Vintage motorcycles have a way of testing a rider’s
mechanical abilities when they least expect it.
Even with a strict maintenance schedule and proper preparation, there is
still a chance that you might find yourself pushing your motorcycle down the
side of the highway in the middle of the night. Keeping these motorcycles road worthy takes
dedication, but for those who have caught the vintage “bug”, there is nothing
more satisfying than a successful adventure on old iron. Last autumn, my 1964 Duo-Glide put my skills
and patience to the test on a trip from North Carolina all the way up to
Concord, New Hampshire to attend the Pewter Run. In the
end, I completed the trip, but I had a number of “adventures” along the way…
The first day started normal enough, riding out from North
Carolina on a sunny morning, headed for New York to meet some old friends
before pushing on to New Hampshire. I had spent the previous week prepping my
Duo-Glide for the trip and it was loaded and ready, with fresh fluids and a
laundry list of adjustments carefully completed. With two days set aside for the first leg of
my trip, I had plenty of time to cover the 600 miles to New York. A tent and sleeping bag were tied to the back
of my Panhead and I planned to spend the night somewhere in Pennsylvania.
That plan held
together fine for the first 75 miles of my trip, but soon after it completely
fell apart. The first indication that
this was not going to be an easy trip came when I hit the rear brake to slow
down for a gas stop. The brake
pedal went all the way to the floorboard and I ended up passing the gas
station. The front brakes are already
practically useless on my old panhead and now the rear ones were even worse. After pumping the pedal half a dozen times,
the brakes would hold somewhat, so I decided to continue, telling myself that I
would bleed the brakes when I stopped for the night.
Another 25 miles ticked by and a new problem popped up which could not be ignored. The engine
started to rev up and the motorcycle began to slow down. I guessed my clutch must be getting loose, so
I dropped down to 35 mph and limped into a gas station. Adjusting the clutch is pretty easy and I had
it tightened up in less than 10 minutes.
Confident that I fixed the problem I slammed down the kicker pedal to
start the bike. Instead of the engine
roaring to life, the pedal slipped and made a ripping noise as it completed its
arc. There was nothing to do but pull
the left side floorboard and primary cover.
Inside I found a disaster. All
the teeth on my primary belt were shredded off and piled in the bottom of the primary
cover. I was starting to have second
thoughts about that belt “upgrade”.
Still, it was only 11:00 AM and I figured there must be a
replacement belt somewhere nearby. I
started making calls, searched the internet and put out a general plea for help. At one point I had six friends and fellow
riders looking for that belt, but not one could be found within a 100 mile
radius. By chance, there was a Harley
dealership less than 10 miles from where I was, so I had them overnight a new
belt. I passed the rest of the afternoon trying unsuccessfully to
find a timing belt from the auto parts store that would get me at least a
couple miles to a hotel and bleeding my rear brake.
After spending over half a day at the gas station, the assistant manager agreed to let
me leave my motorcycle in a well-lit spot and drove me to a nearby hotel.
The next morning, I bummed a ride to the HD dealership in Lynchburg
and by 9:00 I was standing in their Parts Department waiting for UPS to arrive. An hour slowly ticked by and finally the
brown truck pulled up and unloaded my belt.
The dealership dropped me back off at my motorcycle and I barely let the
driver stop before I bounded out of the truck and started unpacking my tools.
I looped the belt over the pulleys and right away it was
obvious that I had made a big mistake. Turns out BDL makes two belt drive kits that
will fit a ’64 Panhead and I ordered the wrong belt. Guess I should have counted all those teeth
in the bottom of my primary cover.
So I called more friends and friends of friends trying to
find someone who might be in Richmond and felt like driving two hours to
Lynchburg. Turns out my friend Sid from
Sid’s Cycles in Nashville knew some folks out in Richmond and gave them a
call. Not long after I got off the phone
with Sid, I got a call from a guy named Duane who said he would be glad to help. He agreed to leave work early, pick up the
belt and deliver it. Three hours later,
he pulled in to the gas station with his wife Lisa and handed me the belt. This time, it was the right one and I set to
installing it.
With the correct belt installed and adjusted, I thanked Duane
and Lisa and was finally back on the road, after spending about 30 hours stuck
at the gas station. There was no way I
was going to make the 500 miles to New York, but I figured I could at least get
200 – 300 covered by midnight.
As the sun went down, I pulled off for gas in Strasburg, VA,
feeling pretty good about how things were going. The motorcycle was running great and I was
finally laying down some miles. That
turned out to be a little premature as 40 miles later the engine was revving up
and the motorcycle was slowing down again!
I couldn’t believe it, how could that new belt have broken already? This time I couldn’t even limp down the side
of the road and just had to pull off on the shoulder to assess the
problem. I couldn’t ask for a worse
place to get stuck, there I was on the side of the Interstate with truck
ripping past in the pitch dark.
Out came the flashlight and I checked the belt and the
clutch. Both were fine, so I started the
panhead back up and shifted the transmission into first gear. Nothing happened, the engine just revved and
the bike didn’t move an inch. I shifted
up to second gear, same results, but this time I could hear some noise coming
from the rear tire. After a quick look I
concluded that I had sheared off all the rivets holding my rear sprocket to the
brake drum. There was definitely no way
I could fix that on the side of the road, so out came the phone again and I
made a call to Dave in Maryland.
Turned out that Dave was only about an hour and a half from
my location and he was glad to come pick me up with his trailer. In the meantime I pushed my motorcycle a ¼
mile down the road, up the on ramp, across the bypass and into the parking lot
of another gas station. At least this
one had a place to sit inside, so I passed the time reading motorcycle magazines.
Dave and his girlfriend arrived around 10:00 PM and we
loaded my motorcycle into the trailer and headed for his house. Once there I unpacked all my bags and we got
the motorcycle on his lift.
I started tearing down the rear end while Dave went to
search for parts in his basement. When I
went to remove the lug nuts from my rear wheel, I found that they were all
broken. Turns out I hadn’t sheared off
my rivets, but instead sheared off all my lug nuts!
Dave had been successful in his basement hunt and returned
with a complete rear brake hub. We
mounted the new hub and borrowed some lug nuts off the front wheel of is WL and
I was back in business. We also rebuilt
the rear master cylinder, bled the brakes and readjusted the rear chain. When we finally finished, it was 4:00 AM, so
I decided I should probably get a few hours of sleep instead of just hoping
back on the motorcycle.
Around 8:00AM next morning I took the motorcycle out for a
quick test ride before repacking and thanking Dave for all his help.
To make sure I did not get lost, Dave led me out to
the highway on his Panhead and within a couple hours I was back on the Interstate
heading for New York. Having lost over a
day’s worth of time hanging out at 24-hour gas stations, I barely got off the
motorcycle for the next 400 miles. At
gas stops I left the bike running as I filled the tanks, keeping the motorcycle
upright to fill them right up to the top.
At about 5:30PM I
pulled into Albany, New York, finally catching up with friends, albeit a day
late.
The rest of the ride went smoothly and I made it all the way
to Concord and back to North Carolina without any other mechanical
failures. I nearly drove myself crazy
listening for rattles and other weird sounds as I rode, but it turned out there
was nothing to worry about. In the end, it
was a great adventure, one I’m sure to tell over and over again. Just goes to show that with the right tools
and a little luck, there’s no keeping an old Harley off the road.