Saturday evening post

[HarleyCreation]

Great stuff Herb...... I dig the Pan....

I lost a right saddlebag once. I was pretty lucky though, I had turned off a main highway into a small town just before daybreak and after realizing it was missing a backtrack search was on! I was chopper piloting that morning and I needed them tools! I think I was real lucky the timing was before the rooster crowed and GaryH. and I found the bag sitting right where it dropped in the middle of the street! I should have taken the warning though. 20 miles or so down the road a rod seized and the sickle had to take a pickup truck ride!! It weren't my day.........

Cory,

You lucked out on the bag, but not the con-rod. Too bad.

I had gone maybe 15 miles before I realized the right side bag was gone. I stopped, walked away from the bike, turned around, and saw the NAKED spot where the bag should be. In a panic I went back and looked and looked with no luck. Someone grabbed it. The bolts to the mounting plate had come loose. I don't think I tightened them when I put the bags on.

I tried matching it with another bag and even added fringes, but it wasn't the same. That set was unique. I've never seen another set like 'em. But there must be. They couldn't be one-of-a-kind. Long fringes with conchos and roller buckles. And weathered and sagging to perfection. I sure would like to know what make they are.

I really loved that bike. It never let me down. Even the last time I rode it (or tried to) to the 95th, it got me home -- with a rod knocking like crazy!

[c.o.]

Hey, don't leave!

What make saddlebags are on this "Old Herb" Pan?

This photo isn't the best, but shows the bag when they were still in good shape back in 1977. They have the desired slope or sag that somebody mentioned. IOW, the top doesn't come straight out, but slopes downward. Inside are pieces of wood; not sure if they came that way or not when new. Probably not.

They may have been white originally but when I got them in a parts cache in 1975 they were well-used but in good shape and an attractive gray-fellow-color. Also a matching Buddy Seat that is also on the bike. They really made the bike nice looking to me, complete, and with a unique ghostly personality that I never did understand but only felt. They also made the bike more practical too at a time when only old guys ran saddlebags.

Unfortunately the right bag fell off on the road between Woodland and Hustisford, Wis., and I never got it back. And I never could match it properly either. Losing it was a tragic event at the time and still is (sob!)

I still have the bike, but 30 years later the bags have lost many fringes and are pretty beat. The patina is well earned. Not faked. A well set up early Panhead doesn't need any gew-gaws to look and feel right.

The farmhouse in the background I rented in 1976-'78 for $25 a month while going to college at UW-RF. I built a ramp to get my bikes up on the porch. I had this Pan, a winter FL sidecar rig, and a 45 there. No car yet. That summer I rode this bike around Lake Superior. Later it took me up there for good.

Great stuff Herb...... I dig the Pan....

I lost a right saddlebag once. I was pretty lucky though, I had turned off a main highway into a small town just before daybreak and after realizing it was missing a backtrack search was on! I was chopper piloting that morning and I needed them tools! I think I was real lucky the timing was before the rooster crowed and GaryH. and I found the bag sitting right where it dropped in the middle of the street! I should have taken the warning though. 20 miles or so down the road a rod seized and the sickle had to take a pickup truck ride!! It weren't my day.........

[c.o.]

I was talking to Mil last year and he was building a TEX bike then. Not 30 years ago.

Here's a bad scan of a photo from the article Greg mentioned. I assume it was taken in 1994....

[Chris Haynes]

Yeah, the new ones don't have nearly the amount of patina as Flat's do.

[flat-happy]

side by side they aren't even close----good attempt though

[sveger]

Wheel covers old style

popular and rare then AND today----see the ones on my avatar? these were an earlier version and i don't think anyone is making repops of these ones

Flat Happy, you would be surprized what is not made these days:

http://frontstcycle.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-11-24T21%3A19%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=7

Sverre
AMcN

http://AmericanMotorcyclesNorway.blogspot.com

[HarleyCreation]

Another "Tex" Pan?

Is there some reason my posts do not get to the AMCA forum? It seems like I am always farting in the wind when I post messages so I guess I will just keep my thought to myself from now on--

Hey, don't leave!

What make saddlebags are on this "Old Herb" Pan?

This photo isn't the best, but shows the bag when they were still in good shape back in 1977. They have the desired slope or sag that somebody mentioned. IOW, the top doesn't come straight out, but slopes downward. Inside are pieces of wood; not sure if they came that way or not when new. Probably not.

They may have been white originally but when I got them in a parts cache in 1975 they were well-used but in good shape and an attractive gray-fellow-color. Also a matching Buddy Seat that is also on the bike. They really made the bike nice looking to me, complete, and with a unique ghostly personality that I never did understand but only felt. They also made the bike more practical too at a time when only old guys ran saddlebags.

Unfortunately the right bag fell off on the road between Woodland and Hustisford, Wis., and I never got it back. And I never could match it properly either. Losing it was a tragic event at the time and still is (sob!)

I still have the bike, but 30 years later the bags have lost many fringes and are pretty beat. The patina is well earned. Not faked. A well set up early Panhead doesn't need any gew-gaws to look and feel right.

The farmhouse in the background I rented in 1976-'78 for $25 a month while going to college at UW-RF. I built a ramp to get my bikes up on the porch. I had this Pan, a winter FL sidecar rig, and a 45 there. No car yet. That summer I rode this bike around Lake Superior. Later it took me up there for good.

[HarleyCreation]

Herb
Harley did sell a framed 25x37 numbered print of Steven Dohanos original illustration in 1988 part number 99506-88vf for $259.95
Steve

Thanks. That's the one, altho I was off by 10 years. Not cheap either. No wonder I didn't buy one. My pal Larry had his hanging in his living room and probably still does.

[HarleyCreation]

Funny, the sellers of this thing call it the "infamous bike of the century."
The word infamous, to me, means, "famous for all the wrong reasons," exemplified by FDR on Dec. 8th, labeling "December 7th, Nineteen hundred and forty-one," as "a date which will live in infamy."
Geez, I wonder just how many folks this bike has killed? Riders, or just pedestrians who got in its way?
And, all the time I looked at that photo of the cover, I didn't notice that it had no 1947-50 'redball' tank emblems. Whether the original did or not, it may have just been the Saturday Evening Post's way of not copying Harley-Davidson's trademark to its cover.

I thought the same thing. Tex bike is a Currier & Ives type bike, a soft & cuddly bike, a Christmas tree ornament type bike.

The ratty Knucklehead with the beer bottles and Bozo sitting on it is an infamous bike. The Brando "Wild One" Triumph Thunderbird is an infamous bike. Pennington jumping the river with The Motor Cycle in 1896 is an infamous bike!

[HarleyCreation]

now one will get the patina treatment and stored in a barn for a couple of months and turn up on the tv show "pickers". first time a 1950 panhead without a senior first will break the $20000 mark.

Think of the possibilities for finding special "barn fresh" machines fully documented in old issues of Enthusiast magazine, etc. The sky is the limit!

That chrome plated 36EL owned by that lady speedboat racer Florence Burnham should be showing up any day now!

Chris knows the one I'm talking about.

[HarleyCreation]

PS I agree with you, Herb: the "fat donuts," 5.00x16s from 1940-onwards, ruined the ideal looks of the late-30s Harleys. 'Took what had been lean bikes that screamed "motorcycle" and ushered in the garbage barge looks. I like the looks of them wearing 4.50x18s best. That why we have freedom of choice. To each his own, eh?

Ain't it the truth. Those so-called 5:00x16 "comfort producers" also produced a backlash reaction against what had formerly been a very sporting motorcycle. Like you say, one trend went in the garbage wagon ("best accessorized") direction until it became ridiculous.

Other guys revolted and started riding Brit bikes. Then came the bobber and chopper craze. A few smart ones realized you could slap 18 inch wheels onto the stock Panhead and make it into a sporting motorcycle again. My dealer "Bud" Pater in Racine told me to do that after I hit the bridge in 1973 and wanted a better handling bike.

Hey, good story about your UL "Old Tex."

[BNSONS]

I believe the wheel covers are s/s at least the orig ones were. As with everything that part is also getting repoped. I do like your covers flat-happy.
Dave

[flat-happy]

popular and rare then AND today----see the ones on my avatar? these were an earlier version and i don't think anyone is making repops of these ones

[Sargehere]

Yeah, they're basically two big circles of tin, Mr. Big, spun against a hardwood buck on a lathe, chromed, in this case (may be s.s.) and they screw together, sandwiching the spokes between. New, they look great. But leave them on too long without maintenance, attention, and your spokes and nipples all go to rust. Then you NEVER want to take um off. he he. Definitely a popular '50s period accessory. NOS ones have gone on ePay recently for mucho moola. They weren't Harley, but aftermarket. They're also available in repop, so prices are lower.

[Mr. Big]

it is a spoke wheel with hubcaps on it

Thanks. I'd never seen one before this. Was this a popular option back in the 50's?