Advice on finding a WLA 45

[kevscrivener]

That'll be Dave Andrea then. Good source of advice, he knows his stuff; and as you probably already know, a damn good bloke too.

[45Brit]

fame at last... I'd certainly agree with Kev's comments about inflated prices for a not-very-exciting bike. But they are rather fun.

There are a lot more engines about than gearboxes and cycle parts, which is why they sometimes turn up. You can sometimes get a complete engine for £500 - £700, although that's mostly by word of mouth. BUT, you will pay £700 for a gearbox and then more again for a clutch, assuming you ever find one.

There were quite a few 'specials' built in the 70s which were varying combinations of 45 engines mated to HD and British cycle parts. You can fit them into A10, Norton swingarm, Triumph and Ariel rigid frames with varying degrees of ease and success. Ray Leon of Leon Wallace Customs had a really nice one in a Triumph frame called Bluegrass Special.

7/8" necks mean that most older British, 45 and Sportster forks front ends are pretty much interchangeable with a bit of fiddling with spacers and shims

to be perfectly honest, if you have a big Sloper I don't really see why you want to bother with a 45. They are very similar character of machines, I'd rather like a decent big Sloper to ride around on.

however... I did once see a 45 engine in a Sloper rigid frame, it was an easy swap - just fabricate rear engine mount, front downtubes and match up the primary drives.

There's quite a lot of literature about on swapping Brit transmissions into 45s. It's well worth doing, the 4-speed transmission gets you away from the 45's great weakness ( well, one of them ) - the huge gap from 2nd to 3rd which dictates the overall gearing. A 4-speed box lets you raise the overall gearing significantly. The British clutches are perfectly capable of coping with anything a 45 will ever put out.

It isn't difficult to build a bike with a British frame and gearbox that will save about 100lb over the weight of a 45. An Amal or Mikuni carb will cost you 30% of the price of a Linkert and give a much better performance, especially if you fit the 6:1 heads and sporty cams from 45 Depot ( or just grind a bit off the base circles. 45s aren't subtle )

It will actually stop and steer a bit, the raised gearing will give you about 80 - 85mph on the road. There are plenty of aftermarket parts about ( mostly for Sportsters ) that will give you 12v lights and electronic ignition or auto-advance, not that starting a 45 is an issue.

anyway, good luck, although finding a 45 tends to be an exercise in patience and serendipity

[Panhead Boris]

Originally Posted by kevscrivener

Prices? If you can get a half-decent runner for 6 grand you've done very well indeed. Not so many years ago you couldn't give the damn things away.

This 1 has just been reduced to the 'bargain' £6500, they might take a cheeky offer I expect. (It is seriously UGLY in IMHO, tho I suspect somebody thought it was the height of good taste!)

4566hdn

Happy hunting.

[Harleyrider1450]

Try Kapaza! - Tweedehands en nieuwe auto’s, immo, kleding, boeken te koop thats where you'll find one .

[45Brit]

eerrrmmm .......... yeeeeesssssssssss.... different, isn't it?

I've always regarded that particular vendor as very over-priced, but he's been in business a long while so obviously knows his market.

however... bike consists of a 45 engine and transmission in an aftermarket frame of some sort. Original forks have been modified and the rocker geometry is badly wrong as a result. Quite how you would ride a bike with a left-side handshift and a left-hand clutch, I'm not really sure, and that long lever with no apparent detents or gate will make the gearchange very touchy.

original mudguards and rear carrier are expensive, although not hard to find; then again, they could be repop, can't tell. Tanks and most fittings are a miscellaneous collection of aftermarket odds and ends. Some details, like the floorboards, are just crude'n'nasty.

eccentric styling is so personal I'm not going to comment on it.

Warr's may well have rebuilt the engine, but that could have been 40 years ago.



my honest opinion is that the original price is ridiculous, and you would need to want that particular bike very badly indeed, and have no real interest in the subsequent resale price, to pay £6,500... at least if Kev's all-original 45 is a benchmark.

[kevscrivener]

That particular bike was on e-bay some time ago, ISTR it had about seven grand on it when i stopped looking.

As a bit of self-mockery on Harleys in general it's fine, but I've seen better. One of the Dutch guys who used to be a regular at our Internationals had a pretty stock, but well-used 80" flathead in John Deere livery and it looked miles better than this.

Agree with 45 Brit's comments about rideability; it's really just a piece of furniture with a V5 as it stands.

Boris, I suspect this is a classic case of someone with too much money and not enough knowledge trying to make a quick buck on e-bay, and finding out the hard way that he's bought a turkey. To be fair to the vendor, the report is actually quite accurate but shows a limited knowledge of 45's. At least he's honest enough to admit that it's a one-off.

Add to 45 Brit's breakdown of decent parts, a reverse box; probably out of a Servicar so further proof that it's a bitza. Mind you many 45's were and still are, including mine!

Pity of that is, with a bit more attention to rideability it could actually have been quite nice; but it still ain't worth ten grand!

[colbymog]

Dear All,

Thanks for all the feedback so far. One thing I have found with all the Harley people I've come accross so far is that they are really helpful people. It's actually very refreshing!

Thanks to 45 Brit for the technical info, if I ever find a wla 45 I will want to pick your brains further.

Baza you are spot on with your comments regarding Dave. He was the first person I talked to and he couldnt do enough to help me. Gave me a few ideas and actualy told me about this website.

The green 45 'tractor' really doesnt do it for me. I would possibly give it a go but not with that price tag. If it was mine I would want tto start again.

But thanks to Harley rider and Panhead Boris for providing me with the links.

The search continues.......

Regards

Andy

[Kiwi]

try advertising in the wanted columns in all the classic bike type magazines - you are more likely to unearth a bike at a reasonable price that way than looking thru the for sale adverts

[45Brit]

I remember that bike on ebay, now you mention it.

I'd be curious where the servicar box came from?

H-Ds in John Deere colours are one of those things you see from time to time. I actualy quite like it in the sense that it is the sort of bright 'primary colours' paintjob often seen on bikes of that sort of age, look at the Indians posted recently.

actually there are several points coming from this.


1) there's a thread somewhere about what Patrick will and won't do, regarding a dating certificate. This bike has a VMCC dating cert and an age-related registration number based on it, apparently.

HDRCGB are a one-make club and Patrick is expected to give an informed opinion on that basis. VMCC aren't, and they will happily give dating certs for 'period specials' such as Tritons and NorVins; they will give certs for bikes with 'period' numbers; they will give certs based on the limits of what they do and don't know.

this is how I have registered my 45/Ariel project, and now you see how it works. Patrick won't recognise it as a Harley, but VMCC will happily recognise it as a Harley-based special with 'period' main components.

DVLA would have been free to disallow it, on the basis that the frame is clearly a special, but then again that's their decision on inspection. Personally, I don't see how that one got through. There's much discussion of 'cutting and welding' and that's why I used an Ariel frame; but more on that later.


2) custom bikes are a hard sell, because they represent a lot of labour content which isn't re-usable, often in pursuit of ends which are of little or no technical value. Right-side drive Big Twins copied from drag racing practice, so that you can fit farcically large rear tyres, are a case in point.

I would guess that the frame was originaly built for a Sportster, judging by the close-set twin front down tubes. I haven't a clue about its age, could be anything from 1970s from someone like Kooter Brown, to built last month at Fenland Choppers, to a US import.

whether a 70s Kooter Brown frame is a valuable 'classic' piece, I don't really know. If anyone thinks they are, feel free to contact me because I have one in my garage and I'd quite like to be rid of it.


3) that particular vendor is well-known for bidding up bikes on ebay. I think the previous comments about buying a turkey, looking for a quick buck and offloading it at cost when it doesn't sell, all hang together. He's probably looking now to offload it quickly to someone who bid against him.


4) elsewhere on the site there's a very interesting project - a 30s Ariel with a 750cc JAP sv engine. This was a well-known period special, in fact you might regard the 1940s Zenith-JAP produced in small numbers by Ariel to clear old stock, as one such.

Ariel historically used one frame to fit more-or-less any engine they might use, from a 350cc ohv single to a Square 4. I am seriously looking at using a pre-war 350cc frame as a home for a 45 engine at present, seeing as I have enough bits to build at least two bikes.

it's a nice bike with the sort of soft performance you might expect and a decent overall performance. Is it worth £7,500?.. not in my book. Parts value is about £2,000 and it is not a fully-sorted running bike, and it has no provenance.

[Roger]

Originally Posted by 45Brit

1) there's a thread somewhere about what Patrick will and won't do, regarding a dating certificate. This bike has a VMCC dating cert and an age-related registration number based on it, apparently.

HDRCGB are a one-make club and Patrick is expected to give an informed opinion on that basis. VMCC aren't, and they will happily give dating certs for 'period specials' such as Tritons and NorVins; they will give certs for bikes with 'period' numbers; they will give certs based on the limits of what they do and don't know.

Here: http://www.harley-davidson-hangout.c...php?pg=qplates