Forgotten Harley Sitting over 50 Years — WILL IT RUN?

here it is oh ho so about a week ago I got a call from one of our YouTube subscribers named Tony who said he had a bike that might be up my alley a 1954 Harley-Davidson KH the bike had been in Tony's family since he was a kid but the problem is it hasn't run in over 50 years so today is the day we're going to take a shot at getting this bike fired up for the first time and a half a century I don't care if these tires are 70 years old Chris if this thing runs right I am absolutely taking it for a ride this bike it looks like a really nice example but I'm a little bit worried this KH never actually ran it so we're going to find out exactly why he didn't run it and we're going to hope it's just because he didn't have time worst case scenario we're going to be clearing that bench off and I don't like working on K model Eng that's no good oh boy wow if ever there's a shortcut not to take it's running a bike with a dirty oil tank it'll contaminate the engine and it will not be long until it needs a complete rebuild oil Tank's coming off I know that's your favorite job Chris K model unit construction it's actually Harley's first unit construction setup where the motor and the transmission is set up in the same case they came out with a K model in 1952 and it was an update to their 45 cubic inch model so they started the Harley 45 the Harley Flathead twin in 1929 and ran that in the WL model all the way through 1952 they made very few of them 52 Chris yours is a 50 50 yeah so Chris has number seven off the line of the 1950 WLS which is where they're like transitioning into this K model they were probably already had this in development at that time now were these 55 instead of 45 that's the cool thing about this bike in 1954 they actually increased a displacement of 55 cubic in they updated the cams in the top end which made for a much more powerful bike on top of that this is a 50th Anniversary model which is rare in its own right they only made about 1,600 of them I probably have another one of these oil tanks and this one looks like it has a hole in it I really I would say that's definitely a hole in the oil tank we basically have two options we can knock out the dent and try to weld it up but we do not want to ruin this chrome second option we can try and get lucky and see if we can find a replacement oil tank inside the museum that looks like an anos one this is different y yeah okay now here at Wheels Through Time there are a ton of potential places that we could dig up the proper oil tank Dusty and a little rusty cool scall of paint job still got the bracket on the back hey you guys haven't seen one of these oil tanks around here no no all right one more spot so it turns out none of our options were as good as repairing the original tank I knocked out the dent and welded it up and did my best not to disturb the Chrome that looks real good that was completely the right decision anytime we can fix the parts that were original to the bike it's a win I'm going to take this outside put a little bit of gas few screws some rocks and gravel in here just shake it it'll help break up all the rest of the debris that's on the inside we got most of the big stuff out so get this as clean as we can and hopefully we should be able to just continue using this stock tank Tony's dad was actually a famous racer his name was Dan Neely his friends called him Buzz he raced Harley-Davidson KRS in the 1950s and 60s all over the country he was actually nationally numbered and won a ton of races the KRS that buzz race were actually based on the very same platform as the bike that we're working on now when I visited Tony and picked up the bike he actually gave me his dad's racing Leathers vests and steel shoe great displays from for Wheels Through Time so the more we dive into this bike the more I'm realizing that it absolutely hasn't been run since it's been put back together I'm not even sure the bike's ever been taken apart I am a little worried about the carburetor also you know this thing's been sitting for so long there's really no telling what's inside the carburetor that float is one of the old cork floats and that is nasty useless I'm going to roll with this carburetor because it looks absolutely beautiful so we'll just do a little clean up so cool story about actually chasing down this motorcycle I never actually planned on buying the bike when Tony first called he said he had some really rare parts and there was one part I had to have so I don't know if you caught up with us on our show about the 1939 crustation when we found the really rare Rhino bags that's only half of the puzzle this rhino seat 1938 and 39 only is so incredibly rare when Tony sent me pictures I just had to have it one of the best parts of the trip to pick the bike up I also bought this really cool 1951 ajs matchless sidecar Enduro racer Tony's dad Buzz actually used it in mud runs and jackpine type of Enduros all over the Midwest it's 500 CC what it's got a swing arm that's a Harley muffler on there there's the map the roll chart this bike hadn't run in 50 years either but Tony made me a deal I couldn't refuse I had to buy it anyway so running a bike is one thing but taking something that's been sitting over 50 years and trying to ride it is completely different I mean the tires are close to shot uh we don't know if it shifts we don't know if the clutch works I mean problems are potentially endless Chris let's put this battery in this side before we put the oil tank in I bet it'll be easier where does the hot wire go to on the K model I don't want to take this tank off speaking of dude do do with key yeah there's two switches up there there's no key that could present a problem what's the one that's running in that Loop that's clutch cable look at this key in the tool boox do they fit it's got the Harley key chain on it it hasn't fit oh that one fit which side is what you know no okay that one spits and that side and turns okay so I'm assuming well man we're going to have to um oh we just keep going further backwards we spent 10 or 15 minutes trying to figure out the wiring on this bike on everything else that we work on we pretty much have the wiring diagram memorized but this bike being something different good thing we have Google okay so did you figure it out yeah the hot side goes off the so the positive goes to the horn the positive to the horn huh perhaps yet another reason good y okay turn got the key turn that key on hit the horn button y yeah yeah yes left is light ride his ignition give me ignition Chris it's it's dull in my lights up here when you do that so is it yep there's fire to the point so let's get a little sandpaper we're going to hope that the coil is still good on this oh yeah that's good good blue spark that's a good coil Miracle all right so we've repaired and cleaned the oil tank we had the carb apart reinstalled it got a new battery installed we've got spark this bike I'm thinking is ready to run okay we're buttoned up on this side I'm going to go ahead and put my 3/4 of a qu of oil y Chris I think we made a lot of progress so got is this our fuel line we got to put back on um we need to check and see if that fuel line even holds suction because if it doesn't we're likely going to be uh in a scenario where we've got to I can't really do the the whole lip test cuz I just Tred to to cover that one up there's no way that's going to hold fuel it's rubber coated braided on the inside and it's just going to come right out of that yeah that'll work rubber fuel on it is I got my side buttoned up we got gas we got Earl K model summer yeah I can't wait just in case you wanted to see one run we do that to here it Wheels Through Time all right we tight we tight man but what I didn't do was set Theo we'd have been kicking that suckle would have went to wide open back the throttle off real fast now go yeah I can hear it hidden okay good stuff okay let's bring this sucker down and put some gas in it beautiful all right man first K model that we worked on here at least the First Street model K that we worked on here at Wheeler time on the YouTube channel so it's been a while a lot of the racing stuff upstairs now don't get any gas on that that looks like it could be original paint speaking of original paint I've been wondering this whole time so I got this real cool paint depth gauge from sea now what I always heard from Tony was that his dad repainted this bike I've been staring at this and timy me that looks like original paint these probably been repainted so original paint somewhere in between 1 and 1/2 to 3 3 and 1/2 mil um 426 427 527 I would think eight yeah so this I think's a repainted Fender let's see about this m see I knew it 338 2 242 270 213 see yeah that's an original gas tank front fender 5 3 434 352 probably repainted fenders very cool original paint gas tank anyway frame I would definitely say is original paint swing arms original paint okay um yeah load her up tickle it that's good that'll get us there all right so first time in a long time this thing's going to fire back up if we're lucky we've done all the stuff Chris in a couple hours we've done a ton to this bike I think we just need to kick it if you guys got any idea on how many kicks I have no idea cuz we just don't know sometimes it goes easy this bike sat for 50 years 50 years this bike's probably 70 years old like right now it's been sitting for 50 so since this bike was 20 years old um fuel on turn the fuel on okay that'll be a problem Oh Boy based on how this bike's gone we probably should have seen this coming we're this close to getting it running and there's fuel pouring out of the petcock I really hope Matt has another one lying around otherwise we're not riding this today this one we're going to use this $300 petcock on that stupid thing the good news is we didn't get it on the paint okay okay fuel on come on little dinking on the float Bowl don't fill up we are officially ready is it leaking yet I see nothing there you go yep okay chokes three prime kicks any gas yet a little bit I used to kicking with rear suspension it's kind of cool that sound like gas if it feels like it's kind good oh there it goes o oh ho you all right I smell running hair God Dam it was the hair on my hand that's what it was oh there we go there we go there we are here it is it's too bad Ken's not here he would have guessed 100 kid come on here it is here it is here it is God come on come on I'm totally going against my own rules here if a bike doesn't start in five or six kicks there's generally something wrong I know better than this I'm done I think at this point the frustration has reached its absolute Max Chris and I are going to head outside and work on this matchless one thing we don't do around here is work on British bikes but today felt different we've done a ton of work so far in just a short amount of time Chris got sparked back from the Magneto clean the gas tank we had the car Ator apart come on all right three [Music] kick this matchless is actually a ton of fun it fired up really really easy after sitting for like 50 years or so uh Chris and I are going to end on a positive note here get to that K model tomorrow okay so I thought about this all night man literally all night how's your beard by the way I was going to say I was thinking about it all night too but just the fact that I'm still grateful to have a beard when I put this carb together I don't think I put it together right I mean when you choke a bike like this it should fuel you know you ought to have fuel running out the carburetor and it took kick after kick after kick I hate to say it but if the carb was set up right that flame would have hit your beard lot lot sooner yeah okay so the problem was not enough fuel and I bet when we take this float Bowl off we're going to see exactly why uh yep there's actually supposed to be a fixed jet in this carburetor let me see if I can find another one big go look though yep there's your fixed jet that's a hole that's like 40 50 th000 of an inch this is a number nine [Music] jet okay okay so now I'm going to reset these needles Willie G Davidson used to ride a k model Elvis Ro de Kay model Elvis de all the great Matt wler we Ro a c here it is all right I turn that gas on Chris okay so now that the carb ises are fixed DK it how many kicks how many kicks how many kicks do you think I'm going to say five five kicks yeah I think it's going to be one kick three prime kicks okay I'm going to move over here yeah wait a minute this is for you all right here we go ready yeah three kicks I think we got gas yep all right come on it's hard as I can yesterday no ooh come on all right once more come on hey what do that yesterday so yes man it runs really good there's not a lot of engine noise like you said it's like a 45 that actually has some attitude behind it that's right man so you're saying we got a chance I want to ride it oh yeah yeah as much trouble as we've had with this bike I've got to be honest I'm a little bit nervous about trying to ride it wow you're up there it's not running rich or anything that Jet's Perfect all right moment of truth so it's one down what's [Music] worse these tires are sketchy Powerhouse dude wow actually got a lot to get up man this is a big difference from a stock 45 and even a hot 45 you get those 10 extra yeah that bush shift's new to me rid it man what a it's a big difference from a 45 man it's crazy so one down one down remember where the brake is yeah be careful on those tires it's a good looking bike it's a nice looking bike and it runs really really good that rear suspension's like might they might be honest something you know that whole front and back suspension there might be a future but it pulls like a freight train compared to the Old 45 uh transmission is like real friendly bike looks great going down the road I mean it's definitely got that you know iconic 1950 [Music] styling yeah oh yeah yeah sounds good great exhaust note yeah it's definitely that thing of like remembering break break every time man I think we got a winner let's see yes yeah definitely got a winner oh man amazing bike owned by an x- racer guys thanks for tuning in Harley David it's in K model summer it's winter it's freezing out here thanks for tuning in subscribe hit the like button check out more awesome content getting them running right here at wheel Through Time awesome take it for another spin [Music] man we need to get we need to get Chris back in his Elvis impersonation costume on that on that thing yeah

Channel: Wheels Through Time

Views: 527,412

Keywords: american motorcycle, motorcycle history, burnout, Wheels Through Time Motorcycle Museum, Maggie Valley, North Carolina, Blue Ridge Parkway, Riding on Motorcycles, Classic Motorcycles, American History, Dale Walksler, The Time Machine, Vintage Motorcycles, Whats in the barn, Velocity TV, Harley Davidson, Indian, Matt Walksler, Rare, Unique, Wheels Thru Time, American Restoration, Fast, Fire It Up, Classic, Dale's Channel, AMA

Id: OqScUQVBsnU

Length: 21min 1sec (1261 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 04 2023