Rumor and shadows

[HarleyCreation]

Great image! Historic bike!

The bike that I find interesting is 35E1003. We see many things on it that changed before production. It has obviously had the snot run out of it.

Sure, I've seen these photos before, but I NEVER get tired of looking at them. Thanks!

It's interesting that pristine "35E1002" was their speed trial bike and "35E1003" was their beater. I love this photo with the heads off and the parts all arranged. This is without doubt a test rider bike out of the Experimental Dept. Come up the ramp out of the back part of the Factory and head out into the countryside. "Put it over the hurdles," Bill Harley told them and they did. Notice the lack of "H-D" on the tanks plus the extremely hard use that Chris mentioned. It looks to me like it fell or wiped out on the kickstarter side. Beat the living crap out of it -- didn't blow up -- and then come back in, tear it down, and check for wear. The cool thing is how this funky test rider bike photo got into the shop literature. If only we had photos of this machine in action. Test riders sometimes did take photos, although they were ordered not to. Avoid people; head out on the highway...etc.

[HarleyCreation]

A Perfect Design!

2617 is my bike. I bought it with some other bikes in a package deal from John Parham. Bike was restored perhaps 10 years ago? I will post some photos here when I get a chance to get on my work computer... maybe tomorrow. The consensus is that the frame is later, some have told me 1937, others 1938. Someone said the heads were wrong, etc.

Right or wrong -- #2617 is a pretty ride!

While Bill Harley was the genius in charge of the 1936 "61 OHV" project and approved and/or modified everything on it, he also had a lot of good men helping him in engineering and experimental departments. Old man Davidson told me Al Kuehn had a lot to do with drawing the final design. Featherly did the heads. Kauper told me that Lothar A. Doerner was Bill Harley's right hand man at this time and had a lot of input on the immortal "36EL."

Doerner's name has never been mentioned outside of my books but he was an interesting guy with a past. In WWI he was a German U-boat engineer in Kaiser Bill's navy and my hunch is that Doerner's training in the economy of space demanded in a submarine is one reason the EL is so perfectly integrated down to the last tiny detail. Almost like it grew from an acorn instead of being assembled from parts. It has all the beautifully fitted and intelligent design, as a guy once wrote: "like the well-packed innards of a U-boat."

I personally consider the 1936 "61 OHV" E/EL model hands down the most beautiful motorcycle ever made -- bar none.

[Steve Little]

Hi all.
I had a look at that 1936 that was on ebay and it does not suit the criteria we need to verify the frame. The VIN was in the ballpark but when I looked at the segments of frames in the various shots I noticed that it had the 1939 and later left axle carrier.

Pete made reference to some spacers for the crash bar that I dont believe had enough creedence put on it.
The crash bar for the first style frame for 1936 had a small spacer on one side of the tube. The top part of the downtube on this frame is 1&1/8" OD. It ends with a spliced/angle cut and the 1 inch down tube continues on to the axle carrier.
The small spacer fills this void of spliced end to make it 1&1/8" all the way round, so that the clamp has a full purchase of metal to clamp onto.
Pete has a original parts book that has the part number of this little spacer. See his earier post.
Regards Steve

[Steve Little]

Hi.

Chris.
On the first page of this thread you posted the following answers to my questions:

Do you mean that Harley made an official statement in the shop dopes that the last few were in the later style frame.
It doesn't say later style frame. It says a few late '36 have the 5 bolt transmission mounting. What frame that was is speculation.

And if so, are these the frames that the other shop dope made mention of "fitted with 5th mounting position for trans".

Earlier in the thread I wrote that I had been told by a AMCA member from California that his early 37 had the perch bolt arrangement instead of the outrigger.
Aside from being told this, I have never actualy seen a 1937 frame that did not have the outrigger fitted.
I have never seen a 1937 bike without the the welded/brazed support.

To be truthful, I live a sheltered life, and I have only ever seen seven 1937 bikes "including my own" and about as many frames at swap meets... but they all had factory fitted outriggers.
When I have been to the Davenport and Wauseon swap meets, I always make a point of checking for this outrigger on any 37's I come across.

In the "How to Restore" book.... in your contributions to the book, I think you wrote that the early 1937 frames did not have the outrigger support for the trans.
When you wrote of this in the Palmer book, was this something you have seen?

Regards Steve

[Chris Haynes]

I didn't write any part of the book. What was probably meant was the early 1937 tranny cases didn't have the 5th mount on them. They has a bolt on mount that attached to the frame like the few late '36's.