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1940 SS Knucklehead: People's Champ 5 Build"

118K views 327 replies 63 participants last post by  Rigidspeedtwin 
#1 · (Edited)
OK, I know a lot of you have seen my girder fork thread, so a bit of this is rehash, but I wanted to get some of this stuff on here chronologically. If you read the fork thread, you can probably read the beginning of post 1 and then jump to post 4. I posted this over on another (the other) forum that prefers angle grinders to machine tools (but I still love them). It's going to seem like a huge blast right off the bat, sorry about that. I'll update it as I go from now on. Maybe print it out in full color on your company's printer and go read it in the shitter, IDK.

So, a bit of backstory, everyone who knows me knows I talk about this thing all the time. I was trying to keep it on the DL online because I was trying to get invited to a "cool" event like born free or Brooklyn. I've since decided that I'm just a nobody and don't really deserve to be invited anywhere. Maybe sometime in the future. Also I am simply just not good at selling myself on social media, so here's where I'm at and I'll update this as I go.

Basically the whole project started like this, a titled basket 1940 EL motor.



By now I've accumulated basically all OEM (not year correct, though) external parts. I'm going to use S&S/Jims/Andrews internals. The motor will be mostly stock. I don't plan on making it anything other than clean, I want to leave all the "wear" marks in the parts that have accumulated over the last 75 years. Sort of like how I shined up this cam cover:



For the sake of the story, not much has happened with the motor, I've been too busy with other things to really dick with that. Also, for the sake of the story this is going to be a little out of order, but no one's probably reading any of this anyway.
I wanted to build a fork for this build, so here's the story of that:
Drew it in cad.







Got castings made from 3d printed wax off cad models. Material is 316L. This is not inexpensive, but I don't spend much money on things besides motorcycles, so it was within budget. All said and done I have into this what a nice condition early springer would cost.



Had to machine the castings. Fixturing these was often difficult and quite a learning experience for me.























 
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#91 ·
Re: 1940 SS Knuckle

I had my chopped 46 chevy coupe at a show once and a sweet little old grandma walked up and peered in the back quarter window at the seat and headliner. Then said "yup, thats what I remember them looking like". I spewed milkshake out of my nose.
 
#94 ·
Re: 1940 SS Knuckle

You better step up your game newman. A week ago jaws was this close to setting his pan on fire cause he was soo blown away.
Guess what?
I just saw that pan on instagram.
Wasn't on chopperswapper, was it?

Honestly, the biggest compliment I could ever receive was not that something I did was good, but that it inspired someone else to try harder.

I made an internal throttle this weekend, but I don't know if I love it.

In the mean time, here are some allen nuts that I spiffed up a bit.

 
#102 ·
Re: 1940 SS Knuckle

Well, I just killed an entire evening reading though your thread. I almost never check the JJ anymore, but jumped on here looking for a good 4 speed rebuild thread....which, I still need to look for.

I follow your Instagram page, and I gotta say, this is just some outstanding work! I kinda feel like that 8 year old kid changing in the YMCA locker room for the first time...I was pretty stoked on my shit, until I took a peek at yours!

Man, you're killing it...I love it.
 
#108 ·
Re: 1940 SS Knuckle

Show winner for sure,but is there gonna be any colors? like gas tank paint job or?
There will be paint on the tank and fender. Probably something simple though. I want the metal to do the talking, not the paint.

Unreal. Just when you think you have seen it all someone builds frame and front end like this.

Are you going to polish the frame weldings or leave them "colored" like they are now?
Thanks. The only thing separating this frame from a chrome frame is those welds, so I'm going to leave them as long as possible. Over time they may start to look shitty and will have to be polished.
 
#110 ·
Re: 1940 SS Knuckle

Last night I blended the case so it matches up to the kicker lid. It's annoying to me that the hole that locks the shiftershaft from the top of the case is not covered by the lid. Also, the case was a little cut back under the lid at the front right corner, but these are things I can live with.

Also added some holes for clutch linkage mounting and tapped a few things for plugging, like the shifter shaft right side hole. Speedo drive hole will become new fill plug, so i tapped that to M18-2.5 (the hole is .625 and the M18-2.5 tap drill is .610, close enough for a no-load fitting). (blending isn't complete in this picture)



Then I smoothed out the whole case for bead blasting. I thought about doing a full polish on it, but I think the contrast of the blasted case to the polished lid and new kicker will look good. Plus I don't want people to be distractd from the engineering by a shined up stockish case.



I did notice that my case (while new) has a .002 taper on the countershaft holes (I could put in a stock cshaft bushing about 1/3 of the way by hand) and the MDG race is oversize by about .0015 ( a STD Jims race could also be installed completely by hand), so I dropped it off to my trusty local harley machine shop in Lockport, NY (BA Enterprises) to line hone these areas. I didn't contact Cal because I didn't buy the case direct from him.

Where you have added the solid decorative pieces in the frame there is are black transition marks almost like threads or something? Knurling?
Thanks for posting your work!
Those are titanium rings that someone gave me and thought they would make a cool Easter Egg to discover.
 
#113 ·
Re: 1940 SS Knuckle

...or that it's not a Ninja 300 and that you don't wear a helmet and it's going to be powered by a Harley...
 
#114 ·
Re: 1940 SS Knuckle

If you're getting positive feedback on reddit you're on to a winner they're a savage bunch. As Gov has said though no flashy sports exhaust or 'Jap' racing power you'll get shot in flames. That frame looks too nice to be used!
 
#125 ·
Re: 1940 SS Knuckle

Updates.

Been spending a lot of time designing some taillights/sissy bar. (I think I have about 50 hours into the design at this point... But I did manage to get some physical work done...

Got some parts back from the plater. Had them done w/ electroless nickel, primarily because I needed a very thin coating on most of the parts as they were press fit (goes on about .0002-.0006 and very controllable), but secondly I think it will contrast well with all of the polished stainless... I don't want to use much (if any) chrome on this build).



Next I put my rear wheel together. The rear hubs had moved a bit from heat treat and the plating made them a little undersize, but a quick hand ream made them right on again.



Then I whipped up some rear wheel spacers in a nice concave shape and polished them, but you will never see them. Then I threw the rear wheel on. No pixxx but here is a video:



Then I made some girder spring locators (that you will probably never ever see) from polished SS:



Which allowed me to get the front end together. Here is my stem nut (made from 1145 hardened to HRC 51 with a stainless cap). It is locked into place with two 12 point locking screws that align with reliefs in the nut flange. In order to have the correct torque and correct alignment, I have .003" SS shims under the nut. Practical?? No... not really. But good for this bike.



Theseare some headlight bracket mounting bolts I cleaned up. I don't think there is currently any hardware on the bike that I haven't made or modified in some way.



Then I got the rest of the front end assembled. Don't have any detail pics of that, but I did take this picture of the axle nut/hub/axle/lock screws:



And finally here is a picture of the whole bike. Feels great to have it on wheels (last time it was on wheels it was tack welded and loosely bolted together and just felt terrible). I don't think I will need to remove the front wheel or the fork for anything at this point.



LASTLY: can someone please change the title of the thread to "1940 SS Knucklehead: People's Champ 5 Build"

Thanks, because I will need all the support I can get in this contest.
 
#139 ·
Re: 1940 SS Knuckle

LASTLY: can someone please change the title of the thread to "1940 SS Knucklehead: People's Champ 5 Build"

Thanks, because I will need all the support I can get in this contest.
Name change done!

Roller looks incredible, so much time and work going into this build, very refreshing, keep it going.
 
#126 ·
Re: 1940 SS Knuckle

Looks so good man!!

You know... what's really going to kick your ass here more than any of your fine machine work? Paint!!! and tank.. the bane of every bikers life.

I assume even though this is for PC5 you're going to use it? Show bikes are ace but when people roll them out of a truck and never use them a kitten dies.
 
#129 ·
Re: 1940 SS Knuckle

yeah. I'm not even sure what kind of paint it will be but I think it is going to be fairly simple. I don't want a crazy chopper paint. I want people to look at the metal not the paint.

And yes, I ride everything.
For traditional derelict chopper style in contrast to all of your amazing polished metalwork, I would like to see good ol' basic black tins.

I've been watching this build since the fork-only thread. I'm not really a fan of girders, but hand-made anything catches my attention. Stainless made it more appealing, as did the drivetrain choice pre-modifications, and your design, fabrication, attention to detail & willingness to shitcan ideas that took hours and even days of labour is awe-inspiring. Amazing build.

I'll go back to watching silently.
 
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