I Bought A Motorcycle That Hasn't Run in 30 Years, WAS IT WORTH IT?

all right so I just bought a bike I've been searching for for over 20 years and here's the thing I haven't even seen it yet right now it's pulling across the bridge we're going to get our first look at this motorcycle and see exactly how we did so my dad was an absolute Harley-Davidson 45 nut over 50 years collecting he managed to find one great example from every year except 1951 so I paid a fair price for this bike and the goal for today is to see is it actually a Worthy example can we get the bike fired up and running and was it actually a good deal let's check it out you must be Keith oh yeah thanks for calling thanks for coming man there it is there she is all it's glory right that's right man no doubt well cool dude let's get her unloaded I'll use my ramp it's a little longer than that one looks like a nice bike you know it's uh obviously I hav moved in a long time no telling if it'll run or not but first glance right fenders right gas tanks right handlebars a lot of those really hard to find parts for the later WLS they didn't produce a lot fenders are hard to find those gas tanks won two years only first glance looks pretty good the Horn's upside down the Horn's upside down yeah and that's a newer horn too the late style coil Mount frame so it is a late frame late fenders late gas tanks all that's the right stuff shifter Speedo you know it's a it's not they didn't make a whole lot of the 45s the light bikes in 1951 Chris has a 50 uhhuh this one here oh man well that's yeah that's that's like a non-factory VIN number the bike is 51 as it is but the VIN is uh it's been yeah I don't know if somebody took a set of New Old Stock cases and just I might have blown this motor up and then put a a different motor in it let's get it out we can keep looking it over there we go y we're good good stuff man feels nice yeah bars are straight seems like it anyway last time it was run was 92 92 roughly and that's that's what my mom was saying 32 years yeah okay man cool well let's get her pushed in and uh take her back to the shop man see see what it's all about so let's see floorboards have been replaced headlights new you know later model kicker all the right kick arm proper transmission and like I said it turns over I didn't kick the crap out of it or anything but yeah yeah clutches clutch is slipping a little bit but if I tighten that clutch up Chris see if you can slap that sucker in third gear yeah you can you can feel it spinning the motor over yeah you can hear it yeah it's got an M16 carburetor or 741 so that's an Indian carb um yeah like primaries aftermarket oh this stuff's original the motor was built by some like old dude in Topeka Topeka maybe maybe Paul Osborne or something like that yeah yeah if Paul did it you know the motor's probably really really smooth we're going to bring it up so I can see what those other belly numbers are belly number is they match oh so they are both 39 17 35 belly numbers um what do we got here that's a oh looks like from a car a from oh yeah underneath a hood yeah okay yeah that in my pocket there take stuff home you know yeah it's got a lot of a lot of nice original parts and then some you know the the cases are a bummer yeah well I'll end up trying to get it running yeah oh yeah heck and then one of the reasons the things that attracted me to this bike so much is that it was a 1951 Harley WL they made the WL from 1937 and 1952 and it was Harley Davidson's lightweight small twins so you got big Twins and small twins they come out with a small twin in 29 and refined it and then in 37 came out with that WL which 37 new lower end with the circulating oil pump here so the big circul the big difference with the circulating oil pump extended engine life extended oil life so now you've got a remote oil tank up top circulates down into the the lower end out of the rear oil line here swishes around throughout the entire engine and then scavenge pump down in the bottom acts as crank case breather and scavenge pump pushes it back to the oil tank so big advancement and I'm looking at this I'm just realizing that's a 39 oil pump this likely was a whole 39 bottom end it's the thing about these motors get swapped you know Wheels get swapped the suspension's different you know brakes are different but first glance is that it's a nice faithful example the lower end is uh an unfortunate circumstance stance that I guess I'll be on the hunt for a set of 51 cases is really right battery box I mean all in all it's pretty cool that he found this bike in a a couple boxes bought it at a garage sale at a garage you know what he paid for it oh dude I think Mom said it was like 400 bucks or 500 bucks well you're going to do a little bit better than doubling your money on I think so a little bit yeah it'll be cool just to see it here getting used it running you know instead of just sitting yeah I'm glad you called me about it and it ought to be exciting probably spend the day see if we can get this thing running and may as well let's get to work let's do it so I think the task at hand Chris is you know one we plan on getting a motorcycle running today and that's what we're going to do in the meantime while we're working on this we'll try and make some phone calls and see if we can't locate a proper year engine if we did it on the same day even better even better it's my goal goal in the next 45 minutes to have a run in motorcycle so let's go first task at hand Chris compression check Keith said that uh his dad was riding this bike and took it home and parked it and so it should uh should still have compression Ro it one Scot pulled over yeah and took it home came came home wife made him park it bike sat here we are 30 something years later just go one at a time yep okay oh oh yeah sounds like compression there yeah yeah good mhm the clutch is slipping yeah all right so we're going to adjust the clutch we may as well take the primary cover off Chris and we'll just take that whole thing off and pull all the clutch plates and make sure everything's proper maybe I've got the right cover to replace this with but this is the wrong primary cover alog together so this is an aftermarket a paco brand outer primary cover where it takes like the Harley knucklehead or pan head uh Flathead style derby cover area you get to use the derby cover itself from a big twin what we got God those floorboards are terrible too they're so bad you know I think there's a lot of parts we'll need to replace on this bike there's a lot you know the bones are really good but I can see there's a lot of Chrome plated stuff got to go new horn so we'll put an original style horn on there you know and it's small things that you know like this here if you look at the headlight bracket and it's this tube in there it's been welded in somebody welded that piece of tubing in probably for rigidity I don't know if this thing cracked once or not but another piece of seat got to go primary cover got to go carburetor and although we're going to end up rebuilding this carburetor today most likely the carburetor is the wrong carburetor so that's going to get changed I change it now but that carburetor fits that manifold so I'll have to get new manifold new manif seals will rebuild the proper carburetor for it that's going to come at a later date so today we're going to get this bike running with that carburetor and when we replace that carburetor it'll be rebuilt and go on the shelf and wait for the right motorcycle for it ooh brand new primary chain look at that that's kind of gross actually it's pretty new there's a little dirt in there and it's pretty new oil so we'll pull all this out let me get my my washer every single Harley toolkit needs a big washer like that and I'll show you why take your clutch apart on the side of the road and then you got all this spring pressure to fight and you got your clutch adjustment here wow that's tight and you can pull the adjustment out but the only way to get the clutch apart is to take these three nuts off so how do you loosen the three nuts well that's what your washer is for how much much easier could it be yeah see now we're already spinning we've compressed the Springs enough to where there you have it and it's ready to reinstall Springs already compressed so new clutch does not have a lot of miles on it from what we hear that'll all work I'm not crazy about that outer plate and that's got that so if you could go in the clutch drawer maybe find a and it doesn't need the balls on it doesn't have it that's okay thanks so we like to run them and we like to ride them now this bike's eventually destined for a new engine today Hing we can get this thing fired up and running uh we're going to be out riding it so that's the whole thing take this thing down the road kicking it you could tell that the clutch was slipping a little bit if it's slipping when you're kicking it you know it either needs adjustment or needs to be taken apart didn't see anything other than the adjustment that frightened me on this one everything looked pretty good we got one new metal plate that we're looking for and then take it apart put it back together and you know it's going to work properly so for an outer primary here and it's actually in really good shape it's a little beat up on the bottom but it's ugly and this is so nice it would be a shame to take that and put it on a clean bike there's enough Chrome on the rest of the bike and this one's in really nice shape I mean it's Chrome I'm not a big Chrome fan but it's nice and it kind of looks like the rest of the bike you know oh that looks so much better you see the difference that's what we're looking at so I mean it's got some of the ribbing you know but there's pronounced differences I mean this being the big thing I know a 1950 that's got a really nice primary you stay away from my 1950 little polish it's got like my dad used to smoke backwood cigars it's got like 20 years of backwood cigar shop smoke on it I like it man I like it we're going to finish this bike up and not want to restore it want to restore it yeah I probably got a black chain guard some of this chrome was driving me away from it but we got a proper Chrome piece now yeah and definitely needs a new horn handlebars are Chrome nothing to do with that kickstands got to go parkerized M generator cover can be Chrome you know these were Chrome we got tail lights Chrome not a fan of that exhaust it's the wrong one anyway and this arm shouldn't be Chrome but other than that rims are Chrome you know and I mean there's but the engine still needs a new engine yeah yeah so we're going to do a clutch slip test and by no means does this mean that it's going to hold under power but it was slipping when we were kicking it before so I'm going to just draw a line okay can you hop up there and kick it yep basket inner plate those won't be aligned if you we slow it ain't we don't have no plugs in it yeah but before it was slipping we couldn't even kick it all the way through great primary cover okay so the little stuff though you chis got Park R nuts and lock washers back on the floorboard straps okay so the more I'm thinking about this Fender Hardware gas tank Hardware there's so much right with it you know there's not even a nut and bolt here to mounting hardware on top pin for the the seat post parkerized C bolt and washer instead of just black paint probably even have parkerized headlight bracket bolts there ditch some of the Chrome here Hardware uh should be parkerized this should be black the the cover um I'm sure I have one but then we got a chrome primary so you know it's just goes to show you you can have a clear Direction when you start and just kind of here we are now kind of conflicted it's an 80s paint job yeah you know so it needs stun and I keep coming back to the engine you know and to it's going to take some luck to find this engine so 1951 WL Chris said they only made like 1,400 of them it's rarer than a 36 knucklehead and the stuff like this the reality is with this Chris is that this is likely the power plant that's in it because they blew up the original 51 engine and just got some replacement cases replacement engine replacement cases replacement engine and and put it all back together things coming apart all right we're going to get it running Forge ahead the reason we're doing it now is because the one that's on it is definitely not right as far as the order of operations to get it running we haven't done any of those yet we're just sitting here and messing with the bike cosmetically but I promise she will run today didn't he didn't he say that the float leaked he did say the float leak let's pull the carb off yeah that's an interesting what's that carburetor mounting technique these aren't uh bolts they're oh Jesus it's and like on this bottom side like it's threaded through the other side it's like there's thread sticking out both sides what that goes to show is how far that the antique bike scene has actually come in nowadays you can order that IMM when this bike was done it's probably they weren't the most accessible Parts which is why so many of them aren't on the road today and nobody folded the tabs over they didn't no working on old motorcycles all day long with me what what more motivation do you need he gets paid too guys wait I supposed to be getting paid BL [Music] it carburetor is up you know what there's a seat pin mhm right on that wooden counter behind you right next to the hardware bins and that pile of Hardware right there by the plastic bag back to the compression test all right ready yep yeah cool excellent all right if we got compression we're not even going to pick the lifter covers up it doesn't sound clackety kicking it over there's no noise guess now he said this engine was built by Paul Osborne is who he thought built the engine Che and Osborne and Topeka those guys have been working on old motorcycles for a long time since before they were old spark Advance ca's not hooked up I'm going to fish it through to you Chris there's not much yeah when it's when it's all the way Advanced there's hardly anything there on coming out and we're going to need a clamp no we're on points what's the points Gap Chris it's time yeah all right small lobe is front cylinder small lobe is the front cylinder yeah we're on the rear when we're talking about loes guys right on the distributor here as you kick this over or circuit breaker as a lot of guys like to call them when you kick the engine over and the rotor spins on the distributor or the shaft I should say on and see these two bumps right here front cylinder 315° firing order on a Harley-Davidson 360° obviously in a circle front cylinder they're 45 Dees apart front cylinder fires 360 minus 45 gets you your 315 rear cylinder well you got 360° plus 45 so you're a whole um right I think about it all right we're set okay so we're set do we check the timing or do we run with it let's run with it yeah uh do you want to put Auto lights in here or put these let's put some new plugs in it yeah good call some of you guys have asked auto light 386 is what we use in most of these bikes cuz they work we won't run a set of champion plugs I would use a stick for a spark wait to use these sunglasses all the [Music] day there we go we're Advanced so pull it back to advance and let me give you a little there and then try and tighten her down I guess to get this one tightened we got carburetor over here juny Parts out of the way this is a disaster W he said that the float was leaking I'd be willing to bet there's a grass or potentially even a cork float inside of this float Bowl here leaky float bike never run right makes a mess potentially causes a fire easy fix it's an easy fix 741 D1 Chris be interesting to look in the military book and figure out if there's some sort of difference yeah oh yeah look at that Ork yeah no spring holy cow jeez holy smokes I think we got more problems than just the Leaky cork float look at this he's got a plastic bag here actually it looks like never run did run ran from the cop it did run from the cops oh God that ain't moving so is that plugged up and gummed up is it worth just changing it to an M51 right away we'll find out next time Batman I don't really believe that this float Bowl will ever even seal in the first place if you look they've got a nut here that's supposed to be got this little Allen Bowl here that's a pipe plug normally in it looking at it though just about every part on that float bowl is worn out this is a shame that that's so tight in there I don't know if I have a manifold Chris that's my main hold up I don't have a manifold like this right here looks like we got a manifold that means I have to build another carburetor and I don't think it was nickel plated it appears the only M51 I have is nickel plated cuz Chris took my older one but it's running great if that makes you feel any better this is the one oh yeah this is the one we're going to build this one okay first thing to do before I even go building this is try and install this manifold oh man this is kind of what I didn't want to start changing up a bunch of parts for something that's got to come apart anyway but you know what there may be a reason why this also has not been put on a bike yeah I thought so you know when it comes to a motorcycle its static appearance is one thing being able to pick out what's right and what's wrong with how it operates is a completely another thing engine's a big deal but I think I can find one we get this bike running a day and it does the things it's supposed to I consider it a win fair price on the bike some added expense here with the engine but if that transmission works properly it's a big plus I'm going to read build it anyway but to take it apart and know you're dealing with good stuff big plus uh Wheels brakes big plus front end gas tanks all of that stuff if if everything works right you know really operates like it should big plus I think this is one of my least favorite tank emblems cuz it almost gets lost you know with the Chrome like yeah you well the only thing worse than that is 54 yeah cuz I mean from a little from further back like if you didn't know it said Harley-Davidson you'd almost be like what what is that say yeah right well Harley-Davidson himself came up with that oh Harley Harley harleydavidson himself came up with that emblem all right see if we can install this manifold of course with new nuts yeah but the thing about this bike you know is that just because the the VIN number is a non-factory stamp VIN number it's not necessarily a problem you know from a value standpoint it's always going to be the best bike it can be with a real genuine Factory stamped engine in it but the thing about these motorcycles they were used hard just a 45 cubic inch engine engines would blow up grab some New Old Stock replacement cases off of a Harley-Davidson dealer shelf have them build you up a motor and they're going to stamp your very same number in there so you don't have to get your bike re-registered retitled doesn't mean that there's anything suspect about the bike um you know got a a great clear chain of ownership on this motorcycle since it was new which is one more reason the bike was a nice attractive motorcycle to me anytime you can doc some document something all the way back to the beginning that's a big plus gaps in Chain of ownership really can kind of you know throw some uncertainties in the equation you know what I'm going to call Matt see if he's got any engine cases I think the answer is no come off your call has are you getting this is this is this how Mr Harley taught the employees so actually I think I'm going to bead blast it and we'll just repaint it black real fast do you want me to go ahead and take this other manifold off let's do it yeah so this is the whole spinning yeah no yeah that whole nut this one came off but this one on earth oh that's so bad no no no no maybe it doesn't run today so there's these cylinders have an intake nipple um and then the manifold has a an intake nut so the nut this is exactly what happened to the manifold that I literally just removed you're going to have to stick something in that manifold the end of this okay to keep it from spinning Y and I don't want to have to replace a cylinder on a motor that's going to come apart anyway I'm going to have to find another nipple I don't see how it does run there it go getting well there's good news Matt what's that Brian just pulled up Brian's here okay Chris is going to get the manifold no Chris come on dude actually this is something you're going to want to see too big surprise something coming to wheel through time it just pulled into the parking lot just a second we're going to be unloading one of the if not the earliest known American motorcycles period our buddy Brian's here from Connecticut incredibly excited to get this bike unloaded it's going to be here at wheel time make sure you guys come check it out 1901 so let's get it unloaded stand up yeah and I thought wow tiny little Hub on this bicycle keing was famous for Victor hubs okay that's what this is they're straight straight pull hubs they're Victor hubs wow oh so it's a uh what do they call that now it's called a fixed fixed gear yeah fix where it doesn't uh there's no I got you they spin constantly they spin constantly there's no free wheel oh my God this this is a men's that's a woman's original paint unrestored that's orinal head badge well look at that it's aluminum so yeah and this is keing too Matt the the sweat uh the curve so the so what I noticed in the photo cuz I've never seen this bike in person well you're going to look at it now there's what's the arrangement between the wow look at that you guys got it we go actually grab one of those stands wow yeah doesn't see a light a day too often amazing yeah just put it right down Here's My Philosophy back in this era you know they were motor bicycles so they had a bicycle Diamond frame and they would make a they'd have an attachment motor this is not a motor bicycle no exactly this a motorcycle frame is made into it completely of of its own design yep and it's and it's Kings manufacturer he one of the things that I thought was the coolest about this because typically of all these early bikes you've got this primary drive system and a secondary drive system and then you've got your pedal start mechanism and this is like simp Allin one there's a there's a clutch style mechanism that disengages the drive and you can see underneath here that's part of the mechanism what actuates it yeah right actually it works from here too but when you back pedal no way it and that's a break brake yep so when you back pedal to to Brak it disengages the drive that is mindblowing how well that works simplistic yeah this drive system is way Advanced it's Advanced is the word I'm looking for compared to what everybody else for 1901 supposedly they made a 1902 and that engine was within the seat tube it was mounted within the seat tube I like this design better it's a Survivor you know it's um I probably have some tires that size those are those are like solid tires what if we look for a set of tires if you want to feel free I have some black solid tires that I think are that size not solid but they're it's like an inner tube yeah but it's a tire but they're pneumatic yeah yeah yeah that thing is really cool one of our earliest American motorcycle companies only one in the world that exists it's crazy just to think about saradipity that just now all right more one of a kinds coming on display here at Wheels the world's only three cylinder Harley David stff world's first three cylinder Harley-Davidson shovelhead something looks different here you no I tell you what you'd be surprised how many people didn't pick up on it oh man I've seen pictures of this bike for years no when when you got the road dog yeah that's what told me that hey Matt take a look at this just to even figure out where you're going to fuse them together where are you going to well and look at the spacing yeah it it's perfect yeah and I'm looking down here where the cylinders come together dang the um this is the way Bob pretty much had it 1800 nice which is what it is yeah of course actually also I think down in here look at that nice 41 cubic inch I think it is so hat how did he do that how did he can I try kicking it just to feel what it's like got more else coming out too right I know that sound too cool man well come on inside I want to show you around yeah yeah I I want Vicky to get a look Let's uh bring this in straight away let me uh see if we got some tires I held it up it looked real it looked right it's it's up to you it's up to you I don't want you to put any investment into it or put them on for display and take them off whatever well if they fit I they probably probably be yours how can you take them off where'd you find those these are Peri found them in a teen sh oh yeah man they're the ones be piss you never had tires on it before have you never never I think it'll fit are they both the same yeah but look at that doesn't that look like it fit it wouldn't take much to take that off it's just well here the trick with these things are until you just loosen it up but there's no slit so you got to oh do you want to do it real quick yeah we could do it okay she's out she's out that looks like it's going to go it sure does baby bites oh yeah you're over come on oh yeah boom holy smokes dude [Laughter] how long you been waiting to put tires on this I did look at one point in time I did look and there like $3 $400 per tire and I at that time I probably measured them but I don't remember what it was wow but they w't going to be as original as these are no they sure aren't that is unbelievable amazing they've been waiting there these suckers here will still hold air too 100 years okay 100 plus years okay look at that we got clearance clearance clearance yeah that's unbelievable that is unbelievable now we've got to do the rear The Who open rear dropouts yeah so it should be a lot easier actually you should be there already yeah beautiful so Chris you're going to walk it on with me there's a flat spot in the rim there oh yeah this one's pure wood huh yeah so we want to be really gentle with it I think you guys got it I do believe that was meant to be that was meant to be it was meant to be and you freaking you put your hands right on these things when they pulled in it's like you knew exactly where they were these are in as soon as I saw the rims these tires have been floating around for years and I knew right where they were sitting uh wow 110y old tires on a 120y old motorcycle that's phenomenal and nothing broke nothing broke I don't hear any spokes it's better me than the bike trying not to Mar up any nuts and bolts either well that comes with the territory a it's not your first rodeo now you can roll it look at that it's on its own wheels all right guys the bike's back up on Wheels that's what it's all about here at Wheels Through Time is another one preserve back on rubber so incredibly excited I feel like I got a little momentum we're going to get back to work on a 51 so there's a little bit of a bright spot to the day a bright spots of the day we've got 120 something year old motorcycle on display at Wheels du time you guys are going to dig it I'm not telling you where I'm going to put it so when you come visit you guys are going to have to find it but we're back on the intake manifold Saga this is now my least favorite part of this motorcycle so should be getting close there should be up there it went yeah so yeah where the hole was on the cylinder you see where the hole is in the nipple there so that should have been had a rivet put in it to hold that in place once it's installed exact same thing on these okay this is what we're dealing with here plumber nut manifold on any Harley-Davidson up through maybe mid-50s anyway and there's a brass feral and then this nipple here which is currently screwed into this you saw me banging it off the other manifold nipple screws into the head you rivet the nipple into place it's a crucial seal that one's got two in it I know they they reused the original one and then that new rivet came out so now our task is to find an original probably a New Old Stock nipple and then there's the getting it in part well are we dead in the water look at there there's your 1950 Fair parts catalog for 45 solo and servy cars this would be up to date for this motorcycle that we're working on right now and if I'm not mistaken we're looking for this Part 111 12-32 32 Inlet nipple 32 to 50 except you got to be kidding me dude it's because it's you're 50 here we're 50 51 next year right but it's through 50 cuz there is no 51 yet yeah to the shop want to pull the head off and find out what size the manifold is what it's a 51 motor no way but it's a g motor servy car engine man it's a g you can't use a g serial number it's the wrong it's all about having the right engine in there and that's oh don't tell me oh it's a G2 they're both 51 GS no that's a 61g oh see I thought that d had a DC carburetor I thought that was later so we said 112 111 12-32 yeah we need DL cylinder dang it God I know right where they're at so when I said you knew right where they right where they are what I meant was right where they should be right where they should be that's Matt Olen yeah all right hey dude what are you doing oh nothing much just uh getting ready for night shift so sounds like fun do you ever get your K model going I I think I got it licked so cool man you don't have any friends with any 51 WL cases do you gosh Dam it I am looking for a set for you we'll find them but I I've never even seen a set I've seen 52 wa cases but I've never seen 51 WL cases yeah they made less than they made less WLS in 51 than they made 36 Knuckleheads so it's not going to be easy it's a it's a really rare bike sure thing well keep me keep me in mind if you find any 51 WL cases I have a 5145 motor sitting in swim shop but it's a g motor oh bmer yeah yeah okay I'll send out a couple messages tonight when I take a break so I appreciate it man you I'll talk to you soon talk to you soon bye bye last place oh I promise stupid stupid stupid well find it good thing you caught it is a thread on too big no I'm not athletically gifted so the fact that I caught that looking in is it's different yeah what about this one oh nice same there this is the one we need though it's not been drilled so it is brand new ooh the threads are nice they're not worn out at all to install it I only dropped it once so the threads are not that bad and in order to thread this into the cylinder and get a perfect seal we're going to have to make a tool to be able to drive this thing in otherwise you got no ability to get it tight so what we've got to do here is make a spacer to effectively take up the space here and screw this tight against the nipple itself we'll use the hex knot to screw in the nipple to the cylinder d it rivet it and then we'll be able to back this nut off hopefully that's enough to make everything seal so not an easy fix to do on the motorcycle but we're going to give it a shot so we're going to see how it threads doesn't seem like it's hanging up anywhere no it sure doesn't what's it looking like here how close are we oh man it's right there it's right there okay Chris see if you can just start torque it down and see if you can see the the inner threaded piece move any at some point it should just yeah it just yeah it's moving it's moving okay slow but it is moving it is moving yeah take a look and see what we're working with I think it's tight okay old drill on the story I lost this drill for four months I know one of you guys commented on you hadn't seen an electric drill used in years where did you find it Matt that's enough I think I probably looked in my truck at least a hundred times and I really think that what I think happened is that Chris lost it and put it in my truck when he did find it know I mean I'm not going to say that wouldn't been a good idea but uh so we've got it plugged right the intake valve is closed all right now we need the rivet okay oh that's a good fit it worked okay how much is sticking through um not much about uh maybe an eighth of an inch oh God we are going to weld it 51 he poured in it too it does have a bunch of Port work done yeah but it doesn't have any rivet in there I know clean up yeah so trouble just showed up trouble I'm not going to ask you how many kicks so now I'll rebuild the carburetor if you install the intake manifold yep high and low speed needles some of these guys are reproduction parts that we get from the carburetor guys the Linker guy in Vermont and some of those reproduction parts and without you know we try and do as much original as we can here at the Museum but Parts like this you have to have new stuff brand new spring specifically made uh for the main nozzle holding the main nozzle in place uh new nitrofill rubber ducky float impervious to all the modern fuels never SNS of course new float bowl gasket brand newly machined needl and seat here which is your complete seal on your float Bowl so you guys have seen you do it a dozen times you lap them in here looking for suction on the lip that one we're going to didn't take much just a dink okay so clean this up so you guys can see what we're actually doing here might use one part off the old carburetor so let's pull this out then we got the detent ball here hold it in place with the lever itself okay so there's our choke plate assembly is looking pretty solid one2 one one and a half to start three and 1/2 and one and A2 all right carburetor is rebuilt yep we got our main nozzle spring so let's yeah my concern with the float Bowl I mean if you look at this style float Bowl you know the only hole in the bottom of that float bowl is for the bottom of the body of the carb to go in Bowl goes over the body of the carb you've got a brass CR brush washer here uh that makes the seal nut right here well that's all well and good here except these float bowls and a lot of them did they had a drain plug drain plug was a fine thread and there's a plug that goes in while this has been stripped out they've run or they've just slid a bolt in an allen bolt and ran a nut to tighten it down so there's really no telling if this is going to seal go ahead and give it a try but the odds are we're probably going to be taking this off and if he used one of those red fiber washers here mhm CR hopefully it's pretty it's it's fine this needle and seats seating man I think we run with it seats better than that one does and that one's 80 years old so do a little bit of float setting bolt this sucker back on quter inch looks like a quarter inch top of the float quarter inch from the top beautiful float is to the front take this UL out jump the fence just like in a great escape you know we're we're getting really close on this bike I mean we've got battery we're going to run through the electrics we've rebuilt the carburetor uh put the new nipple into the front cylinder intake F Port manifolds on carburetor is getting bolt on right now we'll hook up the throttle spark Advance is hooked up we got some small things left to do over the next 6 8 months hopefully you guys will be tagging along with us as we correct some of those we're going to see how it runs now you guys remember us mentioning it has the wrong engine in it we're going to see just how long that wrong engine's going to stay and if it runs good buying this thing maybe 6 months if it runs terrible tomorrow we're yanking it out yeah let's go ahead and do Battery Man going to use the household wire still yeah look look at what they got for a ground wire did you see that well it's not it's it's the hot and the ground oh that's real safe the hot wire is put on with a piece of Twisted copper wire it's kind of a work of art you can call it that if by work of art you mean horrible a cobble job cobbler cobbler somebody say cobbler so throttle set up spark Advance is set up Chris is hooking up new hot wire adjustment to do check this and see if it comes on go for it flashlights headlight let's high low beam a little little corrosion pop the distributor cover off yep and let's see if there's spark at the points anyway no okay now try yeah oh yeah yep okay nothing else is working though hold on wiggle oh there y it's just a bad there's just a yeah it's the switch okay tail light yep brake light kind of weak yep brake light yeah battery's pretty low do we got any guesses on how many kicks it's going to take don't like my guesses come on you you got the most accurate guesses as a late if any of you guys know about a 51 Harley-Davidson WL motor give me a call so far we're just hitting dead ends but we're not going to stop trying until we dig up the right engine for this motorcycle in the meantime we're going to hear this thing hopefully in just a couple minutes or a couple seconds fire up and run fingers crossed you know rumor has it when we bought the bike anyway the fella told me that it was a really reputable engine builder that did the work now that work was 30 years ago so two factors there one did the guy that build it actually know his stuff if it's who they said I think he did uh but at the same time we're talking 30 years this thing's been sitting since 1992 so 32 years it is just a Harley 45 we've had them sitting way longer you guys remember the eore bike I mean that thing sat for 50 something years so we're going to go ahead and put some fluids in this thing and see if we can get it fired up and tuned and then of course as you guys know the end goal is to ride it and and the engine can run right but all the other systems have to operate uh as they should and uh first glance is that we've got most everything taken care of uh but we're not going to know until we try and slide that thing into gear and set off under its own power look at that thing see that first time using this glass funnel that our guy Norm hey Norm if you're watching uh sent in and donated at Norm sensus cool packages all the time perfect example come check this out anybody know what these are does anybody know what those are if you know what they are leave it in the comments hang out for a few minutes I'm going to make you wait for the answer but Norm sent us these I use them every day uh oh God that's a clue all right we are very close this you guys got any ideas how many kicks write it in the comments let us know what you think my guess I'm not going to guess yet I'm going wait I'm not guessing yet throttle works fine spk Advance works fine we get some air in the tires bring this back bad boy down whole punches from number one to number 12 Ken didn't even know what these were I actually for the first time in my life showed him something new he hadn't seen before ain't that right probably [Laughter] not all right oh it doesn't appear to be leaking anywhere all right so now we have gas ready yep we're going to go ahead and guess for a number of kicks I'm going to say two live kicks I'm G to say four four live kicks Ken says four seven seven low I was told I needed to be Optimist optimistic two we got any gas yet yeah we got fuel yeah we got fuel let me give it one more now we got you got I'm on two live what' I say two live kicks or one two oh man feels like there's a lot of oil in the lower end come on oh there we go okay A little bit of okay live hey St it still rich on the load circulating oil starts good revs excellent very very responsive see if it goes into gear one bolt fell off already so I guess all after that just see if it goes into gear right if we if it goes into gear which you know what I'm going to take it outside rolled it backwards all that way it went down a half a mile yeah you remember this Ferris Beer's day off that when he drove the Ferrari and tried to run it in back in reverse all right man it sounds good when you open it up out there it's fast yeah well you can hear it fast man you can hear it yeah wow here take it for a spin man it operates really good rear brak's a little soft right man yeah wow okay so engine not the right engine or not I'm happy that thing runs like a rocket ship it operates really well I'm impressed um too cool man if you guys are digging what you see make sure you check out both of these videos we'll see you next time that's a lot of power for a 45 yeah for a 45 it goes good man yeah

Channel: Wheels Through Time

Views: 418,289

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: fcJp2_KHjoI

Length: 53min 3sec (3183 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2024