[quote]ORIGINAL: Clutch66

Or whatever way you want to spell it.

This subject has always interested me.

Old school really depends on how old a person is as far as what "old" is. In my case, I'm now 67 years old so what I consider "new" is "old" to younger people.

A few days ago, I had my MP3 player on at work and a young guy said"hey, that's the song in the Honda commercial". I was playing ELO/Hold on Tight. I asked him what year he was born and he said 1974. ELO recorded that songin 1972. You see, it is all relative.

A lot of people (bikers) mention to me about me making things for my scoot. And I always tell them that is how we HAD to do it when I started riding.

I have been riding since I was 21 years old, which is late by todays standards. That makes me riding for 46 years now. My first bike was a 1947 61 cu.in. knuckle-head Harley ex-police bike, with a tank shift and a foot clutch, and as my signature says, the left grip twisted also, it was the spark retard.

When I started riding, there were no after-market parts places to buy parts. You bought your parts from a H-D dealer, or in my case from an old man that was a mechanic for the police deparment of Washington D.C. I would go to his home and in his garage out back had a couple of bikes in various stages of repair, and parts just scattered at random on shelves in the garage. He did no "custom work" just repaired them like they were.

I belonged to what I guess would be considered a club today, although we didn't consider it that. It was just all of the guys that rode Harleys or Indians. It consisted of myself and two other white guys, four black guys and one Indian guy (native American). Just the 8 of us. Back then, there was no racial over-tones, we just all liked those bikes and rode together. In fact, I can never remember the subject of race ever being bought up. On the weekends, we would get a couple of cases of beer, fire up the grill and cook hamburgers and hot dogs and sit around trying to figure out what to do next to our bikes, or what is now called "customizing". If one of us broke down, then all of the rest of us would help him get it fixed again.

We made all of our "custom parts" that bikers buy today. If we wanted a sissy bar, we would go to the steel shop, buy some 1/2" square or twisted stock and come home and take a torch and bend it to fit, drill a couple of holes and bolt it on, painted black of course. Swapping mufflers was a matter of going to wherever there was a wrecked bike and buying the mufflers and making them fit. When I chopped the '47, I put shooter pipes and BSA mufflers on it.

I remember bending several handlebars with rope tied around the ends and a pipe in the middle twisting the rope to tighten it, to pull the handlebars together (now called long-horn bars). I also remember laying bars on the ground and someone would jump on them to straighten them out (now called beach-bars). All custom paint was from a spray can. And the biggest thing was, there was never a worry about "re-jetting" the carb. or if it would "pass inspection" or the "EPA" rules (there was no EPA back then). Fenders were cut with a hacksaw or a pair of tin snips and filed to shape. A few years later, some company started selling front end "slugs". You would screw a slug (4" - 6" - 8") into the top of your forks, loosen the triple clamps, push the slugs down so they were flush with the top triple tree and tighten the clamps - instant extended front end, with no hassle. Then someone figured it "wasn't safe" - they could (or did) break at the joint. Hell, I rode them for a couple of years on my second Harley.

Now, there are "o-ring" chains. But I remember using number 50 (I think) industrial chain and"boiling it" in a can of wheel bearing greaseto make the grease go into all of the links. Then taking it out of the grease andrubbing it down with ragsto remove the excess grease. What a m

 

Post WW II stuff I think would be considered ol' school, mostly 50's and some 60's for me.
I was born in 53.
Anything older than that would be antique.
Ofcourse, not me

 

Great post Clutch - appreciate you sharing your experiences. I would much rather make something than buy it, but since my workplace is a garage full of crap, one car and my bike, I have no place for a vice, workbench, drill press, etc. One of these days I'll have my shop where I can disappear to and fiddle...in the meantime, guess I better clean the garage...[:'(]

 

You know what Clutch? I loved the read. So much so that I burned to the end to reply and I'll go back and read the rest of the replies later. You really lived it Man, and I'd LIKE to THINK I'm living it now. Buddies think I'm nuts for fabricating an air set up from exhaust pipe throw aways and rattle canning stuff on my bike. You hit the nail on the head....I don't have $600 to throw around on that stuff, but I have a welder, some tools, and some friends....Again, thanks for sharing the memories and I'll hope I'll be passing some on like them in a few years/beers. Right on.

 

I see by the ages here that I should have included the fact that there were no bullet bikes (rockets)back then.

There were the guys like me with the "big" bikes and the English riders - BSA and Triumph.

If you rode a Japanese bike it was probably a 305 Honda Dream ("you meet the nicest people on a Honda") with a stamped steel frame.

BUT all things considered, I am probably "getting" more now then I did then. I'm making an obscene amount of money now. And as said above, I sure don't miss that kicker pedal.

My only problem is.............****, I got no problems.

C66

 

MUD - don't ever get rid of that picture..........it IS what it is all about..........When I started driving in 1957, I think gas was 21.9 and a quart of oil in a glass bottle with a metal spout was 19 cents.

And the first McDonalds jingle was "47 cents for a three course meal at McDonalds" (hamburger, french fries and a coke)

THATpicture is old school to me............

C66

 

DougsDyna - you know Doug, I'll bet, you, me, Mud and Grumpy, could still have a good time at a biker bar. And I'll bet at the end of the night, we would be the ones still standing.

It damn sure would be a fun night, and everyone would know another meaning for "old school".

C66

 

Enjoying this thread,can especially relate to the part about building a bike with no money and very few aftermarket parts and don't let the dealer know you're buying parts for a chopper or he just might not sell them to you.

Best I can remember I started on this bike in 69 and finished it in early 72,could never afford more than about a hundred bucks a month to spend on the build. Think I paid six hundred bucks for this old worn out police bike with a busted frame,time I finished every part was rebuilt,polished,chromed,molded and painted.Sportster rim laced to anFLH hub,rear fender is the front fender reversedwith the taillite molded in,one inch rake,fourteen over tubes,probably one of the first swing arm custom bikes around.Think I might have had twenty five hundred bucks in it when all was done and a ton of help and swapped labor and good times. Still can't break the habit,lot of stuff on my present bike is used from ebay or the classifieds here or swapped with friends.

Wonder what it would cost to build one like this now?



Good Luck

Tom

 

Ron, If I remember correctly, the oil in the glass bottles

was marketed as RErefined.

 

Those WERE the good old Daze Tom.

Thanx for posting that picture again.

Very nice machine.

mud