Cleveland Motorcycles Fours History

[fletty999]

Rick Wolfe from Ontario has a cleveland four.He would also have information you need.Hope this helps. John

Thanks for the info Panuckle, I have PM'd Rick, so hopefully I get a reply.


Also, here is the website I found explaining the streamlined French bike with the Cleveland Engine:

http://www.bikebandit.com/community/blog/motorcycle-throwback-the-1929-majestic

And another fantastic link I have found is the archive.org website, they have started digitising very old motorcycle magazines 1880s-1910s and you can read them for free:

http://archive.org/details/bicyc6224191081911newy

http://archive.org/search.php?query=motorcycle&page=4

Fletty

[rigb]

I,m going to the 4 cylinder meet in 2 weeks. If I see any Cleveland fours I will get you a contact.

[50indian]

Clark's Trading Post

Dave Clark at Clark's Trading Post in central New Hampshire has a couple of Cleveland 4s. Very cool place with lots of stuff to see and located in the heart of very beautiful New Hampshire

[fletty999]

Dave Clark at Clark's Trading Post in central New Hampshire has a couple of Cleveland 4s. Very cool place with lots of stuff to see and located in the heart of very beautiful New Hampshire

Thanks 50indian for the lead. I googled Clarks trading post to see if I could find any pictures but the only one I could find is at the bottom of this page, and I think it is a Cleveland or 2 poking out behind the Indian Four:

http://www.fuzzygalore.com/2007/08/non-moto-travel-clarks-trading-post/

I emailed them to see if they could send me some pictures of the Cleveland Fours in the Avery's museum. You didn't happen to take any when you were there that you could email me?

I am slowly gathering many articles from old magazines and pages from books about the Cleveland company, I also bought the "Motorcyclings Golden Age of the Fours" book by Ted Hodgdon and I am anxiously waiting for it to arrive in the mail.

also rigb, thankyou very much for helping me find a contact. I am trying very hard to find someone who i can bounce questions and dimensions off to start drawing one in 3D.

[Tom Lovejoy]

That's a great book you well enjoy it. Richard Morris had at least 4 Clevelands I believe + he knows alot about them.

[D.A.Bagin]

I believe Mike Terry had 1 or 2 Cleveland fours recently if I remember correctly.

[c.o.]

This awesome gem comes to mind....

[fletty999]

So would the 4-45 in the above post be Mike Terry's?

And would that bike also be the one that was saved from being drenched in Hurricane Sandy in the third photo down in the link below?

http://knucklebuster1939.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/motorcycle-mike-and-sandy-part-3.html

It seems that there are so few of these bikes left, that the same names keep coming up when researching examples of them.

[D.A.Bagin]

Yes, that is Mike as referred to in the above post. He gets some wonderful machines and does them justice when restored or preserved.

[fletty999]

Is there any way I can get in contact with Mike Terry? Is he on this forum?

I also emailed Clarks Trading Post about their Cleveland in the Averys Garage Museum, and they tell me they have an original running 1928 Cleveland 4-61 with original paint and decals.
And they will take some photos of it for me.

I also found another great resource for Motorcycle Periodicals "Motorcycle illustrated" and "The Motorcycle and Bicycle Review" from ~1908 to ~1918 that you can read for free:

http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008608578

http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008603540

Cheers,
Fletty

[fletty999]

Hello again,

Here are some photos of a 1928 Cleveland 4-61 that were sent to me by the nice people at Clarks Trading Post in New Hampshire.

They have a bunch of vintage motorcycles in their Avery's Garage museum, so if your up that way, check it out.

The bike is said to be all original paint, and apparently it was a factory option to have a brown tank that year.

[c.o.]

When they said original paint, did they just mean the tank?

[fletty999]

This is what I was told:

"This Cleveland 4 is right out of the factory. There were a couple different paint options, and this was one of them."

If you look at the pictures of the bike from front on, it looks like the gold pinstriping can still be seen raised under the red paint on the front guard.

But they may be correct, I am yet to figure out which colours the different models came in, I know that in 1928 the two colours were "Potomac Blue" and "Mephisto Red" with gold pinstriping (colours are in the 1928 parts list), and Mike Terrys original 1927 4-45 is brown, so there may have been a cross over period?

I have also heard of a "Cleveland Blue" but I don't know what exactly that blue looks like.

1928 Cleveland in "Mephisto Red"

1929 Tornado in "Potomac Blue"

[fletty999]

Hello again All,

Great news! The nice people at Averys Garage have been kind enough to send me a photo of one of the footboards on their 1928 4-61 with a tape measure on top.

With this information I can reverse engineer one using CAD and hopefully find somewhere I can get it milled out of aluminium.

I have looked in the parts lists, and from what I can gather, the Clevelands used the same footboards from 1927-1929.




Fletty

[fletty999]

Started the CAD work on the photo to reproduce a 1927 - 1929 footboard,

Got the 2D mostly sorted: