1955 KHK W/late 60s iron head.
Dad crashed it in 67......
Started rebuild in 68 after I was born.....got shuffled to a corner in 76.
Dad hauled it to Az. in 80.....I followed few yrs after.
Lit a fire under dads butt in 85 and got it this far.
Then I moved back to Mi. and it went in the corner again.
30 yrs later its on its way back to Mi.
Hasn't been started in 50 years !

 

Well, a lifetime, family story. It will be good to see that bike running again. Do you have a step-by-step plan for bringing it back to life?

 

Yep, the only thing more interesting than that story is that bike!

 

The bike is in transit to Mich.
But the rest of the parts wont be here till fall when dad retires and drives from Phoenix.
So for the summer I plan on disassembly, inspection, cleaning and polishing.
Kinda hard to put a parts list together , not to sure what all dad has.
When he moved to Az. in 1980 he had 2 other bikes in parts.


1st item is fork stops.... I hope the tanks not all dented!
And a springer front end.......

Here is a pic as it was being loaded.

 

Very cool! U are lucky. What happened to the original motor?

 

Don't know , might have been in gramas garage .
When she passed my uncle gave a bunch of my dads stuff away.
59 rigid and a 62 springer frames, motors, Trans's. parts and parts.
Had enough parts to build two bikes.


Even my Uncle looks back and kicks himself in the ***!

 

cool bike
good story too

 

Hey Phil, Great Story! I'd also like to give your Uncle a kick in the *** for you! A couple of questions; there was No 59 Ridgid Frames for Sportsters, unless you bolted on solid struts? The last Panhead Ridgid Frame was 1957? The last Springer Front End on a Panhead, was the 1st year, 1948! The last Springer Front End was on the 1957 Servi-Car, which will fit the Sportster Neck!

PS, Try Bosch B4478 4 prong platinum tip spark plugs in that Evo Wideglide, I love the Bike ! I recently met an Older Gent at a Bike Show he had there a mint 52 KH (750) & a mint 56 KH (900), along with some early Ironheads, all mint, all for sale, he was retiring, at 75, from Restoration!

 

All the parts left behind were big twin stuff, he took all the sportster parts to Az.
As for the parts hard to say what was all there.... I remember a knuckle head motor. and the 2 frames , a shitload of old fishtail mufflers,wheels
And countless milk crates of unknown goodies


I will be putting an aftermarket springer front end on it.


And a big negative on the Bosch 4 prong.....don't need a platinum plug in the bike....and dyno tests have proven the 3 other prongs slow down the flame path.........As a mechanic I have had to remove "Bosch" plugs from cars to get them to run right !(late 80s-early 90s GMs)

 

Well, I never touched the bike all summer....but my parts are here !
Dads up for about a month, so we are going to go over everything and figure out what I need.
Got a bunch of old parts to go thru.....