Yeah, I know in a lot of ways, it's really the father of the Sportster.
I'm Dalin McCloud and I'm Sean McLeod.
The 1952 Harley K Model, I guess a that came about my, my dad bought that
as a project back in the late eighties.
And he started collecting pieces and parts for here and there.
It was missing a few things, not totally a lot, um, time roled on in 1997.
My, my son was born and I, well, my dad telling me he's a grandfather now.
And to go, I guess he needs a new Harley and he gave us
the gave Dalin the K model.
And it was simply my job just to put the, put the thing together in 1997,
Dalin was born and then seven days before his second birthday Dalin was diagnosed
with A.L.L uh, acute lymphomic leukemia.
And, uh, that really turned our world upside down.
Yeah, it really put a pause on all the bike stuff.
Especially as far as the expensive ones go so the K Model was essentially
packed up and just put to the side for the time being, we, you know, we
sold off our other bikes and it just concentrated on him getting healthy and
then was a suppressed immune system.
It really wasn't until his teens where he started, started to
really come about and be have more of a normal life again, without
worries or anything to worry about.
So, um, when he was about 12 or 13, He was old enough to gain an interest.
He was riding a mini bike at that point.
And, uh, so we kind of tackled it together and, and it was like a father,
son project, I guess you could say.
And bonding Dalin helped me considerably use cleaning parts, helping sand refinish,
um, you know, mostly the smaller stuff.
Obviously I wasn't at that point as knowledgeable about any of the technical
side, whether you're, whether you're handing me a wrench or you're adjusting a valve
about bits, all the hope has helped.
And it was all a team effort.
1952.
Harley K Model first year for the street bikes to have a telescopic front end,
a new design for Harley over the big twins will still carried the Springers
into the later on in the fifties, 52 Harley Davidson introduced this, this
new front end with the Harley K model.
This was the first real forty-five cubic inch street bikes.
Acquire this front end is a test for Hardy, um, seven inch big
headlight with the oil and generator lights for built right into them.
That was for a two year only period till 54.
They, they went with a different design in 52.
It was also the introduction of the rear shock swing arm design.
Still not found on the big twins till later into, into the later fifties.
Which greatly increased passenger and rider comfort and long journeys,
and offered a bit of relief for suspension wise, opposed to that
everything else remained, um, rigid frames up until mid, mid fifties.
And then they started to adopt them on the big twins as well.
This was the testing ground for the rear shock absorbers
and the front shocks as well.
And, um, the same design carried on
Well into the nineties with the Sportster brand and greatly remained
unchanged from this initial design in 52, you know, the usual
seven inch round air cleaner cover.
It was a, it was this stock design as well.
The M53 racing bombsight carburetor has an actual bomb site Venturi inside of it.
It looks like the cross hairs of an old, an old, a machine gun, the
choke choke plates up the front.
Fully closed start and prime the bike, open it up a notch.
When you go to start the bike and then fully open, same kind of design.
Is today any of the new motorcycles, but Linker has been
around for, for a long time.
And then after a minute or two, a warming up, you fully open up
the choke and you're good to go. Harley introduced the trumpet horn on this.
Um, similar to the big twins in the pan heads had a similar style
trumpet, but this wasn't in the original six volt trumpet style that
came with the bike and 52 a nice little upgrade that would enable to
you to be heard a little bit more.
When you, when you leaned on six volt horn toolbox cover also housed the
battery inside in the back and also gave you a little options for carrying
a few of the tool pouch.
So for your ignition, you got your ignition on the right.
You got two key switches, so you can, you can run without the lights, so you
can have the lightings on the other side.
And I just fell off.
Uh, there's a parking light and then your full running lights.
Um, in the middle, you got your abbreviated Harley speedometer.
And then just below, that would be your steering dampener rod, where you can
adjust your steering, dampener tension as you, as you desire it.
As you went down, maybe a straight stretch, you just want to stiffen
it up and take a little, relax your arms a bit or into the corners.
You want to loosen her back off a little bit.
And back in the 52 the distributors on the motorcycles were all manual.
So you had to manually advance and retard the distributor for, for starting
and for extra power, going up a hill.
If you started knocking, you had to actually manually use the hand control
to move the distributor, to give you a bit more power, to get up the hill,
and then you can move it back a little bit after the retarded slightly.
The Harvey 45 cubic inch sidevalve design.
Um, you pretty much had to loosen off the valve covers.
There's a locking nut and you loosen that off.
The lower cover will slide up over the inner cover.
There are seals inside that would access the locking nut for the bottom of the tappit
from the tappits and operated by the cams inside.
And then there would be.
Uh, valve adjustment shim, you would put in here, uh, to adjust your
valve clearances, something you would have to do, uh, at least once a year
on a regular maintenance program.
When we first got the bike, it, it did need a lot of work.
It was in baskets.
Uh, the frame was bare.
It was totally disassembled.
It was missing some transmission pieces.
The engine cases were in bad shape.
There was two previous repairs around the main and counter shaft areas on the
lower end, which is typically where they all blew out if they were going to blow,
um, two different styles and talents of welders, uh, tried to fix it in the past.
I actually had to end up replacing those cases with another very nice set
of, uh, uh, later cases, still 52, but they were about 200 numbers off in the
serial number from where we started.
So.
Essentially the same.
And I picked those up out of California, quite difficult to track
these things down piece by piece.
And especially back before the internet was kind of, uh, involved.
Uh, you had to know somebody who knew a guy that had a brother that
had a K model, and he think he had a tail light hanging on the wall.
And, you know, the whole process took time to track every little nut and bolt down.
But, uh, we kept her fairly correct.
And original.
Uh, right down to the fasteners and the finishes.
And, um, the only thing we really changed up was we, uh, the Harley
K Model seat pan, but it's got a white leather covering instead of the, it
was supposed to be black, but yeah, uh, the color of it is a real blue.
It was a factory color for 1952.
Uh, they offered the Black Persian Red, Real Blue
Uh, there was an optional metallic, bronze Bronco Bronze.
And White was also available.
And when, uh, we stripped the fenders down, Dalin and I stripped the defenders,
there was a, the bike originally was the metallic Bronco bronze, but
we just could not bring herself.
Neither.
One of us really liked the color and it just reminded us of bad things.
So we just Dalin picked out the Real Blue or the ones that were available.
And we stuck with that to keep it authentic.
They've really only made about 1,500 of the K models.
Um, and in 53 they also made around the same number slightly more.
And then 54, the engine design change, the CC's also increased slightly
and pretty much, it's not really interchangeable with the 52 or three.
So the, and there was no aftermarket parts available.
There was no service manual available.
Any of the case series bikes, all you had to work with was a
parts book that was basically it and tips from the older fellows.
It's all oral history and, uh, things passed on basically.
Uh, right now it's a 547.
Um, Hurley started the serial numbers at 1000 back in the fifties.
So the first bike would have been technically 1000 or 1001 it's not clear
on if they need a number zero or not, but technically right now with the
replacement cases, it would have been the 547 K model to roll off the line.
in 52, the original cases were a 224.
So it was an earlier model.
The process really dragged out over the years.
Uh, it was in a mocked up state while they basically collected parts to get
to the stage where I'd be ready for the engine to be rebuilt specifically.
Um, so I concentrated on the chassies pretty much had it narrowed
down in the first five years.
I think, uh, I had to replace a fork tubes, things like that.
I actually remember making a few trips down to Hamilton with him one time
and the Pool's Harley Davidson and.
He was able to pick up some of the engine components and bearings and
cages and things like that and shims.
And, but it wasn't until about 20 years later, when actually with
the help of Lloyd God at Mostly Ironheads in Elora
Um, we discovered that most of it was incorrect as it was for a 54
and later style, 900 CC engine, as opposed to the 52 was a 750
sidevalve, 45 cubic inch motorcycle.
Really I had to really track each shim, bearing cage down part number
by part number across the planet.
So with under 3000 K models ever built, uh, tracking the parts down, they
came from all sides of the planet.
Like it wasn't just Ontario, Canada, or North America, but, you know, from
Europe and Australia and Poland and everywhere, I think the biggest challenge.
Mostly was the, the parts, uh, on available, hard to find tracking down.
Nobody has anything on the shelf really for 52 or three.
Um, the other part of the challenge, I guess, would have been, there was
no service manual made for the bikes.
So everything you did, you kind of had to do off of, uh, looking at a
parts book and assumptions and some pictures and reference factory photos.
But, uh, luckily for us Magesto in the
80's started making motorcycle models.
And we had this little reference motorcycle, I guess you could say.
And that's kind of what we used to it, it, remember we took it to a show,
we bring this and we sit on the seat and it's basically essentially the
exact same bikes for the seats black on this one as it's supposed to be.
But, um, that's basically our, uh, that was our model and our
guide to build the bike by.
Yeah. Just build it exactly like that.
But, uh, several times bigger.
So in 52 with the K models and then 54, they turned to the KH, KHA design.
And, uh, there was also KR racers, uh, KRM desert racers, um, K Ks
and in 57, all these bikes kind of evolved into the Sportster and Harley
unveiled the new Sportster design.
It was more comfortable.
It had a different top end.
It was no longer a sidevalve
Uh, 45, 900 cubic inch bike.
It had evolved into a 900 and it was, uh, a model that didn't really evolve much.
It looked the same up until the two thousands when essentially the, just this
past year, the announced they've stopped Sportster line and introducing
the Sporster S design, which is a total different looking bike, but it, uh, it
lasted a lot of years with essentially.
Not very far off the original 52 K model still kind of looked the same.
Yeah.
In a, in a lot of ways, it's really the father of the Sportster.
How do you feel about that?
Owning it's it's cool.
Having a little, like piece of history like that, where you can
point to it and be like, oh, this turns into this bike five years from
now, but it's not quite the same.
There's all these subtle differences.
Yeah.
People don't know what it is.
They think it may be a Sportster there, but it's not.
And it's just something that, you know, there wasn't a lot of them out
there and they, they evolve so quickly that, uh, either you had a big twin
or if you wanted to start out, then you probably started though in the K
or the Sportster and Sportster has been everybody's first Harley, I think
for, since ever, you know, you know, we start out in the small one
and you work your way up, but the K Model really is, uh, started the whole.
long lucrative business for Harley-Davidson to help keep them afloat during some of their tougher times.
An affordable motorcycle. Yup.