1955 Harley Davidson Servicar. (The trike your grandparents might have had)

[The pointy helmet]

Think trikes are a new concept?
No, of course you don't!
It is reassuring to know, however, that people have been "draggin an axle around" since 1931.

Now I'm not going to go too mad on the research side of things. Cos that's what Google is for. Going down a rabbit warren of web pages and seeing what YOU can find.
For you who blabber and blubber about Harley Davidson, whatever. I have loved SOME of mine, so I'll not engage you on your thoughts on the marque.

[The pointy helmet]

It was out in the wilds...and it had come from Mendon, Illinois. Not far from where the the great Mississipi River lazily carves it's passage through the States.

It was in a bloody great barn, at the centre of a vineyard.
Still covered in it's Illinois dust, it looked like something that you see lurking in the background of a Gothic/pyscho/sci fi flick.
It looked Raw.
Agricultural.
Edgy.
I bought it.

As the enormous farm forklift settled it in the back of Spider's pick up. We took note of the start of something emerging...

We pulled out onto the first of the many roads home.

"Postie, (for that was my name) you are a man of,  vision."

Spider was always refreshingly brutal with his observations... 

[The pointy helmet]

Apologies for the fractured nature of these postings. If I type/edit too long, my server cuts me off. This means I have to faff  around again.

The Servi took up a good bit of the garage.
Settled in with the others in the pic.
A full garage it was.
I took it for an unregistered moonlight flit through the lanes.
I discovered a beast that had the "seat of your pants" sensation akin to - Sitting on top of a running washing machine.
Maybe some of the female trikers may verify what this actually "provides" you with....But it certainly didn't convey it's roadholding integrity.

The forks had so much flex that the headlight pool of light ran in an eliptical spin, from left kerb, and over, to right kerb...4,5,6,7,8 o'clock - to left kerb (etc)
Adjustments to Hicksville Motor Works Enterprises were becoming evident.

Popped round to see my mate, Mallet.
He used to have a hardtail HD knucklehead that he rode back from Poland with a broken shoulder bone.
"Ha ha", he said. "Come in".
Now Mallet used to be president of the Harley Riders GB. His mate had Harleys back to the 1930s.
So the "find the Old Skool boys" door opened.

[The pointy helmet]

The "Springer" front end.

[TwistedPatience]

Not a standard Servicar then  but I do like them springers.

[The pointy helmet]

Early days, Twisted Patience. Early days.
Now get out the way, cos Chris Ireland is about to turn up!

[TwistedPatience]

Oh! the Trike Lord, I'm off...........................

[The pointy helmet]

Some fifteen miles from where I lived was an outfit named Desperate Dan's.
It was part of the biker geography/folklore/etc.
It was just, "Desprutts."

Now was time to let my self in for AN OUTSIDER! to have access to my money.

I never regretted a second of it.
They came OVER. Yup, over came a motor with a towing dolly and we were all whisked away to Desperate Land.

Chris, at the time, had a pin running straight down the centre of his finger.
A pillar drill base clamp was not secure. The drill and bit spun the whole part being machined round.
The wall (much like the one in those shortened axle thread pictures) FAILED TO MOVE.
The subsequent spinning/torque/weight - crushing his finger...!

(I'm off to make the missus and myself a cup of coffee. If I leave the computer on, I will become "WebboCastratto")

[The pointy helmet]

Going...

[The pointy helmet]

Going..

[The pointy helmet]

GONE.
This is the trimmed down Servicar.
Chris, with his Indian said it would be a worthier project to try and get it back to what it was.
The more that is chopped, the less preserved from the Old Skool.

...and so started a long and winding road to "what can be done"

[Manky Monkey]

Is that really the same trike?

[The pointy helmet]

Got it age related with a nice MuFFy number.
Ken Lee of the Harley Riders GB, Mallets old mate, came up on his 45 outfit.
Hmm, he said.
That was it!  This suggested that he was looking at a project that was more formidable than I expected.

The trouble with "chopping", is that it invariably is ALL chopped off.
ALL being the brackets and mountings that support and hold the original design together.

If you are going to restore. How far do you go ?
Are you going to "Parkerise" the parts that were produced that way...Where do you get Servicar wheels? What did the Servi have in common with other stablemates?

The Servicar was the FIRST electric start Harley. A strange platform that held some of the earliest HD parts, yet showcased the latest in it's forty odd year production.

[The pointy helmet]

Yes, O Mighty Manky One,

The black and white one is indeed the very same.
Those Mendon illinois fork tubes were starting to split at the headstock end. They were sheet metal rolled into those whopping great taperring fork legs.
The front of the springers was fabricated out out building tie rods.
Where it was welded up, it was not true.

So it was decided to take that extra amount of "spring" OUT.

Look away, they'll be some sparks flying!

[The pointy helmet]

Now this the part that terrifies The Sun readers among us.

There are

No pictures



NOT OF THE SERVI THAT IS - BUT ARTWORK!


I needed some elements (mudguards/fenders) that I had to fabricate. The medium I chose to try was Fibreglass.

An ad in BSH (Back Street Heroes) cited an Elbro laminations as being worth a call.

There started a friendship that literally shaped the future of the Servi restoration.

I started designing an ad a month for Elbro.

(spot the Elbro "stonehenge" in the background)