Parts in your back yard

Its amazing what you can find in your own back yard. Not every bike comes from a driving 100 miles just to find it, sometimes they are 5 house down the road. My buddy Howdy, had been a customer of mine for as long as I could remember. He has been working on a 1969 FL generator shovelhead for a long time, restoring it frame up. I had known for years that howdy had been riding since the 60’s. What I did not know was that howdy still had his bikes from the 60’s. So when he asked me about buying his old bikes I was happy to stop by and take a look at them. It was a cold and rainy day, Josh and I headed down to Howdy’s house. I didn’t know what I was going to be looking at, I headed for the garage but he headed me off and pointed me towards the shed. (I would later find out why he didn’t want me in the garage, I hope to come back and get that gen shovel Howdy!!) I’ve dug old bikes out of old sheds before, but not one with no roof. Underneath a few traps were a frame for a triumph and a 500 triumph. I’ve bought and sold a ton of old Harleys but never really got into the triumphs. So I wasn’t to sure what I was looking at. Lucky my buddy Ryan is a triumph nut and knows a lot about them, after only a few pictures Ryan was able to figure out what everything was. The frame with no motor is a Maltess frame and Ceriani front end. Very cool vintage flat track racing parts. Howdy had told Josh and I how he had raced that bike on the jack pine run but stop after coming down a hill and hitting a rock. Lucky the bike was fine but that was a enough for him to call it quits. The other bike is fairly stock 500. Howdy also gave us a bunch of parts to go with the bikes. It was a great score but I found it funny, I would of never guessed there were two bikes hiding in that shed. It just goes to show you that you never know what is hiding in that shed out back of the neighbor’s house. Well I’ve been dieing to tell you guys about this one… Just a few weeks ago I was talking with a guy at the shop named Ken, he was building a old shovel up and as I always do I asked him if he had any old parts for sale. He did but he also knew of a guy selling a whole garage full of parts. So late one night Josh and Don followed me out to the country side looking for Harley parts! When we arrived at the house there was no garage in sight a young guy was there waiting for us. He pointed me though a small opening though a fence, it was so small Josh and don almost didn’t fit with the van and trailer. We went way to the back of his property where a barn sat. The barn was full of antique Harley parts, a 37 UL and matching trans sitting in a frame, a 47 G motor sitting in a corner. 4 or 5 springers all from the 30’s and 40’s all over the room. Old 4 speed trans parts, carburetors, wheels, motor cases, heads. It was crazy; I haven’t seen a collection like that in a long time. The person selling the parts was named Kyle; his dad was the one that had collected all these parts over the years. Kyle wanted to sell off all the parts for the simple fact of he has had this stuff for over a year since his dads passing, none of his dads friends or anyone he knew wanted any of it. So he wanted to put the parts back out into the world so other people could enjoy them as much as his father did, along with making some money for himself to go and do thing that he wanted to do. It took us an hour and a half to pack up everything in the barn, but we got it. The ride home was a long one; we were all tired but excited to go through all the parts. The Wauseon swap meet was just around the corner and I think between both of these scores we will have more than enough for a swap space. (by the time you read this article we will have been to Wauseon and back, should have a few shots of the event, and we will let you know how it all worked out.)