'54 Tank Emblems & Zooms FHP Kit Knuckle

H-D® (61774-51T) comes with the (61784-92T) mount strip. Fits 3.5 gal. CCI gas tanks with shut-off reserve. Attach the mount strip to the script before bending. Bend the latitude arc of the emblem first. Don't let the script kink at the screw-hole between the words "Harley" and "Davidson". Make sure the script and mount strips hug the tank before the ascenders and descender is bent. Wrap cloth or a paper towel around the jaws of the pliers to bend the ascenders of the letters and descender of the "y". The script needs to be bent with a little more kick at the "on" section of the word "Davidson", to hug the contour of the right-tank. NAPA has the exact 3M double-stick tape if you need more of it. Mount holes are in the same position as OEM. The s/s '51-53 underbar is in the '06 V-Twin catalog.
http://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Owners- ... 63?ie=UTF8

Plumber,

First off….thanks for the complement(s). As for your post, boy, you’ve said a mouth full. I have to be honest; some of the replies I've received to my Announcement "My Four Year Project" have gotten me a little spooked. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the positive comments but the feedback surrounding my choice of tank decals is starting to make me think I shouldn't have posted the photos. It’s a shame because while in the process of building the bike I thought it would be neat to have it featured in a magazine but now I don’t know if it would be worth the attention. I may be wrong but I get the feeling you may have issues with some of the other members (“36 Only Club”). Maybe I should have a stronger opinion when it comes to being a “reproduction” owner versus “original” owner, but the truth is, I don’t. Sure I would like to own an original 36 EL but it wasn’t an option ($$$) for me, so I did (I think) the next best thing and built a reproduction. I’m flattered by your request to include a photo of my bike in your post but at this time I don’t know if it’s a good idea to draw more attention to the bike. I don’t know if Harley Davidson would or wouldn’t have issue with me applying the HD tank decals but I do know it’s a sad day for all motorcycle enthusiasts when a person such as myself would rather keep their bike in the closet then to expose themselves to possible legal action.


For what it’s worth….I originally installed the bicycle style kicker pedal but I’m sad to say it didn’t hold up to the abuse it took trying to kick over the original 93” knucklehead motor.

Why would anybody use double faced tape to put mounting strips on a bare tank? Silver soider works fine and holds the emblen close to the tank as it should be.
PS, Good luck with the CCI tanks.

ZoomingM3
It would seem to me that you could have built a real 36 E Yell for the money you spent of your facsimile. Four years ago I sold 36EL1032 as an assembled basket case for 15G's. Less than 10G's later the new owner was riding it.
Your bike is an attractive rider. I hope you get many happy miles out of it. But don't be disapointed if no one thinks it is a '36. Perhaps if you had painted it a '36 color it would pass more easily.

Chris Haynes,

As for your cost comparison, I agree, I probably could have found an original 36 EL that ran for 25K but I wasn’t interested in just a running original, I wanted a fully restored 36 EL and I couldn’t find restored bike for less than 50K. I won’t be disappointed if someone points out it’s not an original, the truth is, I’d rather they figure it out for themselves so I don’t have to explain it’s not an original. With respect to my color choice, I realize it would have looked closer to an original if I went with one of the original color schemes but I didn’t like any of the factory colors so I choose the colors I thought complemented the bike. I wanted to go with a color scheme which keeps with the vintage look; it was either this color combination or black and olive green. I like black and olive green together but I thought the two colors would have gotten lost on the bike. Thanks for the complement; I do look forward to riding her in the future.

Curt! - plumber, arent you one of the guys that was bitching about editing posts? Your credability rating is headed for the dumper.

Nope not ever, but I started this post, so I'll say anything I want, and edit anything I want. If you don't like it, don't read it. This is all about building your own, as you like it built. Any color you want. Fun stuff and you know you built it yourself.
You can put the official Harley-Davidson emblems on your gas tanks. We give you permission.
And don't forget to keep your batttery on a trickle-tender once a month.
Let us know when you get your '36 on the road, Zoom. Your'e the first person on this site to follow through with an FHP Knuckle build. And, it's an FHP machine that we want to follow along with. It takes guts for an individual to invest in parts, then make them fit (I know first-hand), then make them run. That's a whole lot of work in these early days of pioneering Everything else is just alot of talk.

I’d rather they figure it out for themselves so I don’t have to explain it’s not an original. - zoom

I like that

Olive Drab & Black were the colors for the Export models in 1936. Stateside models had an array of five standard colors. Sherwood Green & Silver, Teak Red & Black, Maroon & Nile Green, Dusk Gray & Royal Buff, Venetian Blue & Croydon Cream and of course Police Silver. The first color is the main color and the second is the panel color. Rims were painted panel color except Red & Black machines had Red rims.
I am sure that if you built this bike you could have restored a '36 yourself. V-Twin even has a reproduction '36 frame.

Will do Plumber, thanks.

Zoom, when you change the oil look for "color" in the metal flakes that will cling to the bottom of the external oil filter cannister. Bronze flakes are okay. Grey metal, we don't want to see much of.
I use a paper towel to wipe the cannister inside and put it in a baggie. The oil gets sucked up by the towel over time and leaves just the metal for you to pick through and wonder at. Or, (used to be) you could pour the content-dregs of the external oil cannister, into a sample bottle for spectrographic anaylsis, and have the concentration of metal particles expressed in parts per million at JIMS. Part # 2399. Have your shop call them about it if you're interested. You use alot of gas and oil for the first 600-900 miles. Check the level everytime before you ride it. I change oil at 100, 500, (1,000 maybe) and 2,500 miles thereafter. You'll see metal particles diminish with each change-out (unless you installed a dirty oil tank).
Or, just ride the machine until it quits. Either way, you're going to draw a huge crowd everywhere you go.
CAUTION: You can get someone killed out there. I've had people walk into traffic several times (once a dad dragging his son was almost run over by an incoming auto, between the pump aisle at a Chevron station). Another time a motorist almost rear-ended another car at traffic signals trying to look at my '59 instead of paying attention. And thats with a '59 too.... not a '36. The danger sign is when men get that glazed-over look in there eyes and start baby-walking towards it with their hands out-stretched. They've lost their minds at this point... and you have to shout at them to "Snap! dude" Don't let it happen to you. You don't want to go through life with that memory, when all you wanted to do is exercise the OHV.
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Thanks for the color combo's Chris. Somebody can use them in the future.
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If you're bold enough to build a kit, you have the best "kitters" in the world right here. We've been there, like the Lewis & Clark of repop. We can collectively steer you through any problems you encounter, just don't go off on your own and try to "fix" something yourself, and then come on-site to complain because you made it worse. Ask for some directions first.
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Why would anybody use double faced tape to put mounting strips on a bare tank? Silver soider works fine and holds the emblen close to the tank as it should be.- Haynes

Been there - tried that. "Cotten" led me into to that "use a soldering iron method". Sounds good doesn't it? I ordered the American Beauty industrial soldering iron and found that not only was it a pain to find a location for the mount strip in a "sea" of possible open area on the tank to choose from, but once you removed the adhesive strip from the mount plate, the mount screws for the emblem would need three divots put into the tank so the screws could seat. And, no advise was offered for that seemingly little task. Think about it. You could end up moving the alignment of the shut-off/reserve holes, by pounding three relief holes for the screws. And, the adhesive strips, mount plate and emblems go over a painted tank, not bare metal. Instructions for '51-54 placement are in Vol. 2, but you can figure it out on your own, by looking at the year-model pix in Palmers book.
Here's an OEM '51-53 tank. You can't get the same mounting strip by "soldering" on the aftermarket mount strip. You can see the dimples for mount screw relief. A lot of factory work went into getting emblems on the tank.

If anybody's going to make an application or mechanical suggestion here.....you better be able to back your suggestion up with the start-to-finish methods or you're wasting our time.
The adhesive strip takes up the protrusion space of the mount screws, as shipped. It was "Gin", during that period, that suggested going with Harley's emblem kit, as shipped. He was right. The adhesive strip is gas-proof too. Luckily, I was able to return the soldering iron, and found out in the process, that American Beauty now makes a 110V variable speed control, for building a 32E generator output tester, like Bruce Palmer suggested in his Big Twin Restoration book.

Hey Zoom, I really like that Knuckle you have built, reminded me of a two tone 61 Knuckle a friend built many years ago which the colors were similar..Great job on your bike...

What caught my eye was the rear fender and I had a question about,you posted that it came from V-Twin..Did or is the hinged rear section with the pigs snout covering the tail light come from V-Twin also, as I could not find it in the on line v-twin catolog....

Thanks,

Tom (06)