Tweet
Lurking in the back of a garage, shed, or basement of many motorbike enthusiasts is a pile of cast off or spare parts. These parts build up over time – and one day you have to ask yourself the question: What am I doing with this stuff?
Some people vend, some people trade, and others build Frankenbikes (aka as Bitsas). And that is how the Nickle and Dime Express came to be. The Man says it is a 1946 Harley Davidson UL – but there’s not a lot of 1946 to the bike. Pretty much only the left case and the transmission case are 1946. The rest, well, it’s a story.
Several years ago, I ran across a screaming deal on a 1958-64 Big Twin frame, swing arm, and a bunch of random parts. The frame was not pristine. Someone had started to cut it up, but thankfully stopped before they got to the rake job. They thoughtfully tacked the cut off brackets back on and then left it for a good long time. So, it was possible to use it on a restoration, but I really bought it to build a rider. When I was done selling the other parts that came with the chassis on fleabay the cost of the frame was zero.
My initial thought was to track down a complete Panhead motor and build a somewhat correct rider. About the same time, the price of good Pan motors with clean titles went through the roof. I started thinking about what big twin motor I could stuff in the frame on the cheap and a light bulb went on. What about a big twin side valve?
I made a few phone calls and learned that indeed, it’s not terribly difficult to drop a U series flathead into most post 1936 big twin frames. There’s some tricks, but they do fit fairly well. V series motors present more challenges (and are harder to find complete anyways). So, we had a plan – a cheap big twin flathead in a duoglide chassis.
Now, at the time, big twin flatties were getting no love and complete motors with paper were going for less than $3000. Today, the story is different and suddenly flatties are worth something to custom builders. I wound up buying a set of mismatched cases from David Sarafan. The left is a clean 1946 UL case that was a snap to get a title for. The right case is a 1939 case and needed some minor motor mount repair. Those of you in the know will say: wait, you can’t match a blind race case to an open race case. Sure you can . . . it just takes some tooling and patience. We’ll talk more about that later.
I now had a frame and swing arm, cases, and a title. And about now is when I learned that it is much harder to find all the parts to build up a UL motor than you might think. The main challenge at the time was finding cylinders. I lucked into a pair of 1939 ULH cylinders in nearly pristine condition. In another one of those AMCA created moments, Grant Peterson took mercy on me at Wauseon and sold me the cylinders for a very fair price. I now suddenly had a rarity – good, original, 80” cylinders! Yippee!!!
However, by now I was pushing my budget and decided to raid the spare parts bin. Besides my own lot, I started stalking the $5 and $10 tarps at AMCA meets for beat up and discarded parts. I didn’t have to look for specific years – just parts that would fit and work together. Not dead parts, just ugly parts. By the end of summer I had collected enough parts to start building a custom bike. Everything, including the cases, needed some type of repair. It was clear this was never going to be anything but a rider – so let’s do a custom. Not a chopper, not a bobber – not any of the “kewl” stuff you see too often on TV today. Just a custom bike made out of HD parts left for dead.
Here’s the initial pile of parts . . .
46 UL 2.jpg
46 UL 3.jpg
46 UL 4.jpg
46 ULH 1.jpg
What comes out of the pile is pretty different.
flat head 80 logo.jpg
Some people vend, some people trade, and others build Frankenbikes (aka as Bitsas). And that is how the Nickle and Dime Express came to be. The Man says it is a 1946 Harley Davidson UL – but there’s not a lot of 1946 to the bike. Pretty much only the left case and the transmission case are 1946. The rest, well, it’s a story.
Several years ago, I ran across a screaming deal on a 1958-64 Big Twin frame, swing arm, and a bunch of random parts. The frame was not pristine. Someone had started to cut it up, but thankfully stopped before they got to the rake job. They thoughtfully tacked the cut off brackets back on and then left it for a good long time. So, it was possible to use it on a restoration, but I really bought it to build a rider. When I was done selling the other parts that came with the chassis on fleabay the cost of the frame was zero.
My initial thought was to track down a complete Panhead motor and build a somewhat correct rider. About the same time, the price of good Pan motors with clean titles went through the roof. I started thinking about what big twin motor I could stuff in the frame on the cheap and a light bulb went on. What about a big twin side valve?
I made a few phone calls and learned that indeed, it’s not terribly difficult to drop a U series flathead into most post 1936 big twin frames. There’s some tricks, but they do fit fairly well. V series motors present more challenges (and are harder to find complete anyways). So, we had a plan – a cheap big twin flathead in a duoglide chassis.
Now, at the time, big twin flatties were getting no love and complete motors with paper were going for less than $3000. Today, the story is different and suddenly flatties are worth something to custom builders. I wound up buying a set of mismatched cases from David Sarafan. The left is a clean 1946 UL case that was a snap to get a title for. The right case is a 1939 case and needed some minor motor mount repair. Those of you in the know will say: wait, you can’t match a blind race case to an open race case. Sure you can . . . it just takes some tooling and patience. We’ll talk more about that later.
I now had a frame and swing arm, cases, and a title. And about now is when I learned that it is much harder to find all the parts to build up a UL motor than you might think. The main challenge at the time was finding cylinders. I lucked into a pair of 1939 ULH cylinders in nearly pristine condition. In another one of those AMCA created moments, Grant Peterson took mercy on me at Wauseon and sold me the cylinders for a very fair price. I now suddenly had a rarity – good, original, 80” cylinders! Yippee!!!
However, by now I was pushing my budget and decided to raid the spare parts bin. Besides my own lot, I started stalking the $5 and $10 tarps at AMCA meets for beat up and discarded parts. I didn’t have to look for specific years – just parts that would fit and work together. Not dead parts, just ugly parts. By the end of summer I had collected enough parts to start building a custom bike. Everything, including the cases, needed some type of repair. It was clear this was never going to be anything but a rider – so let’s do a custom. Not a chopper, not a bobber – not any of the “kewl” stuff you see too often on TV today. Just a custom bike made out of HD parts left for dead.
Here’s the initial pile of parts . . .
46 UL 2.jpg
46 UL 3.jpg
46 UL 4.jpg
46 ULH 1.jpg
What comes out of the pile is pretty different.
flat head 80 logo.jpg
Comment