The Native Iowan

Been a while since Ive gotten anything out here.

Guess Ive been Bizzy.

In an effort to do some catching up… I’ll discuss a topic we all LOVVVVE…

Motorcycles:

I recently was contacted my Warner Brothers, they wanted to hire this bike to use in their movie about Elvis. Filming as we speak on the Gold Coast, it’ll feature Tom Hanks as Elvis’ manager “The Colonel”.

I am planning to take this machine apart, clean and rejuvenate everything. Repaint, rechrome, rebuild. If I wasn’t cleaning it for the movies, I’d be disassembling for the coming rebuild.

But my buddy Genius-Jim gave my name to the movie folks and they got hold of me. Of course, having my bike “in the movies” is way fucking cool, so I agreed. Jim gave the machine a quick once over, got it running for the first time in years, and gave it to me to clean up.

Cleaning, rebuilding old machines is like a forensic adventure. As I work on this, I get to know it. I can see where its been and why it is what it is…

Originally, the 52 was sold with all painted parts one colour…

This bike tells me that at some stage in its life it was laid on its left side at reasonable speed… Left exhaust pipe still crushed. The frame is a bit un-true.

And it got a new paint job… A modern custom job… the hubs are bare metal. The chain guard chromed, the frame and fender posts painted black. The front end painted or rebuilt from a black bike… ??

My glutes and back are stiff and sore from getting up and down so much. You can see the polishing aides I use. Rags and pastes and a drill with mops and brushes. A lot of time down low. Doing yoga on the shed floor.

The bike, as it is now, It’s very much a custom job. Matching numbers, all the right parts there. But someone custom painted and chromed it up and added the seats, to suit their 60s tastes. Or so I am assuming…

The fringe on the seats tells me this was a mid-60s rebuild. It wasn’t until the mid 60s that the leather fringe thing was cool. In its day, it was a Queen of the road.

So there you have it… my past few days in a few Picts.

Smiles