harley's first O.H.V.

[Chuck#1848]

TRIUMPH'S

My first bike was a 68 Triumph I bought in 72 it came with 4" over fork tubes,apehangers.........and a sportster tank all for the sum of $500. and it ran!

I learned to hate lucas the electrical god it got pushed home more than once and it also leaked more oil than the S.S. Valdez did up in Alaska.

I finished it off with a bolt on rear hard tail section that I bought from a chopper shop in Detroit and topped it off with a fresh coat of candy apple red paint straight from a couple of rattle cans then completed it with a couple of brand new #1 hd sticker's on the sides of the tank

[HarleyCreation]

Re: TRIUMPH'S

Originally posted by Chuck#1848
My first bike was a 68 Triumph I bought in 72 it came with 4" over fork tubes,apehangers.........and a sportster tank all for the sum of $500. and it ran!

I learned to hate lucas the electrical god it got pushed home more than once and it also leaked more oil than the S.S. Valdez did up in Alaska.

I finished it off with a bolt on rear hard tail section that I bought from a chopper shop in Detroit and topped it off with a fresh coat of candy apple red paint straight from a couple of rattle cans then completed it with a couple of brand new #1 hd sticker's on the sides of the tank

The only time I ever towed another motorcycle it was a Triumph broken down along the road with a dead electrical system. I stopped to lend assistance and the guy begged me to tow him home with my Panhead. I didn't want to do it, but I couldn't turn him down or me and my bike would have looked chicken-sh*t. So he got a rope and I towed him back to his pad which was a kind of communal biker hangout. They were into lots of other stuff besides motorcycles and believed in tearing their bikes apart every winter after ingesting (ahem) brain enhancements. This was early/mid-1970s; quite an interesting period.

[Chuck#1848]

H.C.

In 72 when I bought the triumph I was not quite two months over the age of 16.

Yes interesting times they were

[Chuck#1848]

Originally posted by Ohio-Rider
How about a 1927 Raleigh Sport
Raleigh started in 1899 and lasted until 1933, The 350cc size was popular in England and Europe.This one has carbine lighting.

Seems to be a comon thing with the european bikes to have the knee pads on the sides of the tanks and the clutch and break levers come off the ends of the handle bars

Just curious would anybody know how far back this was done?

[HarleyCreation]

Originally posted by Chuck#1848



Seems to be a comon thing with the european bikes to have the knee pads on the sides of the tanks and the clutch and break levers come off the ends of the handle bars

Just curious would anybody know how far back this was done?

I don't know how far back they go, but I like those tank knee pads on the sides. Your knees don't bang against the tank, keeps them warmer, and you can grip the tank better too when necessary.

[Pete Gagan]

The knee grips were firstt used on Nortons about 1922. They were invented by a gentleman by the name of George Dance, a roadracer, and were used by him on his Norton to help keep him on it. These original "George Dance knee grips" were form fitting to the knee. Obviously, George didn't patent the idea, because within a few years most British and European bikes had them.
Pete Gagan

[Ohio-Rider]

Maybe these aren't original if that is the case.

[Chuck#1848]

Thanks for the info Pete

Ohio Rider original or not it's still a nice looking machine that someone has there.

[Pete Gagan]

John Bull was a British after market manufacturer of knee grips shortly after George Dance. Walter Moore, designer of the first overhead cam Norton, which won the TT in 1927 with Allec Bennet in the saddle, left Nortons for Germany in 1929, taking his designs with him to NSU. Notice the similarity in engine appearance to a Norton. He probably was responsible for taking the knee grip idea with him as well to NSU. Interestingly, his designs did not belong to Norton, so Arthur Carrol, his understudy had to design a different ohc Norton, which along with its successors became the most successful road racing machine in history. (Sorry to drift off the topic of Harley's first 8 valve. Maybe we need another thread.)
Pete Gagan

[AFJ]

Originally posted by HarleyCreation


I don't know how far back they go, but I like those tank knee pads on the sides. Your knees don't bang against the tank, keeps them warmer, and you can grip the tank better too when necessary.

Knee grips on the sides of the tanks of British motorcycles appear, from such pictures as I can find, to be fairly common on racing motorcycles in the TT - Tourist Trophy races - by 1911. These all appear to be padded leather ones which lace or strap around the tank, thereby allowing them to be moved forward or back along the tank to suit a particular rider.

The moulded rubber type fit to the side of the tank with a stud or studs soldered to the tank. A metal plate is bolted to the stud or studs and the rubber pad has a lip which is stretched over the plate. This type seems to show up only around 1919 (just after WWI) and is common on many makes for road use and especially for racing bikes from that time on. Most of the designs (at first) were simple ovals or rectangles with the make of the bike cast into the surface of the rubber if they were originally fitted to the bike at the factory. "Universal" ones with no name were also made for fitting to bikes as an aftermarket accessory. The elaborate "George Dance pattern with a recess for the knee and a knob of rubber to help the knee grip the tank seem to have first come on the market in 1922/23 and are seen in pictures into the 1930's. The "John Bull" brand of knee grips, handlebar and footpeg rubbers and tires (tyres) were made by the North British Rubber Co. who continued to operate at least well into the 1950's and possibly later.

Inverted control levers for handlebars were popular on many makes of British and European bikes in the 1920s and 30s. A lot of these control systems were made by the Amal firm both in Britain and on the Continent. Often the inverted levers, internal twistgrips and the handlebars themselves were made and sold as a complete unit for the bike maker to install.

AFJ

[Blupacer]

I have a 1929 Motor Cycling Manual {hard back} published by Motor Cycling [England}"All About Motorcycles and The Art of Driving Them". Has great illustration of standard type controles. End of left bar has exhaust valve lifter lever , clutch lever in conventional spot, Magneto control lever next. Right bar has air lever and throttle lever next then front brake lever at end of bar.
Says that Twist-grip throttle on racing machines becoming popular

Can you imagine setting all of these and hand shifting on right side of tank


Blupacer

[AFJ]

Originally posted by Blupacer
I have a 1929 Motor Cycling Manual {hard back} published by Motor Cycling [England}"All About Motorcycles and The Art of Driving Them". Has great illustration of standard type controles. End of left bar has exhaust valve lifter lever , clutch lever in conventional spot, Magneto control lever next. Right bar has air lever and throttle lever next then front brake lever at end of bar.
Says that Twist-grip throttle on racing machines becoming popular

Can you imagine setting all of these and hand shifting on right side of tank


Blupacer

I regularly ride a 1927 bike with such a control layout. The 2 lever throttle/air controls are operated with the thumb and index finger while the front brake is controlled with the other 3 fingers of the right hand. As the carb. controls have some friction in them they do not close when the right hand is moved to move the hand shift lever for the 3 speed and neutral non-gated gear box. On this particular bike there is another right hand control - the oil pump flow rate adjuster.
The left hand operates the decompressor, clutch and horn, and at night has to adjust the water jet to the carbide head and tail light.
It is just something one gets used to.

AFJ

[Ohio-Rider]

-1909 Royal Pioneer-
Featuring opposed valves and hemi head, the Pioneer was in production for only two years; there are four controls on the twist grips: air, throttle, spark, and compression release.

[Early Iron MC]

Originally posted by HarleyCreation
Floyd Clymer's Scrapbook Vol. 2, page 203, shows the identical Excelsior OHV photo (posted from Wright's book) but with this additional information:

"Overhead Valve Excelsior "61" Racer -- 1916"

"Only six of these machines were built. Fred Luther, Glen Stokes, Joe Wolters, Bob Perry, Al Hilliard and myself had them. They were built in 1916. Soon afterwards all U.S. factories agreed to quit the manufacture of racing machines.

"Mr. Schwinn gave me the four overhead jobs left at that time. For years I used them on dirt tracks in the west. My overhead "X" single was one of these machines with the rear cylinder removed rebalanced and with a cut down frames. Excelsior also built a few overhead jobs with overhead camshaft, but they were not very satisfactory. -- Clymer."

On the same page the same bike and same setting (Maywood Chicago Speedway, 1916) appears but with Joe Wolters, Fred Luther, and Al Hilliard in the photo.

I wonder what the record was of these six OHV "Ex's" before WWI stopped pro racing?

Did they make good?

These Clymer Scrapbooks have a lot of good information....

Herb, I've been tring to find all I can on these bikes and can't find much, but I did find out that these first OHV bikes didn't run as fast as the Big X IOE bikes, so they gave up on them and started on the OHC motor, I also can't find anything that says that they were 8 valve motors and if you look at the picture vary closely it dosen't look like the 8 valve Harley heads, I wish there where more pictures of this bike at differant angles to look at.

[Barry Brown]

I have a bona fide old letter from an early collector describing in detail and offering to a museum a vee twin ohv Excelsior he has with 3 valve heads! That's all I can say as I'm still holding out hope and looking.