Early to mid-'46 front fender struts

[dommi7]

Glad you posted! I have the same fender with mismatched braces. Unfortunately I don’t know any history on it.

[Chris Haynes]

Mismatched struts are often found on 1946 models.

[Omarttentmaker]

1st pic shows head of rivet for attaching strut to sheet metal part of fender. All 4 are the same. 2nd pic shows peened rivet on inside. Once again, machine-riveted. 3rd pic shows reinforcement spot-welded to inside of fender.

resized pic #4.jpg resized pic #5.jpg
resized pic #6.jpg

[Omarttentmaker]

Palmer talks about front and rear fenders being provided on 1946 bikes with wide and narrow braces, meaning it could have a rear fender with narrow brace and front with wide brace. I have never seen one fender with two different width braces.

Just for my own knowledge. 1st pic shows struts. Front one is .89 thick. Rear one is .62 thick. 2nd pic shows rivets connected to lower fender mount. 3rd pic shows inside of same rivet, looks to be machine-riveted, not ball peened. Holes in the valance for stainless trim were put in by me.

[Architect]

Palmer talks about front and rear fenders being provided on 1946 bikes with wide and narrow braces, meaning it could have a rear fender with narrow brace and front with wide brace. I have never seen one fender with two different width braces.

[Omarttentmaker]

Also the protruding bulb on a 68 would keep the flat lens from going on.

So along with the lens change, the socket was changed also, so that the bulb stuck farther out? Never mind, I see the difference is the position of the socket in the housing.

[otis71]

Also the protruding bulb on a 68 would keep the flat lens from going on.

[otis71]

I would find that the flat lens would likely not have been used in 1968. In 1967 the NHTSA mandated side illumination on all 1968 vehicles. Harley would be violating the mandate if so. Even though the 55 lamp body would work with the raised lens the bulb doesn’t protrude into the lens on them probably making them a no go too.

[Jerry Wieland]

Omar I have seen fender straps like this numerous times - specially on WL's and NOS fenders. I cannot speak on the tail light thing,

Jerry

[Omarttentmaker]

I have a big twin springer front fender with one wide brace and one narrow one. I seem to recall seeing an old photo years ago on this site showing a knucklehead, and the guy who posted it was wondering what year the bike might be. I responded that I thought it might be early to mid '46 because the pic showed the fender with the above-mentioned brace configuration. Is this correct, or some kind of urban legend? I see nothing in Palmer's books about this anomaly.
My 2nd query has to do with tail lamps for 1968. The bodies for these assemblies are stamped either -55 or -68. I wrote on this site some time ago about which lamp body and which lamp lens was correct for this year. I was told (maybe incorrectly) that the vendor for these assemblies was the Fisher Body division of General Motors, and that they endured a short strike in 1968. This cause the motor company to experience a shortage of these assemblies. As a result, they issued a notice to their dealers to return and and all parts they had in inventory to alleviate this shortage. As a result, it would seem to be possible that new bikes for this year could come with any one of 4 combinations of body and lens assemblies. They could be -55 with a flat lens, -68 with a flat lens, -55 with a raised lens, or -68 with a raised lens. This is all obviously conjecture, and I have no documentation to verify either the story about the strike or any communcation literature from H-D. Any comments or clarification regarding either of these questions?