gonna do this hey it rained longer good catch oh yeah this is completely off oh I'm just gonna leave it there until we wanted it shorter I don't know let's try it again what the heck do you want to just hold the gas thing yeah why don't you it seems like it's gonna seems like a thing here you go okay all right throttle I punched a can across the room oh [Music] a little more running off gas oil pressure light went off federator light went off yeah yes yes so that's it the carb is good I don't know if it's good but it's good enough it ran do you want me to open a door or something um I guess if you want to be a loser I'm gonna see if I can get this thing to idle a little bit under its own power [Music] circulating dude it's idling neglected needed here are we still pumping oil out of that it's like we might have something coming from somewhere probably takes new push rod these are cork seals on these tubes um you know so they need to swell up again need to get some oil running through this system you know that's going to help everything oh my word I'll be dipped I want to see here if it'll start without starting fluid ah it likes this yeah the carb is just way dirty oh got a little kick back here oh now we're squirting with the accelerator pump looks like we took care of most of that oil leak I don't really see anything spewing out right now oil light comes out right away I should have hooked that idle cable up so now that I have the gas tank cleaned out and ready for fresh fuel all that's left to do is put in the new plugs install the new battery we're going to run fresh fuel line and a fuel filter and this thing is going to be ready to go good Tim uh-oh how are you doing I'm doing all right how's vacation always goes yeah for sure plenty of fun when did you get home late last night and yeah I'm I'm putting some stuff away here and uh I noticed the sports Sports is gone so uh which Sportster yeah so kind of a little nervous and jerky here but uh before I call the cops or anything uh you don't know anything about it do you um um what's that I was I was going through a tunnel you were breaking up what are you doing this morning uh they're filing police reports or finishing my coffee one or the other how about you grab your coffee and I'll meet you over at your dad's in like 20 minutes that sounds like a much better plan I couldn't tell if he was I think he was a little nervous so I'm going to take this thing around the block quick before dropping it off at my friends to surprise him his dad and his son oh man first ride in 40 years pretty cool on the road for the first time in 40 years and I gotta remember here right side shift second gear we have uh we have some breaks this is cool third year Transmissions a little sticky fourth gear we have all the gears we have decent brakes oh boy stop son that definitely needs a good tune-up good going through but holy mackerel it's running and it's on the road for the first time in a long time it is looking awesome there it goes foreign make sure everything's sparking the transmission the clutch the brakes they're all okay engine seems to be running honestly really good for sitting for 40 years and having that uh having that style carburetor on it this bike has a ton of potential it cleaned up really nice I am so excited my buddy's back in town from vacation and I figured you know what I'm gonna double down and I'm gonna surprise both him and his dad so I talked to Craig this morning gave him a call I was either going to call Craig or the state police figure out where the Sportster went and once this once it's a easy and it's going to be a good bike to just hop on and go for a little Cruise get the wind in your helmet the bugs in your teeth you know all that sort of good stuff putting stuff away from uh vacation and all of a sudden it wasn't there and it wasn't there it's been the same place for a few years starting to rain a little bit I don't like rain in a movie that's always the turning point oh boy first gear do I have brakes yeah I got some brakes so Craig said we should uh I should come down here he'll be here shortly because I thought it was still in pieces right yeah but it's in one piece well I don't know he might he might show up in a wagon wheelbarrow or wagon I don't know yet that's true we never know what to expect no what do you think Bruce it's been a while oh my God oh look she likes to run yes those are like the original pipes and everything yeah I'll be honest I don't know much about it I heard it's a 71. yep it's Kickstart only that's fun oh my God lost a couple pounds lost a couple pounds it's right side shift yeah that's neat that's neat when you're trying to stop at a stop sign yeah yeah because you got you have to rethink everything oh see you got both both the both the gases on so yeah and we got the uh we got the original tag here from Reading Harley-Davidson yeah how cool is that uh I think it was 20 21 or 2300 did you buy this new it was a year old okay yeah it was a year how many miles on it is that tense on the end 1880 or would it be eighteen thousand eighteen thousand yeah that makes more sense that makes more sense yeah I just it was running up there the whole time and then the accelerator pump stopped accelerating um I'm just the fuel filter's a little dirty now horn works foreign for punishment I'll say you are okay so that's how you kick it yeah I know I can I remember that well definitely looks better here than in the garage who cleaned the rims up people have people for that obviously it's not dialed like you know it needs tires well yeah you would be covered in sweat yeah yeah but it looks like you were at Dorney Park or something I know I feel like it macro I had 15 Amish kids watching me they were all laughing at me that was fun yeah I bet I remember putting the the extra Chrome on the uh the the foot pegs you buy the foam foam Chrome foot pegs and cut the rubber off at the end so nobody can see that see the Chrome yeah oh yeah so you buy the Chrome pegs that are normally covered by the rubber yep then you cut the rubber so that they can see that you bought the Chrome pegs exactly man yeah it's so cool back then I'm surprised the clutch cable still working yeah yeah because that was I rode this home from Lancaster one time from work without without a clutch at all oh really yeah well I'll be honest this morning this first time I wrote it oh so I I'm glad it worked too all right guys that wraps up this video we got this bike running after like 40 years of sitting and uh we gave it back we have three generations here and now they can have fun with it and enjoy it together I'm looking forward to the next one don't forget to like And subscribe this video here's two more I know you're gonna love them check them out [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The Bearded Mechanic

Views: 991,819

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Id: MciMjGz8i-4

Length: 31min 13sec (1873 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 11 2023