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Back again,
I've been a member for a few years but only reading a lot of posts. I haven't started to post until recently due to having to put my 21F restoration on ice. I've finally made a start after a lot of research. I put a few miles on my bike back in the mid 80s, but packed it away until recently due to family and work responsibilities. Retired now!
My bike is a 21F 61" magneto model that appears to never have acetylene lights fitted. The magneto 61" models were very popular here and in New Zealand at the time as electric lights were expensive and I suppose that Australian roads over 100 years ago were bad enough during daylight, but must have been real nightmare after dark dodging sheep, cattle, kangaroos and possums as well as Model T Fords and horse drawn wagons. It has a genuine period Harley left hand sidecar chassis with a contemporary local Goulding sidecar body. The HD bodies are very rare here due to heavy post WWI import tariffs designed to protect the local motor body industry.
My bike was spread all over a farm North of Sydney and was collected by a mechanic in the 1960s who stored for a few years. It was apparently used to power conveyer belt to bring sand from a creek to make concrete to build farm infrastructure and simple concrete items for local sale. All the unwanted parts were tossed in various sheds spread all over the farm and the mechanic took a while to find most of the major parts.
I went t back to the farm after I bought it from him in 1971 and managed to find most of the missing parts. It's mostly correct, I think, but it has the 1920 style front mudguard, which I've been told was common on bikes early model run built bikes exported to far away places like Australia and New Zealand. Apparently , the management liked to use up last years parts on bikes sent far away from the factory where it didn't really worry anyone.
I'm hoping that some of you more knowledgable HD people can confirm that my major components are correct.
The engine and frame numbers have the 21F prefix, the gearbox has a "J" prefix and all 3 serial numbers are between 2550 and 2690. The crankcase "Belly Numbers" are AAO367.
None of the numbers show any sign of alteration.
Would you think that these are all part of the original bike? I imagine that each engine assembler would stamp each engine number when he was building it on the bench from a list of numbers on his work list list for the day. Probably the same for the frame and gearbox. builders. The final assembler would most likely record all the numbers for each bike he built recording if it was a 21F, 21J, 21FD or 21JD on his tally sheet each day. I imagine that not many bikes would have "matching" serial numbers, but please corect me if I'm wrong.The sales department most likley gave the production maagers a list with the numbers of each model variant regularly. I found the photos in that great book, "Inside Harley Davidson" most iluminating. The factory photos of trolleys full of engines and large quantities of frames etc plus the single assembly benches with a partly built bike and its asembler hard at work producing another bike are very informative. I wonder how many engines, tanks wheels or complete bikes a worker had to build in a week to keep his bosses happy?
I am working on rebuilding the engine and wheels at the moment. Please check out my ealier posts regarding engine dimensions. Thanks for all your interesting posts!
Mike 21F
I've been a member for a few years but only reading a lot of posts. I haven't started to post until recently due to having to put my 21F restoration on ice. I've finally made a start after a lot of research. I put a few miles on my bike back in the mid 80s, but packed it away until recently due to family and work responsibilities. Retired now!
My bike is a 21F 61" magneto model that appears to never have acetylene lights fitted. The magneto 61" models were very popular here and in New Zealand at the time as electric lights were expensive and I suppose that Australian roads over 100 years ago were bad enough during daylight, but must have been real nightmare after dark dodging sheep, cattle, kangaroos and possums as well as Model T Fords and horse drawn wagons. It has a genuine period Harley left hand sidecar chassis with a contemporary local Goulding sidecar body. The HD bodies are very rare here due to heavy post WWI import tariffs designed to protect the local motor body industry.
My bike was spread all over a farm North of Sydney and was collected by a mechanic in the 1960s who stored for a few years. It was apparently used to power conveyer belt to bring sand from a creek to make concrete to build farm infrastructure and simple concrete items for local sale. All the unwanted parts were tossed in various sheds spread all over the farm and the mechanic took a while to find most of the major parts.
I went t back to the farm after I bought it from him in 1971 and managed to find most of the missing parts. It's mostly correct, I think, but it has the 1920 style front mudguard, which I've been told was common on bikes early model run built bikes exported to far away places like Australia and New Zealand. Apparently , the management liked to use up last years parts on bikes sent far away from the factory where it didn't really worry anyone.
I'm hoping that some of you more knowledgable HD people can confirm that my major components are correct.
The engine and frame numbers have the 21F prefix, the gearbox has a "J" prefix and all 3 serial numbers are between 2550 and 2690. The crankcase "Belly Numbers" are AAO367.
None of the numbers show any sign of alteration.
Would you think that these are all part of the original bike? I imagine that each engine assembler would stamp each engine number when he was building it on the bench from a list of numbers on his work list list for the day. Probably the same for the frame and gearbox. builders. The final assembler would most likely record all the numbers for each bike he built recording if it was a 21F, 21J, 21FD or 21JD on his tally sheet each day. I imagine that not many bikes would have "matching" serial numbers, but please corect me if I'm wrong.The sales department most likley gave the production maagers a list with the numbers of each model variant regularly. I found the photos in that great book, "Inside Harley Davidson" most iluminating. The factory photos of trolleys full of engines and large quantities of frames etc plus the single assembly benches with a partly built bike and its asembler hard at work producing another bike are very informative. I wonder how many engines, tanks wheels or complete bikes a worker had to build in a week to keep his bosses happy?
I am working on rebuilding the engine and wheels at the moment. Please check out my ealier posts regarding engine dimensions. Thanks for all your interesting posts!
Mike 21F
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