1968 Harley-Davidson Sprint 250ss

More or less the current state.

I was drafting an email to the Old Man and, as they often do, it was getting out of hand. I thought it would make a decent blog post so here we go. I'm thinning the herd around here trying to get rid of clutter and things to occupy my thoughts. I sent the Sprint packing to the Chief's new barn to await it's fate. That fate might be sell it off or maybe just sit. I don't know what I'll do but I know what I was planning. 

Stolen from the Jockey Journal long ago. Sadly, I don't know who to give credit to.

Just a quick aside here, that blue flathead there is one of my all time favorite bikes. If I owned that bike the only thing I would change about it is I would wipe the fingerprints off the air cleaner. I had this as a wallpaper on my computer at work at my last job. That was over six years ago. I'm pretty flaky and I change pics on my computer frequently. I always go back to this one. For my tastes, it's just right. Moving right along...
This is the basic look. Hardtail flat tracker, Bates seat with P pad, Pirelli MT53's, nice clean front end, low bar with a nice bend, straight pipe. Alloy wheels with perhaps, a small juice brake on a spool up front. Rob something from a CR250 maybe. The minimal deviations from the above example would be paint, and maybe a little extra chrome here and there. Sort of a chopper flair on a flat tracker. Shave the fork mounts on the legs, chrome the steel fork covers, headlight bucket, and lower tree. Make some lower covers and chrome them as well. Polish the shit out of everything aluminum forward of the steering head. Then you'd have a clean front end that looks like...

Brian Setzer's former 53' Triumph.

I'd be pretty happy if the bike looked like this. But it's a bit on the flashy side for this project. We'd have to see how it progressed. Probably the only thing that would have any color would be the tank. That rear fender is aluminum so polish that to balance the look. I think I have some of the stock grips that are white but I don't know how that'll look. I do dig the stock grips. Big plastic chunky things with an H-D logo. I'd like to narrow the tank down like a Wassel tank. That might be a Wassel on the red bike above. I like the off center cap, too.

Not sure if I'd tempt fate with that graphic...

Here we go a Wasseling in the proper green bass-boat flake. So that's basically the look. I'd want it to have electronic ignition of some sort and 12v. I'm sure I could figure that out. It needs a proper carb that works. Now the 68 250ss has what is referred to as an ashtray head. It should be obvious why. My understanding is this was an effort to dress up the old style head. The older one is known as the knuckle head, not to be confused with the big-twin knuckle head. This pretty much just caused overheating issues. When they went to the 350cc motor later on (69') they did away with the spage-age fins and went back to the other head. Opinions vary, but I think the ashtray head is the uglier of the two. Given my 'druthers, I'd go with an earlier 250 or the later 350. I'd also like to make it into a hardtail not unlike the examples above. Or something like this seen at Mid-Ohio this past summer. Saweeeet.

If only there was a 350cc motor with a bad frame stored about 75 yards away from where my bike is stored. Hey, wait a minute... My Dad has had an older model 250 in pieces kicking around for ever. That's really what started me on these things. One day when I was in high school I drug a later model 350 home that was in rough shape. The frame was junk but we saved the front end and the motor. The Old Man built a racebike out of that for AHRMA roadracing.

The Knox Industrial Gases Special

Here it is in Georgia at a pre-Daytona event. Most of that bike still exists. There is a fairing for it as well. After this season the bike had the fairing, and a new paint job but had a run-in with some seagull shit on a corner at Daytona and down it went. Bent the frame, smashed up the fairing and some other bits. The rider was okay but that was the end of the KIG Special. So this thing is still hanging around in the barn with a bent frame and two motors. This shit just writes itself...  I really don't know why this did not occur to me earlier but I should work out a deal with the Old Man and have him whack the back half off the bent frame and weld up a new rigid rear. Then slap in the race motor and build what I'm talking about above and my 68 250 can move on to him or whatever. So there you have it. Enjoy the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Another one spied at Mid-Ohio. My favorite bike of the event. No...really.