Henry J

The last Blog talked at length about the time I spent with Dave Perewitz while he painted a Bagger and I collected material for a new Advanced Custom Motorcycle Painting book. Which provides a nice segue into some other characters who own a shop close to the Dave Perewitz facility in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. But first, a word from our sponsor:

A New Tattoo Book
A New Tattoo Book

Our first Tattoo book, Advanced Tattoo Art, continues to sell well, which gave me the courage to publish one more. Tattoo From Idea to Ink is written by Joy Surles, the woman who edits Skin Art and a group of affiliated magazines. Joy’s book covers the various tattoo styles, how to find a good artist, and how to turn a photo into a usable outline that can be used as the basis for your next tattoo. The book is filled with some amazing photos of even more amazing art. The artists represented in the book are some of the best in the business. Joy’s take on tattoos and tattoo artists is on it’s way to the printer now which means we should have some advance copies in the office by the middle of March.

New Hardcover Book
The BUB sponsored Bonneville Speedweek concluded recently, which provides a good segue to talk about one of our new books: Bonneville, World’s Fastest Motorcycles,

The book is a wonderful compilation of wonderful Salt Flats photos taken by Horst Rösler, a very talented German photographer who can be found at most of the major motorcycle events in the US and Europe.

Salt Flats 1
Salt Flats 2

Salt Flats

Michael Kamalian: is owner of Revolution and the man who figured out how to make extremely light wheels and frames from Carbon Fiber
Hard to believe it’s one month later, the trip to California is ancient history and my little Ranger truck has another 1400 miles on the clock. Cincinnati, you see, is 700 miles from Minneapolis and though it would likely make more sense to fly, I always seem to drive to that city on the western edge of Ohio.
Now, Cincinnati might not sound like a garden spot of the universe or the ideal mid-winter getaway. Yet, for a large number of motorheads involved with Bobbers, Choppers and customized Harley-Davidsons, a trip to Cincinnati in February has the same allure that a beach town in Mexico does for more normal Americans. And while there are no beaches in Cinci there is a huge convention center filled to the brim with every imaginable frame, engine, transmission and accessory you could dream of. Many of the products are in fact the realized dreams of some small shop where they figured out a better way to make a Bobber frame or a high performance wheel from carbon fiber. There is so much to see in Cinci that we’ve put together a separate Cincinnati report, which will replace the earlier Bonneville report.

New Products
Cinci is as much about seeing old friends as it is finding new products. One of those old friends is Horst Rosler, a talented German photographer and writer. Horst and I spent an hour working out the details of a new book, Bonneville, World’s Fastest Motorcycles, filled with Horst’s wonderful photos and available from Wolfgang this fall.

Henry J

The J Bird
When last seen, the Henry J was in dire need of a water pump, and some valve covers. I’m happy to report that the water pump, red and rebuilt, is now in place, along with a missing water manifold that runs from the front of one cylinder head to the other. And better yet, the big-ass and chrome plated valve covers are screwed down, with the words Chrysler Fire Power shining bright for all to see.

When I built this car so many years ago, my goal was to assemble a no-nonsense hot rod, kind of four-wheel chopper with only a gas tank, two fenders and a fast motor – so to speak. And I intend to stay true to that goal, with one big exception. That exception is air conditioning. Jack Chisenhall, owner of Vintage Air and co-author of a Hot Rod Air Conditioning book we did some years back, impressed upon me one thing about air conditioning in hot rods: “If you put air conditioning in a car you will use it more. Otherwise it’s just a Sunday-morning-car or a parade car.”

So, with a nod to Jack and his wisdom, I’m going to install air conditioning. Yes, it will slow down the project, but assuming that someday the car actually runs, I’ll be thanking Jack for encouraging me to put some cold air in an old hot rod. At this point I should drop a plug and mention that Wolfgang is going to publish a new air conditioning book. How to Air Condition Your Hot Rod, written by Jack Chisenhall and Vintage Air engineer Norman Davis. The new book will be available this fall from Wolfgang Publications or Vintage Air.

Moving
We’ve been at our current address in Stillwater for three years now, and though I really like this old building from the late 1800s, we’ve finally run out of space. A friend offered me a spot nearby but after looking it over I decided that while the warehouse was great the office was just too small. Currently I’m still looking, so if anyone knows of about 2000 square feet for rent in or near Stillwater, Minnesota, cheap and later this spring, give us a call.

New Products
For the first time in a long time we don’t have any new products to holler about. Our most recent book, Advanced Pinstripe Art, is out on the street and appears to be selling well. The overhauled web site is almost debugged. Though finding all the bugs and small mistakes in the overhauled web site is a lot like looking for typos just before a book goes off to the printer for the first time. No matter how many times I read the manuscript there’s at least one obvious typo that survives all the scrutiny and lives on after printing just to keep us humble. And likewise, the web site seems to always have one more “typo” each time I read it. One more button that doesn’t work right or a caption that’s wrong or a true typo in the Blog or the description of a book or calendar.

With a Little Help From My Friends

I’m pleased to announce that the Henry J engine not only has a nice red oil pan covering its previously bare bottom (end), but that the whole shebang is safely set into the chassis. (yippee!!!!!!) Everything came together in the last few weeks. As mentioned, I installed new seals in the obsolete transmission and had Joe Deter at Deter's Polishing in Forest Lake, MN shine up the factory adapter plate used to mate the transmission to the engine. Once Brush at Wizard Paint in Taylors Falls, MN changed the color of the oil pan from bare metal to bright red, I could install the oil-pump pickup and then the pan itself.

With help from an old trade-school crony by the name of Yup (aka Bob Larsen) I actually found the correct bolts and mated the transmission to the engine. Finally, I’d arrived at that moment of truth – and discovered that the installation would not be as easy as I’d hoped. Something about an interference fit between the oil pan and the cross- member. Nothing, however, that couldn’t be fixed with a little judicious use of the four—inch grinder followed by a little welding.

What should have required only one afternoon did of course require two. Which means this little garage project went the way of most garage projects. Estimate the time needed to finish and then multiply by two, or possibly four (sometimes six). The best part came when another old Crony by the name of Mikey came by just after Yup and I managed to get the engine and transmission in place. The three of us celebrated with a beer and even managed to tell a few lies about the good old days before my crew got responsible and headed off for their respective homes. I was left alone to clean the garage and marvel at the wonderfulness of an old rusty car with a bright red engine set between the frame rails.

Progress is sometimes slow at Wolfgang, but it is progress. I’m pleased to announce the completion of another new book, Advanced Pinstripe Art.

As you can see, we also have the new web site up and running, with only a few bugs, most of which have been fixed by now. The overhaul includes a Tech Page, which is currently dedicated to a series of articles about brakes. A relatively large number of readers have signed up for our electronic newsletter, and I’d like to thank those people for trusting us. I’ve said it before, we don’t “share” information with anyone, period. Anyone who signs up will get occasional updates on new Wolfgang books and special prices on certain items.

New Products
Advanced Pinstripe Art is just a little late (some things never change). The book uses our “Advanced Art” format, like the recent Tattoo book, to bring you the work of eleven well-known pinstripe artists as they stripe everything from a set of flames to an old Ford dashboard. The only difference between this book and some other similar books, is the captions, most of which were written by the artists. So you get to learn exactly why Lenni Schwartz uses a particular brush and how Nick Pastura masks off part of the artwork as he works. From my perspective, some books are more fun and rewarding than others. The Advanced Art books are among my favorites. I enjoy the contact with the artists, the idea of letting them tell the story directly to the reader, and the process of creating the intense, colorful images.

A New Category
We’ve added a new category, or page, to our revised web site. The new category is called Bonneville Diary, and includes copy and photos submitted by Buck Lovell. The 2006 season was especially exciting at Bonneville and Buck’s little missive, complete with great photos, captures a lot of the energy present on the salt this year. Thanks to Buck for sending the material in, we hope everyone enjoys an insider’s look at Bonneville.

Personal projects – The continuing oil pan saga
Winter is just about here, complete with snow flurries this morning, which means it’s time to shift gears from riding bikes to fixing stuff in the garage on cold winter nights. Like everything else around here progress in the garage is slow. Because the oil pan I had painted didn’t fit (you might recall that I didn’t discover this fact until after I had the pan in question repaired, sandblasted and painted) I took the remains of the original pan and had Neal Letourneau fabricate the missing section. Wiser now, I checked the fitment before I took the new/old pan up Bruce Bush at Wizard Paint for some red House of Kolor urethane.

Bare naked bottom
When I built the car about a hundred years ago, I simply took the engine and tranny of the old rusty 1958 Imperial, and dropped the whole assembly between the frame rails of the Henry J. Somehow we made motor mounts and welded up a drive shaft and got the car to motor down the road – after a fashion. When we pulled the engine and tranny out of the old Chrysler, we used a come-along, because they’re cheaper than true chain hoists and cherry pickers were hard to come by at the time. Everything worked fine as we lifted the motor and transmission one click at a time and gradually rolled the car backwards out of the garage.

The trouble came when we tried to lower 1100 pounds of mostly cast iron onto the garage floor. The upper end of the come-along was attached to a four-inch pipe with another three inch pipe inside. The two pipes were “telescoped” apart to reach from one sill plate to the other in Mom and Dad’s old (and I mean old) garage in south Minneapolis.

The engine and tranny were so heavy, we couldn’t just take the load off the ratchet gently and lower everything one tooth at a time. No, we had to kind of jump up and pull down on the come-along handle with everything we had. At the time (unlike today) there probably wasn’t anyone in the garage who weighed more than about 95 pounds. In this way we were able to unload the come-along enough that it did drop down one tooth. But there was nothing gentle about the process. The motor and transmission would come up slightly, and then drop about three or four inches. As the come-along mechanism came to rest on the next tooth, the cable and the pipe running across above our heads would start this up and down oscillation that I thought sure would bring the entire garage down on our heads. It’s amazing the shit you get away with when you’re young and foolish.

10 Ton tranny
I suppose, anyone putting that old car together all these years later would discard that heavy old cast iron transmission. But hey, I’d rather spend the money on a set of wheels or maybe more tin work. So the old Torqueflite stays, operated by the old push-button gear selector. With a new front and rear seal, recently installed, and a new shift cable, the old beast (should) be as good as new.

Stay tuned.