[St. Lee]

My name is Lee Wickstrom and I've been following the "Vintage Fuel Drag Bikes" thread here for a while now, so thought it high time I officially joined the board, especially since I have seen my bike mentioned a couple of times. I am the guy with the '47 Knuck built in mid '50s drag bike style. I named it "the Knuckledragger" in part as a tribute to a bike called "the Gorilla" which was campaigned by Don Jones at Santa Anna drag strip as early as 1950. The transmission from the Gorilla currently resides in the Knuckledragger, and the Scot blower from the Gorilla resides in a display case at my shop. Sadly, to the best of my knowledge, those are the only two parts from the bike whose whereabouts are known.

 

[Industrial Rides]

welcome lee, the knuckledragger looks cool as hell
you going to put the scot blower on the knuckle, what are the spec on your motor and was there anything special about the box out of the gorilla apart from being Don Jones.

couple more pic's of your knuckledragger would be great.

 

[Industrial Rides]

no more pic's, no more info......bummer

 

[St. Lee]

Sorry I didn't check this thread in the last few days. I thought I would get an email if there was a reply, but guess I forgot to check the box for that.

The trans is a typical period modification, with all but 3rd and 4th gears removed and the dogs modified so it will shift as the power starts to fall off without clutch and still on throttle . This was a common set up and I still saw some in use in the mid 80's when I started racing.

Here are a few more pics:

I built the motor using STD replica cases cause real Knuck cases are just too valuable and hard to come by, especially for a use like this! 5 1/4" stroke with 3 7/16" bore, 12.8:1 compression ratio and I run it on Alky. I built it bigger than what whey would have back in the day to make up somewhat for the fact that I will not be running Nitro in it (at least not with the repop Pan cylinders).

If I had pics of the Gorilla, I would have tried to build a replica, but since I didn't, I built the bike using a lot of parts I already had(and on a budget); hence no blower.

 

[Industrial Rides]

If I had pics of the Gorilla, I would have tried to build a replica

amazing to think with whats available today pic's of the gorilla must be out there?

knuckle in a VL frame looks sweet as....looks straight out of the 50's to me, nice work Lee

 

[tin top tiny]

hello there

 

[Side Face Larry]

Nice job man