I Bought a JUNKYARD 1942 WW2 Harley to Ride HOME

all right so golf told me to check this this cool oh man this cool jeep video that he bought a couple years ago so while digging in a basement of an old barn to look at an old jeep i found a motorcycle that i've been looking for my entire life that's the bike that's your wolf that's the bike [Music] so no one believes me but the plan is we're gonna ride this thing home uh i don't think it's been ridden in at least 30 years possibly 50 years it's a 1940 something chad's going to be here a little bit he's going to tell us exactly what it is i love it it's a wla it's a motorcycle i've been looking for for a while this is the civilian version of the military version we're gonna take it up to uh to the shop we're over at number one cycles this is the owner's like personal collection part of his personal collection let me show you guys a car that i will own one of these days this is the uh shelby cobra daytona coupe this gave the inspiration to the dodge viper i will own one of these cars one of these days let's go load up let's get this thing running we are losing daylight well the thing is what makes a motorcycle significantly more dangerous of riding when it hasn't been on the road for a long time is there's just more things that could go wrong and you know if it's higher pops you don't just like you know you know four other tires you just you know you die so we did get brand new tires for this let's load this thing up and get to work so to give you a little bit of history about this bike i was wrong about it being a civilian version this is in fact a 1942 wla aka the liberator or the bike that won the war i'll explain a little more about that later so we'll meet you guys over back at the shop but this bike was left in a junkyard over 50 years ago and then 16 years ago gov the owner of number one cycle center founded in that junkyard underneath the hood of a thunderbird he bought it and then hung it inside of his dealership for a couple years it was later taken down and then stored inside of the basement of the barn that's where i found it it took a little bit of convincing but i finally got the owner to sell it to me so here's the problem with this bike one i don't know how to ride it i don't know what anything these things even do and i assume this is the throttle i don't know why the light is facing me that's the brake okay that's the rear brake that has not changed this is the shifter right here that leaves clutch and front brake um and then i guess this is the clutch now some of these bikes i don't know when this this was a thing but some of them you actually had you could adjust the uh the timing yeah let's see if the battery is still good here's the big moment no this is also kind of very different from from the bike this is right side is oil looks like oil this side is very empty what do you think the game plan is we'll do some tires we'll check some oil in it get a charge in the battery make sure it has some spark and give her a couple boots and hopefully he'll start up do you know how to ride this and then you got to show me you got to teach me how to run it yup so this is chad chad is a master bike and hot rod builder and can restore basically anything from any condition he's basically the aaron kaufman of pennsylvania [Music] new time nothing like some brand new tires on an old bike [Music] firestone one down one to go that's right working on a motorcycle that was me in the 40s is completely different than working on a modern bike or even from the 80s when you spend most of your time like craig does working on modern bikes you get accustomed to how things should work that's why having chad here to lend us a hand saved us hours if not days of frustration because he knew exactly how this old harley will come apart and come together first time i thought go i don't care if i'm i don't care if i drive this thing home going to like 12 miles an hour i'm driving this thing home see how they grounded out greg you said they grounded the battery it did with some wire apparently that's how it was balance that a little bit there you got it look at that do we need to grease this we grease this i feel better if this is a great crease it will definitely enhance the ride this is the ride enhancing piece and it's pretty much stiff let's see oh this is supposed to go up and down or just go up both so are we going to keep this amazing ground or are we going to put a piece of wire on there like it's supposed to have with two eyelets nothing we can do yeah because if you lose that going down the road it's gonna lose your brakes i'm gonna work on trying to pull that thing out forget you guys it's been in the junkyard since at least the 70s let them tire balance out pretty good you got that photo shot right there it is dry very dry so i ended up i need to find let it fuel all right you just need lead additive to reset it i kind of want to finish what this guy started you know finish some other man's 80 years ago legacy oh man i just reset the trip i know they're they're similar to like why can't they look like this though [Music] so you're gonna take this and after a long time working on this bike it was now time to see if this 80 year old motorcycle will start after decades of being forgotten okay so that's just started we're gonna turn the throttle about halfway and you're gonna kick it three times right whichever way you feel comfortable kicking right there nothing not hard one more just like that okay we're gonna turn the ignition one one click all right you're gonna kick it again three times one just it just until it starts [Laughter] okay okay well you took choke off quarter throttle chokes off and now it's ready to go it's supposed to be like that keep this leg on the ground now put this foot up one and let the clutch out slow there you go [Music] now you might think that the hard part is done but you would be wrong not only do i have to learn how to ride the bike i also have to get comfortable enough to ride at home but there's more about this motorcycle than what i told you the harley davidson wla was nicknamed the liberator it was the motorcycle that helped the americans win the second world war the a in wla stood for army that's why the wl were the civilian models this little harley davidson was one of the most advanced and reliable motorcycles of its time and they made over 88 000 of them to go into battle but not all of them went into battle some of them were sold after the war as government surplus although we are not sure of this wla saw battle or not we are told that it fought a different type of battle the guys at the harley-davidson dealership refer to this bike as the chipwood bike joey chitwood was best known as a daredevil in the joey chitwood thrill show and the inspiration to the legendary evil knievel so as the story goes this is one of his stunt bikes which explains why the front brake and headlight are taken off and our best guess of this light that's facing the driver was a speed light set to specific miles per hour to let the rider know he was going fast enough to hit the jump without looking down at his speedometer so basically all this means that hopefully my wife will fall back in love with me if i can make this thing home let's shut it off put some fuel in yeah okay there we go hopefully by the time i'm back my whole pant leg is covered in oil is sean insane for trying to ride this bike back home i think he'll make it to the top of seven mountains yo jimmy you think he's gonna make this honestly i think he will make it just gonna take take a long time really yeah a lot of filling the gas tank up i'd say but slowly but surely i think he'd get home i think he can make it really i don't know if he'll make it before dark think about how old the bike is i might want to get an earlier start you think he's going to make it the whole way back he's not making a home on that he don't got enough of padding there's no way no way port royal is max i think he's gonna get determined he's gonna do it if the bike doesn't break down he's gonna get the whole way apparently there's a bet to see if i'll make it home no no the bed is safe i give up driving at home i'm gonna get a little more road time in this thing on their close course track get real comfortable with it and then uh we're gonna make the three hour trip long i think three hours is what they tell us it's supposed to be this might be a eight-hour trip this video is brought to you guys by honey who sponsored this video if you guys don't know what honey is honey is not what bears eat and it's not what i put in my motorcycle instead of oil let me fill you guys in you know when you're online shopping and that little promo box pops up if you put a discount in you know that somewhere in the internet is a promo code that you can use to save a couple bucks but assume we don't know how to find one and when you do find one it's expired that's where honey comes in it's a browser extension that not only helps you find a valid promo code but also finds you the promo code it's gonna save you the most amount of money if a promo code exists for that item honey is gonna find so you're doing some online shopping did you find some cool spy gear to go undercover you're all ready to check out then the honey button drops down and all you have to do is click apply and then it searches for the best coupon option for you then it automatically fills it in honey this helped over 17 million people save 2 billion it's completely free and it installs in just a second and without it you could be missing out on a lot of safe go get honey right now it's going to help you save a lot of money and you use that money to save up for your next motorcycle it also helps support our channel click on the link below at joinhoney.com bikes and beers take a look at this shirt i made the shirt like three months ago that's the same bike yeah it is didn't even know i'd be buying this bike pretty cool jacket right it should be a little more pastely there's no tassels on here what's up man i am breaking check out my new jacket that i got just for the ride i hope that wasn't the last one some lady's gonna get mad i didn't know it was a ladies jacket but all the guys ones didn't weren't like old looking just look like a ladies jacket does it correct come on i got you a matching one too yeah i think that's why is that why it's short back here so you can see your trance name oh no i don't know just for the thumbnail don't be mad don't be polishing my paint too much you're taking out the patina this jacket's hot like hot like in a bad way we ready to fire it up i think so i don't do that first oh yeah i kicked this thing three times choke is up half throttle three regular kicks back at the corner halfway choke it should pop off here okay so this light comes on shut it down that's your oil pressure right there guys if that one comes on it's not charging correct okay i don't think it's going to work i'll let you guys know who wins and who loses this bet right well now you're going don't let him play you don't know you're not going to know who won or who lost you don't know who what they bet well right they'll know i'm riding the world's best 1942 motorcycle i wore the world's best motorcycle gloves the 508s or the 507s only at bikes and beardsgear.com let's do this [Music] as i started my trip on this bike that is as old as my grandmother is there was a lot of things ran through my mind right now like how much fun this was how this connected me with riders from 80 years ago how i'm so blessed to be able to experience something like this on such a beautiful day but what did not cross my mind and probably should have crossed my mind was all the things that could go wrong on this bike from decades of sitting and how every moving piece on this machine must work properly in order to keep me safe the slower i go means less overall stress on the bike giving me better odds to make it back also in case of mechanical failure i won't be around a bunch of other vehicles going 70 miles an hour that might run over me their gear baby my main strategy for getting home rested on one very important detail that is absolutely under no circumstances ride this bike on the highway i'm not sure where my team is but that's all right i can't believe this thing has not been written in like 50 years and i'm the first idiot to do it and i'm loving every second of it this is amazing a bike from a different era people lived a different life than we did now cars were different there was no tv i don't know if you guys could hear it but the bikes make it a metal noise not like an engine noise but like a slicing type of noise i'm honestly getting kind of concerned considering how busy traffic is right here something blocks up on this bike i'm i'm done and i don't know where craig is but i keep on telling him to get behind me but he keeps on going forward are you still riding are you on 45 let me see it i'm on the highway i'm on 322. oh you're on 322. yeah my stupid com system never told me to turn because it's not connecting to my phone for some reason if something happens call me right away all right give me a call i'll give you a call when we're back on 322. all right sounds good all right so my gps has given me bad advice and when i say bad advice i mean no advice so somehow i ended up on the highway so i guess we're doing this on the highway now now i'm in third all right so every time i go on a ride i'm writing something sketchy or write something really cool like this or any ride you always want to give a prayer you always want to say a prayer house of god and my prayer normally sounds a little something like this dear god thank you for this beautiful day thank you for my family thank you for all the blessings you've given to us thank you for this amazing motorcycle please keep it running please keep it safe please keep the cars away from me and please get me back home amen [Music] i'm reminded of a baba verse philippians 4 8. finally brethren whatever is true whatever is honorable whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is of good repute if there is any excellence and if anything is worthy of praise dwell on these things [Music] you find some guy with a 1960s motorcycle look at this guy mr rockefeller his brand new motorcycle how do you like your how do you like your electric start einstein [Music] there's the uh the harrisburg statue of liberty check it out it's like 18 feet tall or 20 feet tall no one for like for like years no one knew who put it there or how they put it there hey siri play a podcast [Music] [Music] how you like dim apples [Music] yeah baby [Music] the oil's not getting to my pant leg yet but if you look over here it's definitely covering the right side of the tire it's coming out of the exhaust so maybe i'll take my right hand turns a little bit slower how fast is that going back there you're anywhere between 35 and 40. it's not bad there we go i heard something dragging [Applause] it sounded like a jackhammer but i couldn't see anything all right which way do i go craig hello hello anybody on this thing i don't know i don't know where he is we're close enough to the shop we're in lancaster county all right so chad just called he's probably wondering where we broke down at or where sean gave up at hello yo did you make it well we made it we're back at the shop and we got separated in traffic he isn't called yet so i'm guessing he's still um he's still coming yeah he made it past port royal he made it past port royal well that's because you didn't get password oh my gosh is that him here he comes he made it [Music] looks like i did it whoever bet against me who bet i got chad on the phone yeah we did it highway the whole time oh yeah the kickstand started falling down so i blame you for that one what time is it it is 3 40. what time do we leave up there like 11 30. in five hours yeah it's not bad made it home this bike's amazing and uh don't forget to subscribe [Music]

Channel: Bikes and Beards

Views: 743,360

Rating: 4.9342008 out of 5

Keywords: bikes and beards, sean, caleb, motorcycles, srkcycles, srk, beards, bikes, ww2 motorcycle, harley davidson, 1942 motorcycle, abandoned motorcycle, motorcycle restoration, lost motorcycle, vintage motorcycles, antique, barn finds, ww2 harley davidson, evel knievel

Id: wocC1S4QBRs

Length: 20min 54sec (1254 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 24 2021