Pick this up last summer. It was covered in thick powder coat and the only way I determined it could be removed is with a torch and lots of scraping. It was impervious to any readily available chemicals.

 

Nice piece - what the plan

 

Putting together a 48 EL. Motor/trans rebuilt and ready. Media blast frame and then assemble. Paint the sheet metal and ride (hopefully)! Motor can be seen in the background in one of the pics sitting on the bench.

 

Nice find. Good luck with your build.

 

If you get to the spot you dont get something reach out on the site

 

This bike will not be built for any sort of judging, just a rider. However, I am striving to make it as correct as possible. It began as a chopper project 12 years ago. It was sold to me on an aftermarket rigid frame from the widow of a guy who never finished his project. The motor cases were in such good shape I decided to abandon the chopper idea and go for an original 1948 EL. I had no clue about this year panhead so I went to school and learned a lot since then. Bruce Palmer's book was a trove of information. I have other bikes so this one did not get top priority. I was also on the hunt for parts, trying to get OEM whenever practical. It's all there now. All OEM sheet metal including a one year 48 rear fender. The only big ticket item I couldn't bring myself to pay for was a headlight. $800 or more for a dented bucket is not tolerable. I have a decent repop "Cycleray" light that I'll use unless I find a real one at a price I can tolerate.

I am waiting for some decent weather so I can get the frame outdoors to media blast then paint. After that I can begin assembling this long term project! I'll post some photos if anyone is interested as this moves forward.

Some pics of the mock up to check for fit before paint and final tweeking.

 

I pieced my Cycle Ray headlight together from a bunch of sources, only thing not original is the glass lens. I am not that deep into it, maybe $250. I did the same with the horn and speedometer, again because complete people want too much money. It worked for me saving some money. But prices keep going up, hard to say what today would do price wise. Good luck, nice looking project.

 

I always keep my eyes peeled for a headlight or headlight pieces. Swap meet prices are through the roof. I saw one at Wauseon last summer and the guy wanted $1700! I was fortunate to get an OEM Delco horn that works for not crazy money but that was over 7 years ago. . .

 

Gas cap prices is where I drew the line and refused to pay $700 for one beat up cap. Currently I have the $90 pair on my 48 but have managed to pick up the odd one here and there for significantly less but it took 3 years to get 3 caps. Just bought one yesterday to make it 3, I need 3 more.

As for the headlight I have oem chrome ones but wanted black and rather than risk ruining the script on the housing by stripping the chrome I bought a repop light and transferred the oem parts to the gutted black housing. Everything fit perfectly and to be honest I dont know how one could tell its not all oem, it would be interesting to see if an AMCA judge could tell.

 

Loves me some pan ****