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Mutt #507
Wills Point, Texas
1962 Ranger, Racer

A Man and his Racer

(ed. as told by Mutt himself)

"I traded a bottom end rebuild for the basic motor and carb last year. The transmission was completely shot as was the clutch and flywheels. The head, cylinder, cases and carb were all intact and in nice condition. I had a nice fresh set of flywheels with NOS crankpin, rod, rollers and compression plates so I rebuilt and trued them until there was zero runout. I bored the cylinder +.040", then ported and polished the cylinder and transfer ports, changing the port timing a bit more than 'Pucketts'. The head was perfect as-was so I bead blasted it and installed a head gasket and dual Bosch Platinum 4236 plugs (equivalent to HD's # 4) Then I installed a complete NOS transmission and clutch, chain and sprockets. The compression ratio is approximately 12:1. That was all for the motor". (Click on pictures to enlarge)

"The carb is a Linkert M18 from a 1948 through 1958 ServiCar. The expansion chamber I was gifted from a good friend of mine and fellow Hummer-ite (Bruce McKensie) for the project. It originally came on a bobber he bought. It needed quite a bit of attention on the cylinder end, so I cut that section off and got an old Hummer pipe and mated the 2 together making sure all the welds looked good, then welded on a mounting tab. It has plenty of room on the stinger for fine tuning (about 4" needs to be removed) but time will tell. All that is left is installing the chain guard and I have since decided to install a Joe Hunt Sportster magneto under the original timing cover and delete the current generator system!!!!! This way I can lose the extra weight of the battery, regulator and generator (who needs the old 6 volt electric's on a racer !!!)"

"The front fork is stock, the front hub is a Hummer racing brakeless spool hub and instead of a speedo in the hole (since there is now no speedo drive) I installed a period NOS Westbend Tachometer 0-8000 rpm. It is cool and works on 6 or 12 volts, 1 or 2 cylinders and generator or magneto electric system (2 wires !!!!) I got it for $25 off eBay ®. The handle bars are a set of 60's Sportster handlebars and '48 125 handle bars mated together (look mom, NO bondo!!!!) They have the original internal twist throttle and blue waffle grips. The petcock is an industrial valve (stainless steel and brass for a LEAK FREE seal) with a "quick release" push on-pull off 3/8" hose and the float bowl connection is a racing elbow from a 1941 WR !!!!! I also am fabricating my own design velocity stack for the carb. The venturi (as found and stock) was 7/8" but I machined it to 1" for better top end performance."

"The rear fender and braces I made by hand. (NO BONDO anywhere on it!!) I also made all of the hardware for the bike. The hex portions are oversize with no markings, convex shaped and cadmium plated. The seat is from a 1955 model and the seat springs are from a 1962 Scat. I welded up the rear 2 holes on the front seat mounting bracket then re-drilled them 1/4" higher than stock (to keep the bracket off the killer paint!!! The color is candy apple blue. The tires and tubes are NOS (still got all the tits and paint stamp markings) Goodyear Eagle RT's, 3.50 x 18" rear 4 ply and 3.25 x 19" 2 ply front. The overall weight is hovering in at about 100 lbs. The spokes are Buchanan's Stainless and the rims are OEM HD"

(Wanna Race?....Ed.)


  Last updated: February 07, 2006 Up