About a year ago I bought a 1950 Merc sedan from a junkyard in rural Missouri. The old timer took my junkyard buddy Jack Walker and I into his private garage to show us his unrestored mint 1949 Lincoln sedan. It still had factory tires and all, a neat thing to see. While he and Jack are chatting it up, I'm looking around at all the old furniture that's stacked up and old bottles. Then I spy this old Harley 4 speed swing arm frame on the floor!!! As I'm looking, I see the engine, transmission, forks and so on. I have to ask the big question, "Would you be interested in selling the Harley basket case ya have sitting there?" The says "Make me an offer". So I say $750.00, thinking I'll start low and haggle with him. "SOLD" he says, and we load it up in the back of my truck. I always read about the fantastic score (like your doing right now), but it rarely happens to me. On that day, it did! So I have been messing with this 1977 superglide every so often in my garage. I had the frame sand blasted and I blasted the swing arm and small stuff myself. I got the frame painted last week, and have been putting pieces together here and there when I have a chance.
As I found it in the old man's garage.
I got overspray all over my glasses painting this thing,
After a few pasess with clear.
What I plan on doing is not dumping a ton of money into this thing, used parts are fine by me. There will be no trips to the chrome shop on this project, a brillo pad and the kitchen sink will take care of the old bright work. I just want an old school build that I can beat the hell out of, and have a good time to get back and forth to work on.
A trick I learned from an old tech article in a 1970's issue of Easyriders magazine, was to drill a small hole on the mounting surface side of the neck cup almost to the edge. This will allow you to take a small punch and drive the old neck cup race out! I spent $12.00 bucks at the NAPA auto parts store for new bearings and races. I tapped the new races into place, drove the neck cups back into the neck of the frame, and I am back in business!
So, what have you guys been up to?
Out in the garage building something I hope
Fritz
