My '48

[kartjockey]

Thought I would post some pics of my ride. Rust shot is how it was found in Mississippi. Complete except for the taillight lens. (I recently found the correct one). I left the 1948 Mississippi tag on it for sex appeal. Through the years I have restored several different engines and when I saw this at my buddies house I knew I had to get my hands on it! He would pay for the fun and I would get the enjoyment of doing it. But the story ends bittersweet. Throughout the restoration he wrote his will out and we joked about him leaving me his truck(my back-up) and the Simplex. Unfortunately he would pass only six months later. Good news is he did get to ride it and got to see photos of it completed.

[Ricks]

Tom, that is a super looking bike!  I would like to get a shift bike one of these days to go along with my 2 automatics!

Rick

[kartjockey]

Thought I would share some more pics.(couldn't help myself!) I read a post about motorcycle stands on here. The stand I made worked great for assembly then I put the engine on last as it utilized the same bolt holes. That is the original piston but the rings grooves were sloppy but I was able to find a ring set that was the next thickness up and same bore size so I just resized the grooves making the piston as fresh as a daisy. Also found a 3/4"+.003" oversize piston pin and only had to cut it length to make it work. This is the same pin that fits a flathead V-8 ford. I figure my engine was ran quite some time with the air breather hose broken as there was considerable wear on the rotary valve and in the block where it runs. I had to sleeve the block where the crank fits through and sleeve the rotary valve. Starts like a champ.

[Mike Sal]

You guys are killing me.....All these cool pic's of the bikes & the restoration process are making my mouth water....

I'm still wondering which transmission style I should be looking for.  Once I have a bike, I plan to ride it quite a bit (during the season).  Is the performance/speed any different between the shift models and the automatic ones?
Mike Sal

[kartjockey]

The more gears and levers there are the more I like it. However, if you plan to ride a bunch an automatic clutch would be nice. The rocker clutch takes a little getting used to but not bad. Works on the same principle of any other friction clutch. The belt kind of squaws as you get under way but to me it makes it unique. Which is why I hang around the old weird stuff anyways.