Electra Glide In Blue

When I listed this old Sportster frame on eBay, my listing clearly stated, shipping to the lower 48 only. I have sold five or six motorcycle frames in the past with no problems, so this should be a piece of cake.
I picked up this Sportster frame on a springtime craigslist deal. One thing I have found out when you sell certain items on eBay, you tend to find out, that you don’t know what you may think you know about squat.

My headline for the frame went like this;
OEM 1952-1967 Stock Sportster Frame Complete.
Then I went on with;
Nice untouched stock sporty frame, 1967.
Will work for some other year sporty engines.
You get everything in the picture, except the ammo box and the grass.
This frame has never been wrecked.
All mounts and tabs are intact.
Has the kickstand, struts, swingarm, shocks, everything is there.
It will be broken down for shipment.
Casting numbers under seat plate 47657-67
I will not ship this outside the lower 48, so don’t ask
This is a very clean frame.
Double check with me on shipping costs.

I found out rather quickly in 67 Harley changed the Sportster XLH frame to accept the starter motor. So what I had was a 1967 first year electric starter frame. I had quite a few questions about the casting numbers located on different areas of the frame. These casting numbers can tell you a lot about the manufacturing of the frame, if you can decode them.

I started the bidding at $200.00, on the third day some guy jumped on the $200. It stayed that way until the last day (7 day auction), and I get an email from a guy in the UK. He asks if I would let him bid, that he has an agent in the US that will handle the overseas shipping. I told him sure, that I would ship to the lower 48. Then the bidding went a little crazy at the last minuets, with the guy from the UK winning the auction with a bid of $356.66. This guy then drops an email, telling me to figure high shipping to LA and he will pay the total via PayPal, his agent was out for the weekend. I figured high, sent him the total, and he paid, fast.

The next morning another email, the guy wants to know if I would be willing to handle the shipping to the UK,(I am a nice guy) he gave me a business address, and I called my shipper. After a good laugh with my shipper and a total cost of $554 for shipping the guy paid in full.

Below are the pic’s as I boxed the frame with the swingarm, shocks, and struts in the middle box.

Packed up and ready, I dropped this off to my shipper at 1:30pm on a Monday It arrived on the guys dock in the UK on Thursday. You can’t even ship to the lower 48 that fast, amazing.

Ride and Ship Safe….

Well nothing else going on, my trans seal is leaking on the 49 pan, so I thought I’d give the front end a new look.

I jumped on eBay and found a sweet deal on a 21in front wheel with timken bearing hub. It is an aftermarket model with a new looking rim. This unit came complete with the axle, an original polished side plate, axle sleeve, break shoes, springs and cam lever and chrome drum. Everything ready to bolt up and go. That made the buy-it-now price worth an email to the seller for a price drop of 25 bucks and he took it, so I bought the package, total $225. Shipping was fast and I recommend the seller lykinsaaron

Then I had to finish this with a new hub cap, I picked it up from

Claire Miller wrote a good post on the NYtimes bit-blog, all about the troubles of the  start-up electric car company, Tesla Motors. The new man behind the wheel is Elon Musk, Mr. Musk is the fourth chief executive of the San Carlos, Calif., company since it was founded in 2003. Elon Musk, who made his fortune from the sale of online payment site PayPal to eBay, acknowledged that building cars has taken four times the time and effort he expected.
And not to mention money? Anyway its a good read, check out the complete post at bits.blogs.nytimes.com.