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ContentsMARCH 2011
ON THE COVERVolume 21 • Number 2 • Our 172nd Issue
Walt Siegl Motorcycles, tucked away in the wilds of New Hamp-shire, builds some of the most sanitary machines this side of theGreat Divide. Say hello to this issue’s cover bike, Sordillo Salt Flat,a hand-wrought piece of long stroke, functional, V-Twin go-fastmachinery that is simply stunning to see in person. Check outmore of this great bike at Ironworksmag.com, on the BUMP.
FEATURE BIKESDriscoll’s ’47 Flathead ......................8A durable distraction
OCC Trike......................................24Far out custom from TV’s cool kids
Red Hot Road King.........................32Daddio’s convertible bagger
Harry’s FXR ..................................50Accessorized Swedish style
FEATURE STORIESMeet BigTwin................................20IW’s new Swedish connection
Way Out West ..............................28Margie Tours Yellowstone
Klock Billboard ‘Shield ....................44Clear, classy, Klock
Riding Cape Cod ............................46Perewitz’s Fall Foliage Run
Home Hobbyist Welder...................54Eastwood outfits your shop
JIMS Bag Latches .........................70Iron Glass adds a special touch
Wesco Custom Boots .....................77Keeping the dogs happy
IW GARAGEElectric .........................................56Three-phase explained
Demystifying Audio.........................58Head unit is the boss
Paint & Finishes ............................60Chasing perfection
Metal ...........................................62E-Fab on tank fab
All About.......................................64Custom boots, proper fit
Gasket Materials ...........................66It’s all in the ingredients
Buell Brothers...............................68Keeping records straight
DEPARTMENTSLetters...........................................................18What’s on your mind?
Buyer’s Guide..................................................72Getting geared up
REGULARSSteve B ............................................................6Diagnosis, a rare art…
Sam Kanish ....................................................12Biking bloopers
Brian Klock .....................................................14Creativity over cash
Marilyn Bragg .................................................16Getting lost rules
Margie Siegal..................................................781917 Indian Tracker
SPOTLIGHTWalt Siegl MotorcyclesTaking the time to carefully view the machines built by WaltSiegl, you can’t help but appreciate that a lot of effort and focuswent into defining his unmistakably clean and classic style.Walt’s talented take on the modern urban custom is flavored bytime riding the bad streets of NYC, tempered by time spent onthe racetrack flogging state-of-the-art Ducatis. Enjoy Walt’swork, and get down on one knee with us to take a closer look.
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Diagnosis
Iwas reminded recently about the salientdifferences between hearing, listening,and of the importance of being able to
take a step back and diagnose a situation. My workshop is a crowded space with
two bikes, two workbenches, four sewingmachines, two rollaways, machine tools, aspare parts stash taking up one wall, buck-ets, ladders, rolls of leather… it’s basically10 pounds in a five-pound bag. Wherethere isn’t stuff, there are stickers coveringevery exposed surface. The inexperiencedwalking among us might say it is cluttered,but I like to think of it as an efficient, com-fortable, and productive workspace, andsince it’s all I have (and believe you me, Iam not complaining in the least), I cope.
Bringing a new tool into my shop re-quires I get rid of something, and this timemy object of affection is an important newtool for my leatherworking endeavors—it’sa sewing machine. I sold a machine I was-n’t using to make room and fund the pur-chase of this new one.
Setting up a hand-powered sewing ma-chine is similar to setting up a new comput-er or a new machine tool, in that all the ad-justments that you’ve used in the past onprior equipment is meaningless. You are,for all intents and purposes, starting fromscratch, creating new baseline adjustmentsand settings from feel, experience, and in-tuition. So you have to pay attention to whatis happening based on your inputs and ob-served changes. In essence, you are cali-brating both yourself and the machine towork together harmoniously.
Well, harmony is not always easilyachieved and the critical calibrations arenot easily identified and implemented un-less you are darn good at listening, ob-serving, and diagnosing what is happen-ing. Most of us, myself included, are notso good at this and we fumble and bum-ble. We read the instructions 50 timesand for the life of us can’t figure out whatthe hell is going on, trying to determine ifthe issue at hand is based on operatorerror, lame-assedness, or a machinefault. It can get frustrating and after awhile you find yourself looping back on theefforts that netted you nothing the first go-round. In a word, ugh.
I’ve been there a few times—at thecrossroads of hair pulling, crying, and get-ting a can of gas and a book of matchesand ending it right there. One of the mostmemorable of these meltdowns was tryingto dial in the then ground breaking innova-tion of the S&S Super E. This was around1993, as I recall. I had my FXR allprepped for what I thought would be aneasy morning of wrench twirling and after-noon riding. Well, that was not to be thecase and after eight solid hours of losingmy mind trying to get the bike to run prop-erly, I threw up my hands and ran to thefridge for an adult beverage to wash downthe sour taste of failure. Eventually, I fig-ured it out. Between intake leaks, a stuckfloat, and improper accelerator pump ad-justment, I finally got the carb dialed in.Then I found out the problem was a bro-ken coil wire. Pfeh.
Sitting in my shop last week with myspanking new, made in America, hand-powered sewing machine, I commencedto get some hands on experience and feelwhere the settings needed to be—time totest, to learn, and to listen!
Six hours later, my knees were lockedsolid; I was up to my arse in thread,leather scraps, and snips. I had triedeverything I knew to get a passable resultending with nada, nothing, junk, and plainold, “it ain’t gonna happen.” About 2:00a.m. I finally gave in—after a near com-plete disassembly and then reassembly ofthe machine—and still nothing. It wasclearly time for a Woodford.
Calling the manufacturer helpline or techdesk for a clue is like stopping and askingfor directions when you are hopelessly loston a road trip with your family. It’s the lastresort; I am not wired to do it naturally. Sowith tail between legs, I called the manufac-turer and asked for help.
Tony picked up the phone with a cheery,“How are ya, Steve? How’s the machineworking for ya?” I felt like I was confessing;“It’s not going so good, Tony. I am not wor-thy and maybe it wasn’t meant to be. I thinkthis thing hates me.” (Sniff, sniff.)
“Nonsense,” he said, and then hebegan his virtual diagnosis. I call them the“didyas.” Didya check your top tension?Where is it set? Didya check your bobbintension? How is the machine’s timing? Isthe needle cocked? Do you have the right
needle? What thread are you using? Is itbonded, left or right twist? What materialare you sewing? It went on like this for halfan hour. I had checked, adjusted, anddone everything perfectly to spec and itstill didn’t work. We were stumped; myear was hot from being on the phone forso long. Then he said, “Turn the cone ofthread over; what is the thread made of?What’s on the label?” I complied and said,“Polyester,” like every other cone of threadI have in my cabinet.
“Aha,” Tony said, “that’s it. Seems thismachine—because of the way it pulls thethread through its mechanism—doesn’t likepolyester, it likes nylon. (Because of the in-herent elasticity in the material, it pullsback quickly after being stretched.) Well, asit turns out, every other machine in my ar-senal likes polyester. How was I to knowthat’d be the culprit? Well, had I had moreexperience with a wider array of machinesand materials, I’d have just “known,” asTony said. My experience was in a very nar-row band of the entire picture. I only knewwhat I knew—and in this case, it simplywasn’t enough. (Although I do kill at Jeop-ardy, so am not a total loser.) I’d havenever figured it out on my own; someoneneeded to hit me with the clue by four.
This is one of the reasons I have cometo rely on knowledgeable people to help meget my work done, as they know how to “di-agnose.” My listening skills and experience,as good as they might be, can’t competewith the trained and skilled eye/ear/handof someone who knows how to listen, ob-serve, diagnose, and fix things for a living.That is an unusual and increasingly rareskill set in the age of “replacement over re-pair,” and one to be held in high regard.
Please, check in with us on Facebookor Ironworksmag.com. We’d like to hearfrom you.
Stephen [email protected]
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A Mile a MinuteSTEPHEN BERNER
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Story by Paul HoldsworthPhotos by Stephen Berner
Sometimes the job just makes youcrazy. You want to stay in bed,thinking it’d be a good idea to use
up all your sick days as mental healthdays. The only thing you can think of (be-cause quitting the job is not generally anoption) to cope is to find a way not to thinkabout work—to create a diversion. BobDriscoll, the owner of this ‘47 WL 45,found himself needing a distraction; a mo-torcycle project to immerse himself in toease the stress of the job.
So one day, Bob found himself headingto a swap meet in the Detroit area withserious intent. He knew he was going tobuy something, and that somethingwould be a motorcycle. The only thoughtthat came to his mind during the drivewas that maybe he’d look for a ’50 Pan.As it turned out, Bob could not find that’50 Pan, but he did come across a WL
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Bob’s DistractionDigging in and getting it done
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basket case being offered in three wood-en boxes.
He didn’t buy it at that moment in time,but eventually he called back and paid theseller a visit.
Now if you have not seen a bike inparts, especially an old bike, let me say;it is an art form to determine the answerto the age-old question, “Is it all there?”Bob was given the impression by the sell-er that the parts in those three boxesrepresented 80% of a complete bike.Bob still had the distraction Jones work-ing on him so he bought it, and so theproject that culminated in the bike fea-tured here began.
In reality, after the audit Bob hadabout 40% of the bike, due to the factthat many of the parts were junk andcould not be used. The cylinders werejunk, but he was able to find a usableOEM set—but alas, they had to besleeved. The heads for the cylinders weremismatched; one was low compressionand the other high compression. Bobhad a machine shop re-work them sothat they became a matched pair. Onecomplication and challenge at a time washandled patiently.
The transmission was junk. The framewas broken and a fix that was madesometime in the past that was not well
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done, and it had broken, too. The rearfender was wrong for that year and the front fender had been cut up. Thegas tank was dented as was the oil tank; both were repaired and repaintedby Bob.
This build was never about capitalizingon a good deal. This was about creating asorely needed diversion, some solid fun, adistraction. This project, no matter thechallenge, amounted to self-prescribedtherapy. So, warts and all, and in the con-text of distraction, this bike project was a
success. Bob was distracted for yearsputting the parts right and getting the biketogether.
The bike project had become a ritualof sorts, worked on as time allowed. Bob hunkered down in his basementsanctuary aided with the counsel of agood shop manual. Both credit card andnear constant communication with 45Restorations helped to bring the WL to a reasonably correct state, insure it’d be a good runner, and that it’d be goodlooking.
Bob managed to pick up a handful offirst place awards at various bike showsaround the central Michigan area oncethe bike was running. But like any oldermachine that’s been reborn, gremlins per-sisted up to the finish line. The first timehe attempted to start the bike in 2004, itran but not well. The Linkert was removedand sent off to be rebuilt by a knowledge-able source.
The next gremlin was lurking in the tim-ing chest. Bob figured out that the timingwas a tooth off and that the cams he
10 IronWorks March 2011
The Harley 45 was always a good sturdy motorcycle. Intro-duced in July 1928, it was Harley’s first sidevalve V-twin, and
proved to be a very versatile design. Harley used versions of thismotor to power flat track racers, World War II WLA militarybikes, and police three wheelers. The Servi-Car version of the45-inch Flathead was retired in 1963, ending 35 years of pro-duction of the same basic design.
Solo 45’s were always rigid framed two wheelers, with athree-speed hand shift and battery and coil ignition. The firstones had total loss lubrication and came in two states of tune,with the higher-powered DL producing 18.5 horsepower at4000 rpm. It could reach 70 mph if pushed.
In 1932, the D series gave way to the R series, with a newframe, horizontally mounted generator, larger flywheels, and alu-minum pistons. The Servi-Car, a three wheeler powered by the45-inch motor, showed up late that year.
The Depression was in full swing, and people wanted some-thing fun—but inexpensive—to do. Harley and Indian collaboratedon an amateur racing series, Class C, to take place on local flattracks. Class C racers had to be 45-inch Flatheads or 500ccoverhead valve production motorcycles, and Harley’s offering tocompetitors was the RLDR Competition Special.
Initially, Class C rules demanded that you ride your bike to thetrack, take off the headlight and brakes (brakes were considereddangerous on flat tracks), go racing, and then put all the partsback on to go home.
The next major restyle took place in 1937, when Harley incor-porated dry sump lubrication and restyled the 45 to look like aKnucklehead. The solo 45’s were renamed W, and came in fivedifferent states of tune. In 1941, the Class C rules were relaxedenough for Harley to build special purpose racers, still based onthe 45 Flathead, without lights.
At the same time and in anticipation of World War II, Harleywas revamping the 45 into the WLA for army use. The factoryspent the war years building WLA’s for the American and Alliedforces. A few civilian 45’s were built in 1944. More were built in1945, with aluminum heads an option. In 1947, the WL cost$490, with aluminum heads $8.35 extra.
By this time, the sidevalve 45 was becoming a bit outdated.The K model, also a sidevalve but an updated design with four-speed foot shift, debuted in 1952.
Harley continued to build Servi-Cars with the original enginedesign through 1963.
—Margie Siegal
1947 45-inch Flathead Harley
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thought were good were really worn out.Once timed correctly and fitted with newcams, paired up with the freshly rebuiltLinkert, it was an easy starting, smoothrunning bike. The bike was finally done, thedistraction complete.
Since then, wouldn’t you know, workand life have kept Bob busy and so hehas managed to put only one hundredmiles on the bike since rolling it out intothe world. He’s got plans for the summerof 2011 to roll the odometer forward ashe chases some back roads, which iswhere the WL is the most comfortableto ride.
And, he has begun thinking of that ’50Panhead again, and the need to onceagain be distracted.
Flattys forever! IW
Reader Service No. 46
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