harley's first O.H.V.

[jww]

Paul,
My vote is clean it up, strictly on the basis of Tommo's statement regarding the image we portray as a Club. I'm sure there are alot of other folks like me, who do more reading and learning from this forum than actually participating. I enjoy the topics regarding the history of our passion, and its pretty easy to determine which participants share the passion. Hope you all have a great
Independence Day ! johnny

[Tommo]

Kojack, Apology accepted, it takes a big man to say sorry.

I had some questions for jurassic but his last post answered all of them for me.
It was pretty obvious that the Excelsior was not a genuine bike, the Harley cylinders looked very wrong, so why was it not stated that it was a repop when the photo first appeared on this site.
I have no problems what-so-ever with replicas so long as they are not passed off as being originals.
I have nothing but respect for you guys that build these replicas, the workmanship and effort needed to achieve the finished product is unbelieveable but please be honest and tell it like it is.
jurassic I commend you for being honest by stating publicly that you build, as you call them, fake bikes but please when you post pictures of them include the fact that they are fakes.
Regards, Tommo

[jurassic]

1915

1915

[Perry Ruiter]

Here's, from Tommo, a scan of a 1915 8 valve ... Perry

[Perry Ruiter]

And for comparison (again from Tommo) a shot of a 1916 Excelsior 8 valve ... Perry

This period picture appeared in an Australian magazine some years ago and I took it out and put it in my Excelsior file. It shows one of the J.A.McNeil designed 1916 ohv Excelsiors on a board track somewhere.

[Perry Ruiter]

One more from Tommo ... Perry

Finally a picture of a standard 1916 racer that came out of a 1916 Excelsior sales brochure. No cut-aways in the tank like on the one posted by jurrasic.

[Tommo]

Being confined to the house allowed me to look through my paper collection and I came up with these three pictures that seemed appropiate to this discussion.
Where the Harley photo came from I'm not sure but it appears to be the same as the Clymer one and I just hoped it was of better quality but now it's up there I'm not so sure.
Perry inserted my thoughts to the two Excelsior ones and they are self explainatory.
A big thanks to Perry for his assistance.

[Pete Gagan]

A bit off the Harley topic, but the 8 valve Excelsior picture Perry came up with is interesting- I didn't know they built one, and I've done a fair bit of Excelsior research lately- too focussed on one bike, I guess.
Take a look at the thread in pre-16 to see my re-created 1919 OHC Excelsior, which is up and running. It will be at Wauseon and Davenport.
Pete Gagan

[jurassic]

excelsior

the original pic of the OHV excelsior is on page 106 of the american racer by stephen wright.the heads look very similar to the harley heads.this was the inspiration for the bike i built last summer.the basket case i started with had a very nice original paint tank,so i used it instead of building a new tank without pockets.the photo was taken at maywood park in chicago.according to wright ,this was the only one built,and was unsuccessful.

[Pete Gagan]

Thanks, Jurassic:
I have the book, and its been well thumbed. I'm not sure how I missed this one, but I did.
I wondered at the "why" of your 8 valve Excelsior project, and now I have the answer. Nice piece of work!
Pete

[jurassic]

1915

1915

[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....

[jurassic]

1915

1915

[Eric @ B.O.S]

Jurassic,
I think I spotted your 1915 8 valve in some of the Davenport galleries. Le's see more pictures and closeups!
Eric

[jurassic]

8V

the bike still needs work.