Last Sunday I did my annual visit to the 32nd Annual Colorado Motorcycle Show and Swap. 
This year’s event, as far as finding older parts, was prime for anyone with the money to grab up almost what ever one was looking for. I think the economy had everyone pulling out the old stuff and putting it up for sale. I have seen a few posts around the web stating the good old days of the swap-meet are gone thanks to sites like eBay and Craigslist. This year the Colorado swap proved this wrong. Old parts were easy to be had, if you had the green and the legs to do the walking along with the eyes to do the searching over and under the swap tables.
The Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum had to best display as usual in the show arena. 
This year they featured their 1941 Harley EL and a 49 Indian “249” Scout. The 41 Harley EL was pretty special considering the bike was sitting there in all its glory.
This 1941 61 cubic inch EL Knucklehead is completely original.
The story goes, this bike was rescued from the original owners’ garage. After sitting for years the drive train was seized, and the engines internals were in question. The Museums’ staff, with some outside help, re-built the engine, transmission, drive train and wheel hubs while maintaining the external patina of the bike. Can you say “Barn Fresh”, off and runn’n.
This bike would have set you back a cool $425.00 back in 1941. Throw in the deluxe solo package option, fender tips, lights, crash bars, saddlebags and some chrome extras, this would have increased your total out-of-pocket expense by an outrageous sum of $60 bucks.
Click on any pic to get a larger view.
Here are a few other bikes from the show that caught my eye.
Enjoy and share.
In 1957 Harley Davidson manufactured 5,616 big twin motorcycles. The FLH Super Sport Solo model came with the hand shift and only 165 were manufactured with an out the door price tag of $1,243. Here is one of 165 that is still on the road, thanks to people like Perry from the California Bay Area.
Perry found this bike through Walnecks after about six months of looking for a good buy on an old Harley. The bike came out of Oregon with a fresh engine and tranny rebuild and was about 80% complete when he bought it in October 2007. Perry tells me he didn’t get it up and running until February 2008. He does admit it’s nowhere to being a politically correct restoration with the mini ape hangers, or the Duo-Glide rear bumper, and he pointed out they didn’t have white wall tires until ‘58’.
I think Perry has one rare good looking old Harley. What do you think?
Some facts on the 1957 Hydra-Glide;
Models manufactured; 1,579 FL, 164 FLH, 1,259 FLF, and 2,614 FLHF.
1957 was the last year of the Hydra-Glide and the hard-tail frame.
New tank emblem is round Lucite disc, with 2 red and 2 silver quadrants with red “Harley Davidson” name. This and the new front fender tip was HD’s first use of plastic for emblems.
Steel alloy valve guides (starting February 1st), instead of bronze exhaust. The exhaust guides were threaded to trap oil. Polished aluminum rocker covers, shorter pushrods w/longer adjusters, thinner speedo cable. The “Big Bertha” saddlebags were optional for 1957 only.
Picking up where I left off from my last post, jugs and pistons, I assembled the rocker boxes to the newly reconditioned heads. The head job included new valves, guides and springs. After the torque down of the new head bolts to 65 ft. lbs, it is time to install the pushrods and covers. Following the manual for the pushrod assembly, it says nothing about bleeding down the hydraulic lifters.
This is a tip I picked up from an Arizonian friend that just happened to be in my garage this day.Following his instructions, I took a small drill bit and mounted in a vise blunt end up, then slid the lifter over the end of the bit to release the check ball to bleed out the oil by pumping the lifter piston. This is also a good time to double check the lifters as covered in the manual. These parts (lifters and pushrods) have to be kept separate, and get assembled in the same positions as they came out. After bleeding down the lifters, the pushrods with the covers can easily be installed, as per the instructions in the factory manual.
Now for the time consuming part of the job, reverse order of stripping the motorcycle for repair. (Put everything back together the way you took it off)
Stay tuned……….
Cost on this post:
Head work and valve job, $515.00 (shop labor 4hrs @ $80.00)
Top end gasket kit, $44.00
My time: priceless
Ride Safe.
Picking up where I left off with my last post, I painted jugs (cylinders) with some rattle can black heat paint, I picked up at my local auto-parts store. I baked on the paint job by letting the cylinders cook in the Colorado sun. While my jugs were drying, I ran the rocker boxes over to a friend of mine, for a light polish job. So-far I think everything has turned out nice.
Checking the piston pin fit in the connecting rod, I found they are within factory spec’s. Then checking ring-gap clearance of the new piston rings, in the cylinder, I am ok. I then put a pot of water on the stove, it was time to drop the pistons in the pot, and boil up some pistons. Heating up the pistons in the boiling water so the pins will hand press in the pistons, is covered in the manual. 
After installing the pistons to the connecting rods, I then could install the new rings and check the ring side gap clearance, everything checks out. In my factory manual it does not show the position of the compression rings, you will find this in some later manuals looking like the illustration pictured here.
After lubing up the cylinder walls and pistons, positioning the ring gaps equidistant to the low side of travel, we can slide the cylinders over the pistons using a ring compression tool. Installing new base nuts and washers, I can take a break and wait for the shop to call when the valve job is complete.
Cost: $30.00 polish job, everything else is on a charge tab.
Time: I have lost track.
