1955 Porsche 356 runs

The fun never ends at phil world. Finnally the 1955 runs w a rebuilt 912 engine. The first series of problems was the previous moron carved out a couple feet of sheetmetal out of the engine compartment to fit a different engine possibly,
so the steel was fabricated and replaced, sandblasting , one of the real joys of life. blasting the engine compartment ,and repainting it, the blasting revealed a 3rd world engineering steel repair.he must have had some toddlers repairing that. Next a pushrod tube gasket leak, surprise.......next a generator nut someone was in too much of a hurry to install properly. Proof the worlds not running out of idiots...
Can't forget the oil fountain...replaced the oil cooling radiator w a believe it or not New Old Stock oil cooler,never ever been on a Porsche,thats the kind of positive Law of Attraction that works for me... 1955 runs, you just cant anticipate unforseen issues. Finnally battled and got it titled off the chasis or hull VIN #.Originally Porsche titled 356 cars off the engine ID #, well not a good idea, not everyone is going to rebuild and keep the original engines, toss the burned out engine and there goes the id #, So when your car gets stolen and the new owner loads it onto a departing ship in Longbeach w a new title off the chasis , i guess your one less car in your fleet.

Steering wheel has to go, rollbars can stay.

Original brake assemblies ands axle grease retainers,races replaced,

Those fender flares , i cant wait to restore that to stock, hurts to look at it. Got lucky and found some complete quarter panels to swap that out. The rear homemade license plate holder , thats gone, who comes up w these shitty custom jobs?

Heres the 912 engine from Gary at Obsolete Parts, he has really helped me out big time, One could restore the 1955 w a stock 1955 1500cc engine ,but i'm just building a rider. I'm not going to be winning any First Places at Carmel so it works for me. Next is front signal lamps, horn, wheels ,tires, windshield wipers, steel repair , never ends, but it runs...

1936 Knucklehead shifter vs SuperX shifter

Heres the extremely rare 1936 Knucklehead only shifter, this was not used on 1936 VL or 1936
sidevalve flatheads. You can also see the shift gate that will only accept the round shifter rod, the gate is also 1936 knuckle only. Now compare to SuperX shifter on someones fabulous four and twin. Its definately similiar but not the same. SuperX also doesnt use a shift gate, just like an Indian...no shift gate.

1936 Harley Davidson Knucklehead runs

Early 1936 EL Knucklehead, probably the worst bike i ever built, resolving the endless air leaks
stopped alot of progress. For the motor company its considered a milestone motorcycle. 1936 is the first yr for the "new" OHV or over head valve engines, although earlier JD engines used a over head valve lifter to actuate the valves and the valves were in the top end . 1936 is a one year every part bike, 4 oil bag styles, 3 cam cover styles, 4 head styles, list goes on and on.

heres the early 1936 only front fender brackets , narrow or "skinny". For lack of a HD archivist in the pre and post AMF years , HD did not save literature or fotos of the 1936, so there is much unanswered questions on production , actual numbers produced, vin numbers etc, Its been called a secret weapon motorcycle...its production was kept secret, it was to revolutionyze HD as a motorcycle company, Indian stayed w side valve flatheads while HD offered side valve flatheads and the Knuckleheads, .The 1936 frame was maybe 20 pounds or so lighter than 1937 and later frames and thus more fragile and easier to crack and break, maybe 1900 1936 knuckles , E , EL models produced, i'm guessing maybe a 100 correct bikes survived , and many respectable mixed breed bastards, 1936 cases and every other year parts thrown in, HD was really smart . You can use pan head 1948-1965 parts on a 1936. of course you dont want to do that , but it goes to show the insight in interchangeability of parts.

one of the 1936 era oil pumps. primitive but effective. not enough pressure to blow debris out of a oil line, but then engines should have clean oil.

The wierd 1936 only rear brake drum assembly, i think the Taiwanese are making knockoffs of this less than effective stopping power, 1937 and later all used a beefier assembly.This also shows the prototype rear fender bracket...

1936 only shifter and gate and accessory dice knob, super rare, whats really wierd is that some obscure Super X bikes had a vaguely similiar shifter......

The crown jewel, the 100 mph speedo, no trip, skull dash w oil pressure gauge and amp gauge and the wrong switch, this is a WLA military switch, i have the original. More obscure details , if you were to line up 1936, 1937, 1938 knuckles , you'll notice the 36 tanks sit like 1 inche lower. brackets are just slightly off!!.....I love knuckles, plenty of go and just fun to ride, I'm going to cover more obscure parts like head tins , rockers etc, i very much doubt i'll build another 36, as the parts in 2008 are excruciatingly rare not to mention outragious in price , a excellent 1936 frame is worth some $15,000 , today there are many excellent knockoff parts to keep the old American iron going.but 1936 parts today are dried up and gone. I'm not going to "restore" this early Knuckle. just keep it an honest rider. I got really lucky building this bike , stumbling onto rare parts and some just great motorcycle people who wanted to see it come together.

If you have a 1936 knucklehead , please write me, chopper or correct bike, it would be cool to "track" where all these bikes went around the world. They really are a piece of HD history .

HD produced 9,812 motorbikes in 1936, some 1900 were knuckleheads, the highest engine number is in the 1900s .

Wanted 1912, 1913, 1914 Harley Davidson twin engine or project, Zundapp 600 750

I'm looking to buy a 1912 or 1913 0r 1914 twin Harley Davidson engine, complete or missing parts , what have you...email me at the contact page.
1909 HD twin in loop frame w belt drive not a chain!, just like a bicycle..
so its a "motorbike" not a true motorcycle just yet, that comes later.note
the beehive style cylinders, extremely rare ...

1915 HD twin , first true motorcycle, not a motorbike anymore, first true 3 speed transmission. peddle start it like a bike , the pedal assembly is now part of the transmission not the frame. electric and magneto models available...

1914 HD twin, single speed... how can you tell? no 2 speed shifter on tank top.

1915 HD twin electric model, see the updated oil pump on the cam cover? pedal on this side of trans.. 1915 was a real milestone for the motor company. tool box on tank top, i guess if you were a really good wrench you could use it for a lunch box...note the round stock for fender braces. 1915 has the new 3 speed transmission behind the engine vs 1914 using a single or 2 speed "transmission" in the rear wheel, . big change,

1914 HD twin 2 speed, its got the tank top shifter now...still the older primitive no oil pump cam cover. pedal assembly is in the frame. 1914 is the first year the motor company adds valve covers,

OH BOY.. 1913 HD twin...single speed chain drive, upgrade from a leather belt ! but belts come back MUCH later... why? belts have much less vibration to transfer thru the bike. Straight front down tube, NO footboards ,no brake or clutch pedals, these improvements arrive in 1914, so you are resting your feet on the old style bicycle pedals,,, yes its still a motorbike here, a fast one at that ..what else? the beehive cylinders are gone! now they have a "crewcut" top, cooling feature.

Early HDS are pretty damn rare, singles, ? they are cool but , hey if your gonna build a early bike ... twins go lots faster.... and yes they are even more rare than singles. Singles had shorter frames, shorter tanks and yes sir........ just 1 cylinder.........the rest of the bike was the same.

Somebodys bitchin kool civilian Zundapp...

Waffen ss soldier in camo on a Zundapp ks750, big enough to haul whatever you need to start your own blitzkrieg...looks like schwimwaggons in the background.

With how lucky i am, if i post this on the net... believe it or not , someone will give me a lead on a engine or bike or who knows, i think if i have a guardian angel , its probably a dog and it loves motorcycles as bad as me..

Might as well dream up some future projects Like to build a 1913 or 1914 HD twin rider and a ww2 Zundapp KS 500 or KS 600, i guess i'd take a cannon hauler like a ks750. I dont know Shiite about Zundapps other than its a similiar steel pressed frame like the ww2 BMWS that i'm building now..HDS are straightforward, glorified lawnmowers. once you solve the air leaks they always run, but nothing comes close to the reliability of an Indian motorcycle. Side valve flatheads, unequaled reliability. .

Some production numbers for you the reader to consider;

after 1910 the numbers represent singles and twins.

1901 1 motorcycle made

1904 2

1905 8

1906 50

1907 150

1908 450

1909 1,149

1910 3,168

1911 5,625

1912 9,571

1913 12,904

1914 16,284

1915 16,645

These numbers are from "The Harley Davidson Motor Company , An Official 80 Year History"

by David K Wright.

You might get this on Amazon or Ebay, I highly recomend this book.

The first twin was made in late 1907 ,but could not run consistently w its suction valve. Mechanical valves on 1911 and following models solved the problem.

Panther at the impound lot? Somewhere in Eastern Europe

I love looking up Panzers and WW2 battlefields and relics on Google. heres one of those mystery fotos, somewhere in Eastern Europe. A panther tank sits behind an old Benz in a pile of military wrecks.. The caption has to be " Shit Dude , I didnt think they were serious about impounding it"

Its probably valued at about a million Euros, and there it sits.unbelievable.

Pskov Stug Panzer recovered

Heres one of those cryptic stories you discover on the internet. This Stug was discovered in Pskov Russia,maybe 2002 by military archaeologist; ie Russian capitalists, recovered in what is known as the Demjansk pocket , the area below todays St Petersburg or in ww2; Leningrad. The Demjansk pocket can be thought of historically as the "Northern Stalingrad" for the Germans. Amazing Stug was pulled out of a mud marsh that preserved it, soldiers probably abandoned their panzer when they ran out of petrol and ammo, and there it sat for 60 some odd years out in the peaceful countryside. Once the wet vehicle got into town unprotected, rust and thieves were its new enemies, I havent been able to find out what happened to it , but it probably went into a Russian museum. If you Google it, very little except for a Russian site surfaces and well I dont read cyrillic.

Upside down

Thats how i return my panzer rental to Enterprise rent a panzer.

I dont think the crewman got their cleaning deposit back.

Looks like archaeologists are struggling to get track on wheel grooves.

Toolbox still intact .

This is where Pskov Russia is.

..hidden behind the former "Iron Curtain"

U-534 Sunk in Kattegat west of Sweden

No i didnt buy this on Ebay Germany... Amazing huh? Northwest of where i lived in Sweden this was scuttled. My interest in these uboats came from when i was a little guy fishing in the Kattegat and being told this story about a U-boat below us somewhere, See the map below.. for more amazing details on it, Google U534.. It was excavated from the sea bottom & taken to Birkenhead in the UK. Now its supposed to be section cut & moved to a new location..,Tragic,
no human remains in it , they survived.So not a iron coffin this time. One of four left in the world of some +1500 ww2 uboats produced, some 30,000 Kriegsmariners were on Uboats & less than 10,000 returned, The Uboat offensive wasnt as effective as people think. Early on massive allied losses, then the tide turned, Kriegsmarine was not a haven for warped nazis , they were real sailors w/out the psychotic ideology. Although Donitz inherited the mess , he wasnt a real war criminal like the rest. He surrendered the murderous empire to the allies & did 10 yrs in Spandau.

These are not U534, but you get an idea what it may have been like,

Cable or net cutter on the front, better snag a net or cable at the front than on the periscope.

Massive diesel engines to run on the surface...side by side,here you can see the 2 outer hulls, interior & exterior , run on batteries when submerged.

UPDATE, check out this fine website

http://www.atlantik-pirat.com/U-534page2.htm

this grand old uboat as fas as i'm concerned has been ruined by section cutting it, read more above...it wasnt mine so nothing i can do about poor decisions.