Panhead Passion

"Panhead" refers to a style of Harley-Davidson motor that was manufactured between 1948 and 1965. It displaced 74 cubic inches and had hydraulic valve lifters. But the compelling, and unmistakable identifier,was (and is) the beautiful alumium pan-shaped heads on the top of the cylinders. I give you beauty:
This is a bike I saw at the Primer Nationals (the car/bike show) last week in Ventura. I don't know why I'm so drawn to Panheads, but they really cause my head to snap around whenever I see one drive by or see one parked. It isn't all that often that you see them except in a show like the one we attended. More and more, the only Harley you see are the "new" style engine. The frame might be chopped, and the paint job incredible. Or the rider might have had the bike all done up in a total retro look: tourquoise and cream paint, fringed leather saddle bags, old-style seat. But one look at the engine, and I know it's just decor, not The Real Thing.

Probably my love for this motor comes from the bike we drove when were newly-weds. Actually, the very first chopper was a 1938 Knucklehead. It was very stylish---long stretched forks, radical rake, hard-tail suspension with a teardrop gas tank, and a tasteful sissy-bar. It was elegant, but I still don't know how Cool Guy drove that sucker around hilly San Diego. It had a foot clutch and hand shifter, so he needed one foot on the brake, one foot on the clutch, and one foot on the ground at a traffic light...oh wait...YEAH! But, we never crashed. And we looked quite awesome: Through a complicated series of events, we parted with the Knucklehead and ultimately ended up with a 1954 Panhead, that needed work, so Cool Guy rebuilt it and repainted it in our spare bedroom. It must be the smooth shiny pans. I just think that they look the most Harley-like of all the models with which I've become acquainted in the 35 years I've been hanging around the garages where he's worked his mechanical magic.

I started hanging around the garage when I realized that if I didn't go to the garage, I'd be excluded from the main passion of the relationship. I can safely say now that the motorcycle doesn't outrank me any longer, but I don't think that was true for the first few years. I read the shop manuals, learned the names of the tools and assorted engine parts. Eventually I began to assist in small, but important jobs, such as bleeding the brakes, helping to adjust the clutch cables, holding up the bike so the headlights could be adjusted just so. After a number of years, and a number of engine rebuilds, I could almost assemble a V-Twin myself. Almost.

One of my favorite stories is the time that Cool Guy was in Wyoming helping his friend with a Panhead engine, but they needed another cylinder to replace one that couldn't be salvaged. I was in San Diego and would be traveling to join him, so I was instructed to go shopping at a used parts dealer. CG told me what to ask for, what to look for, and how to measure the walls with a micrometer to be sure that it hadn't been machined out of tolerance. I stopped off at the shop, really just a converted garage, after teaching my Primary class one afternoon (on a Wednesday). I was ignored for a minute, then given a distracted greeting. I explained what I was shopping for, and after he returned from the back and placed one on the counter, he slouched onto a chair to see what I'd do next. Well, first I ran my fingers down the inside to feel if it was smooth. Then, I held it up to the window so I could more easily see if there were grooves that someone had tried to buff out. By now, the shop owner was sitting up straight on his chair, looking at me curiously. But when I pulled the micrometer out of my crocheted purse and measured the thickness of the walls, now the guys in the back came through the door to the front to see who this little girl in the dress was, exactly. And they offered to bring me a few more cylinders since that one "might not be the best one they had." I managed to get a really nice one, too, for a good price.

Among the informational reading I did in my motorcycle education course was the infamous Easyriders magazine. It was actually one of the few resources for the homebased chopper builder back then. (The only kind of chopper builder at that time, actually.) It had tech articles with step by step photos, and ads for sources from which to buy specialized parts or tools. It had photos of "old ladies" in varying stages of undress, draped on their guy's choppers. The magazine also featured really lame fiction. After reading a dozen or so magazines from the garage collection, I groaned one day that I could certainly write better than any of these people. So I wrote a short story, passed it around to our biker friends for revision suggestions, and after I fixed it up, I mailed it off to the editors. But I gave birth to our third child the very next day, so I promptly forgot about it. Three months later, they sent me a check and a magazine, with my story featured prominently. I was immediately, and ever after, a mythic figure to all our biker pals. The only downer: my original story featured a Panhead, but they printed it in their special 80th issue, which was a tribute to the 80 cubic inch engine, so they took the liberty of changing my fictional chopper to fit their theme. The gorgeous artwork that accompanied the story also featured---not a Panhead---but an eighty. Bah.

But, I will always love the Panhead engine. It conjures a simpler time of life: dumpy houses, too many pets, very little money, and the worst jobs I've ever had. BUT...we were in Southern California, where every day was a perfect day to get the motor running, get out on the highway, and look for adventure. Or at least get the wind in our hair again. I hope I'm never too old to climb up on my seat behind Cool Guy.