A LONG TIME AGO:
Sixty Years Ago They Did Things Differently in Milwaukee
Written by Henry N. Patterson

In 1928 when I was a high school sophomore in Grand Junction, Colorado, I started working in a bicycle and motorcycle shop. At that time most of the business had to do with bicycles but occasionally, much to my delight, a motorcycle would come in. I began doing minor work on them and became increasingly intrigued. Then, as now, motorcycles fascinated me.

One day in 1930 after I had finished high school and was working at the cycle shop full-time, a fellow came in with a 1928 21-inch single he wanted to sell. I drained my pockets, borrowed more money from the boss and managed to come up with the $80 asking price.

My first motorcycle. I really thought I had something. The next day was Sunday so I set out to enjoy my new acquisition by going on a ride. Three miles down the road, the front tire suddenly went flat, a hairy experience considering it was my first time out. Upon examination it turned out that tube patch number 26 had come off. People today don't realize how common flats were in those days. The upholstery in buggies and the early automobiles was installed with tacks which frequently came out then hid in the dust of the streets and roads waiting for a tire to puncture.

That used motorcycle and I got along very well for about six weeks. Then an automobile decided it should not let me pass through an intersection successfully. That put an end to my motorcycling experiences until late in 1933. Somewhere I came up with a 1929 45-inch basket case. Price: $65.00. I set about restoring it which turned out to be quite a project. I put in all new rollers and ordered a set of new pistons. I took the cylinders to a machine shop where they chucked them up in a big lathe and bored them. Back then the cylinders had to be 0.005 smaller at the top than at the bottom so that they would stay straight when they got hot. Once the engine was rebuilt I painted the cycle maroon and copper and topped everything off with a tank decal In the style of the time. The bike ran as good as it looked.

The 1933 Chicago's World's Fair, known as A Celebration Of A Century Of Progress, was so successful that it was held over for 1934. That stirred up the wanderlust in me so I decided I would ride back to see the fair and visit an uncle who lived in Chicago. That turned out to be a real experience. It was a lot farther from Grand Junction to Chicago in those days than now. For instance, the pavement ran out three miles east of Grand Junction and that was the last of hard surfaced roads I saw until I was about ten miles from Denver. The roads were gravel and very "corduroy" and "chucky", common descriptive terms in the 1930s meaning they were bumpy and full of holes. Before I reached Denver, the bike quit. I checked things and found a broken battery bar. Back then battery cells were connected with external lead bars. The shaking of the machine had broken one of the bars which I managed to squeeze back together with a pair of pliers. That got me into Denver where I had it soldered back together.

After spending the night with a friend, I left Denver headed across the plains of eastern Colorado and Nebraska on roads which were all sandy and quite chucky. As a result I continued to have battery troubles. Then a few miles short of Omaha, the lead battery bars were so messed up that I could no longer connect them with pliers. I hitchhiked into Omaha and bought a new battery. The shop owner was nice enough to take me back to my machine on a brand new bike. It was an impressive ride, that new bike was much smoother than my 45.

From Omaha into Chicago things went better. My maintenance consisted mostly of tightening down the generator each time I got gas. That little vertical generator certainly could not be considered a great engineering feat.

In Chicago I stayed with my uncle who had to leave for work about four each morning. I would sleep in and then go out to the World Fair grounds where he would meet me later. The Fair was really enjoyable but getting around Chicago was another thing. The cars would race from stoplight to stop light. My little 45 with its weak clutch had a hard time keeping out of their way.

One thing I particularly recall about the Fair was that I got to be on television. This in 1934! They had a small theater where you could go into a projection booth, it you wished. Then they would send your image and your voice onto a big screen. It was all extremely primitive compared to what we have now but it was still quite a thrill. Also I recall the Ford exhibit. At that time the company still considered hydraulic brakes as inferior to mechanical brakes. To demonstrate this, they had built a board track about a quarter of a mile long with steep grades and curves on it. People stood in line to take a demonstration ride showing how good mechanical brakes were. I hung around there for some time and noticed that a demonstration car would make only three or four trips and then it would disappear for awhile. The Ford people were quietly readjusting the brakes that often.

Part of my plans included visiting the Harley-Davidson factory so early one morning I got up and rode to Milwaukee. When I arrived at 3700 Juneau Avenue, I went in and told them who I was, where I was from and that I would like a tour. I was taken to a waiting room which had a lot of printed material about Harley-Davidson including post cards with factory-furnished postage. The idea, of course, was that you sent all your friends cards from the factory. While I was writing some post cards a young man came in and asked which bike was mine. He said they were going to move it and that I should pick it up at the south door after my tour. I believe my guide was Jim Coates, a long-time fixture there, who was very friendly and, since I was the only visitor at that time, gave me an especially good tour. Although that was 60 years ago, I still remember certain things -- such as the many big turret lathes and milling machines and the million dollar tool room where extra tools were kept for the lathes and other machines which made multiple parts.

Then there was the area in which frames were being built. Each one was suspended over a vat of molten brass. A large gas flame would be turned on and directed at a joint on the frame. When it was hot enough, an attendant would dip a small ladle into the molten brass and pour it on the joint. Then the flame and the attendant would move on to the next joint, repeating the process until all the frame joints had been treated. Then, as I remember, the frame was dipped into oil to temper it. After that it went to a frame table where it was tested and, if necessary, trued.

We paused to watch four blind ladies who were sorting rollers by hand. They had go and no-go gauges to help them sort the bearings into the correct sizes. At that time the factory had a program in which a dealer could send in his mixed-up bearings and they would be sorted and returned free of charge. Later we went through an area where there were a lot of new mufflers but where no one was working; the place was deserted. Jim said that the workers had met their quota for the day and were hiding in the rest room. In another section new gas tanks were being soldered together. Welded tanks did not appear until ??YEAR??. The factory also had a policy of straightening out dented tanks for dealers.

My factory tour ended when Jim Coates showed me the way to the south door. There I was in for a surprise. My machine had been cleaned up, tuned up with two new spark plugs and a full tank of Harley oil. Back then you really had to keep track of the oil. There was no circulating oil system until 1936. An oil drip arrangement provided lubrication for the front chain at the rate of about one drop of oil each 20 seconds. Oil was pumped into the lower end and the surplus was splashed up on the cylinder walls to oil the pistons. There were no oil rings to keep it down so what went up was burned. It was a total loss oil system. But it rarely posed a problem for cautious riders; they would check the oil every time they got gas and buy the thickest oil available at filling stations.

First I returned to Chicago where I made a trip through the Schwinn Bicycle factory, my guide there being an old employee of the Excelsior Motorcycle Company which was in the same building and still owned by the maker of the Excelsior motorcycles. After biding my uncle goodbye I made my way back to Colorado by way of Colorado Springs. From there I took an old road that at one time had been the railroad line to Cripple Creek and Victor. I stayed there with another schoolmate for a few days. The highlight of that visit was when he bribed the lift operator of the Cressen mine and we went three or four thousand feet down into the old mine. Then I went on home to Grand Junction with a lot of memories and the feeling I had received a real education.

But I kept remembering watching one guy working at the Harley-Davidson factory who was diamond testing wrist pins and crank pins for hardness after they came from the heat treating process. He performed the same routine over and over, all day long, I decided that I had no desire to be a factory worker.

Nevertheless, just three years later I was back in Milwaukee. Sometime in 1936 1 began developing an urge to attend the Harley-Davidson Factory Service School for mechanics. Jim Phillips, who was the H-D factory representative in the Grand Junction area at the time, put in some good words on my behalf and I was enrolled in the three-week course which started the last week in March, 1937. Basically I took a leave of absence from my job to attend; I received no wages while I was gone and even paid my own train fare to Wisconsin. I no longer recall if I also had to pay for my room and board; I do remember I and three other students stayed about two blocks from the factory and that the food there was so good that I put on some weight. My boss paid for none of this; but he did make arrangements for me to ride a new bike back to Colorado.

The school curriculum was a mixture of lectures, seeing how it was done in the factory and hands-on training. I don't remember what part of the machine we started with but lets say it was the motor. Our instructor, either Joe Ryan or 0. Lamb, would lecture and explain each part of the motor as he disassembled it. Then each student was given a motor to take apart, examine, measure and prepare for reassembly. When everybody was ready, instead of beginning the reassembly process, we were all taken to the factory to observe the portion of the assembly line which dealt with the part of the bike we were working on. Sometimes it seemed we spent a longer period doing this than was necessary. But there was a reason for the delay. When we did go back instead of the motor we'd left behind, we found basket cases spread out all over the place. We would have to go to other benches to find some parts. The bearings we had so carefully measured had been messed up so we had to refit them. After we got the lower end put together, there was another trip to the assembly line to see how pistons were put in. This time while we were gone, the rods of our engines somehow got bent or twisted out of shape, and it was up to us to straighten everything out before we could put the pistons and cylinders on.

The same learning format was used on generators. We each were given one which we checked over carefully and then again went to the factory assembly line. By now we were gaining confidence and thought we knew what was coming. Sure enough, when we returned to the school area, our generators were mixed up and parts scattered all around just as we had expected. But something new had occurred as well. After I put mine back together it would not charge. I took it apart and checked everything several times, but it still would not charge. Finally the instructor had to show me what was wrong because I was holding up the class. One little piece that looked so good and new that I had not checked it was a brush -- made out of hard rubber.

Again it was the same story with transmissions. After checking out a tranny, we went over to the factory to where transmissions were being assembled. One of the fellows there appeared to be just goofing off, but when we came back by he had each step of assembly laid out for us to see. He then put the transmission together and it was fun to see how quickly it could be done.

On another day they took us to an unused street and had each of us ride a bike they had prepared. We were to decide what was wrong with the machine. It ran beautifully until you shut off the throttle. Then it clang-clanged like a flat head machine. At that time there was only one-sixteenth of an inch clearance between the head and the piston. They had removed that from the bottom of the cylinders and then loosened up the rollers so that when the gas was turned off, they would hit the top. That was to demonstrate what carbon build-up would be like. They admitted that their oil would build up carbon but explained it was necessary to have an oil that would be compatible for air-cooled motors. 1 found out that I was not ready at that time to take such a course but I was not alone. There were very few experienced mechanics there. But that was what it was all about. I was so impressed with Joe Ryan, the head service guy, that I believed he could look at the spark plugs and tell you what was wrong with the transmission.

Following the conclusion of the factory school, I picked up the new bike and, following another visit with my uncle in Chicago plus a stop in Pleasant Hill, Illinois to see a couple of my aunts, I headed west for Grand Junction. My route took me through Topeka on what was a stormy Kansas day. Winds from Oklahoma were blowing lots of dust which mixed with the Kansas rain when it started leaving me riding through a mud ball storm. When I reached Wakeeny, Kansas, I stopped for gas and the station operator said I should get a room for the night as the road ahead was closed by snow. I took his advice as it was late in the day. The next morning, however, I discovered that although the road had been closed to most traffic, a motorcycle could have gotten through all right. I traveled on west through Colorado Springs, the major route in those days, but instead of going over Monarch Pass, which was said to be covered in snow, I decided to take Chechetopa Pass -- a choice which came close to being a big mistake. I meant to get gas in Saguache but passed by a single gas pump thinking I would find a bigger station in town. There was no town. I rode for I don't know how many miles through three or four inches of snow without seeing the track of another vehicle going or coming. As I slowly got on up the mountain, I began to wonder where everybody else was. I saw no ranch houses, no sign of another other living thing. But I had no choice but to keep going. How happy I was when I made a turn and could see a car on Highway 50 ahead. That road took me to Gunnison where I was extremely happy to get gas and know, finally, where I was. The next stop would be home.