The DNA Of A 1947 FLTT Racer

I just painted the TT Knucklehead and now it's time for its final assembly.

FLTT Racing tanks are so neat, and the mandatory Knuckle Valve Spring around the seat post is in place.

5.00-16" Good Year Grasshopper and a shortened fender

4.00-19" Good Year Grasshopper and a 1947 Springer.

Late 1947 slim neck frame.

It's even got a front axle and...

A Rigid Hips Raised Transmission Kit

Tranny plate mounted with extended bolts

Sergeant Lee is coming - and you're on his list.

I'm just Watching the wheels...

The High Frequency Troposphere Research Program

The High Frequency Troposphere Research Program is the delicate collaboration between Mullins Chain Drive and Rigid Hips Stockholm to bring you the most advanced technological motorcycle helmet known to man, and here’s a sneak peak of what’s to come. It’s not only chock resistant like no helmet ever before but it also makes you resist human capacity for reproduction, hunger, religion, dumbness, sadness and daily workday intoxication.

The HFTRP helmet even comes with a remote mind control function to read people’s minds while cutting through traffic, and on top of that it’ll make you fully able to control the climate within a range of 4.7 miles and of course it’s 100% g-force resistant. This magnificent helmet won’t be available until sometime around 2013 due to a few unsolved technical/political difficulties with NATO, but hang in there; we will announce you as soon as they’re ready to hit the shelves. The HFTRP helmet will be able in NASA White only, not fake patina or flake paint – well, I guess fake patina is the new flake paint but who cares. This is cutting edge science at its finest and if you’re one of the first 100 lucky people to pre-order this helmet we will throw in a fluxgate magnetometer and a Happy Meal …for free.

The Process Crank of The Final Judgement

The FLTT crankcase is ready for it's final assembly, it sure has been a long process to get the chain driven Wico magneto and everything to line up as it's supposed to. And getting the Leineweber #5 cam to fit required a needle bearing and alot of machine work, also a serious shave of the lifter housing bottoms.

New drain/freeze plugs installed... Charlie even fabricated a special tool to tap them in place correctly.

And here's the MoCo TT Magneto masterplan.

The flywheels for this build are a set of dual right side UL flywheels that's had the crankpin holes re-drilled and a FL crankpin installed offset, that'll bump the 4.9/32” stroke up to 4.13/32” and compared to the stock 74" OHV stroke 3.31/32" it's quite a bit longer. Combined with the 3.5/8" bore it will be a 91" / 1500cc. This flywheel assembly is now balanced and ready to go in the cases. The motor should be done in the next couple of weeks now hopefully ...I can't wait to hear this thing run.

Forever Changes

The Los Angeles rock band Love is one of the very best bands ever, and if you don't listen to them already you're definetly missing out on a radical part of music history.

The genius behind Love is named Arthur Lee and he was born in 1945, about the same time as the Lee clutch pedals first came in production. I was searching for something in the garage the other day and I found this old Lee pedal I completly forgot about. And all it needed was a little Love.

Over time the pedal hole had become pretty worn out and oval, so I cut i apart, drilled it out, did a little brass bushing and pressed in, had to re-drill and re-thread the grease nipple hole and re-weld the bracket and it's good to go. I won't even clean it - I'll just run it as it is.

Not listening to Love is a crime and the sentence is a Social Distortion neck tattoo.

From The Eerie Vaults of DicE Magazine

Here's a few random RHS ad's from DicE Magazine

Using Play-Doh to measure the distance from valve to piston dome still works fine as long as you cut it with a brand new razor blade before measuring. Using a knife will increase the chances of getting a classic valve sallad.

Just tryin' to keep my balance...

That's right folks, latex heads for Model U Flatheads, aluminium is so out of tyle.

And finally, getting some heavy help measuring up the EL cam shaft's side play.

Complete Riley Carburetor Setup

Here's the complete original Riley Side Draft Carburetor setup, as being offered in June 1947 from the The George Riley & CO Engine Design & Development.

Complete with Offenhauser intake, Aircraft hose clamps and fittings, Heim Joint CO linkage and soldered fuel lines.

I'll use as much as I can from the original setup on the TT Knuckle, I would guess this is about as far from each other the carbs will be mounted on the motor so hopefully not too many mods are needed to make the original linkage fit the bike.

How cool is this; The very first sketch of the side draft carburetor...

And finally, the original wooden patterns used to produce the carburetor.
Have a great weekend everybody.

Dual Cam Springer Brake

The dual cam Springer brake has been a bit debated lately, so are they better than the single cam brake or complete crap?

My personal experience is; the one to the right is the terrible one that makes people talk shit about them, I spent days timing the cams trying to dial it just right, I switched brake shoes, I even got the brake shoes relined. And still, all it ever gave me was a slight feeling of acceleration when hitting it = the one to the right is complete shit. *Note the differerences between the left and right brake's shoes.

The brake to the left in this pic on the other hand is the good one, acctually the very best Springer brake I've ever had, but it took a few tricks; I had to mount it in an original brake drum, then reline and grind the shoes to fit. Note how the shoes pivots at totally different locations, there's quite a few more differences that may be hard to tell from looking at the photos but there's just NO comparesion when it comes to braking performance.

Here's the good one mounted on the FLTT after I got the shoes relined, grinded and fitted in an original brake drum. Also, every aftermarket wire I've tried stretched like a rubber band and never really stopped stretching giving the brake that spongy feeling. A NOS wire will do miracles here.

After timing the cams and dialing it in perfectly this brake setup will still need a few miles to get that 100% solid/consistent feeling. So if you're about to get one of these brakes, at least now you know my limited but hopefully helpful experience about them...

Rigid Hips at Bottrop Bike Show!

I want to thank everyone involved in The Bottrop Bike Show for inviting me, I'm so stoked and I'm gonna do my very best to finish the FLTT in time for this.

However, if I fail to get the bike done in time (and I do that alot) I figured I'll just bring The White Album - after all, that is the world's greatest album of all time - so that has to count as a solid plan B, right..?

Ok sorry, I need to go back to the garage now to finish plan A.
And thanx again for the invite guys, it's gonna be a blast, I'm really looking forward to it.

The All Original 102" UL Restoration

The last couple of weeks I've managed to do some serious progress on the 2-3 years long UL restoration.

Accept from a few dual details this bike will look dead stock.
Totte did such a great job on the 1937 paint scheme. It took me equally long to get the decals in place as it took him to paint the entire bike.

The poor Flathead motor will be startled up to 102" (1670 cc)
5.250" Stroke and early Evo Pistons.
Super Stupid, but it's fun right? Humor, who cares. This is what the intakes looked like before I cut them down to size.

Perry Ruiter helped out finding a few parts I just couldn't get a hold of, like the dash base etcetera. Thanx Perry.

Finally, even though LeBeef haven't done any work on this bike the sticker itself makes it LeBeef Equipped, so what can I say? - I won't be able to feel sadness or hunger ever again.

The Past Is Not At Rest

This project started in the winter 2007/2008 I think, things were going fine, I felt strong.

My brilliant idea was to run a 1933 VL Frame around a 103" dual carb, dual magneto Knuckle, the plan was to make the engine single fire through running single-fire wires on both mags; one to each cylinder and then sync them to keep the 315°/405° fire cycle.

You got some more pics of this idiotic motor if you click HERE

However, I never finished this bike for whatever reasons, I blew it ...déjavu.
But since this project still haunts me I guess I have no choice but to take another shot at getting a bike like this together ...some day.

Mathematical Precision Of Prophecy

When Charley told me he "just had to fabricate a little jig" to blueprint the TT Knuckle motor the proper way I figured he probably had something extra up his sleeve, but I didn't really think much more of it.
Well, that was until I saw the finished product, holy moly hairy canarie by the blood of Abraham - this jig is beyond anything I've ever witnessed in my entire life!

Here the cases are milled out and decked for the 3.5/8" cylinders to fit.
What a genius, and this jig can be used on both Panheads and Knuckleheads.

Peek-a-boo; using Iron Cad in a perfectly tempered garage to build motors that are from the 1940's are so overkill you can't do anything but love it.

The Serpent, Wolf and The Holy Goat

By the oath of Belial and Saturn, Kalle Sjöström sure knows how to create the new Triumph testament.