All Metric 1947 and 1948 Harleys??

[James Sodero]

We are restoring two WL Harley Davidson Flat Heads. 1947 and 1948. We first noted that both bikes had Harley Davidson speedometers in Kilometers per hour. Now that we are done the strip, we can confirm that 100% of the nuts and bolts on both bikes were also Metric. Not one time did we have to reach for an imperial wrench.

Did Harley put metric bolts in bikes destined for the war or Europe?
Did they build bikes in Europe for or after the war?
or
is it more likely that our bikes were built after the war in some European back ally with left over parts and a buck of what ever bolts were available?

My paper work has serial numbers for the bikes, but so far I have not located them on the bikes themselves. Where would I look.

 

[Breeze3at]

HD did not build bikes in Europe. It is most likely that metric fasteners have been added/adapted. Engine case bolts should still be SAE, it's difficult to tap SAE to metric, but possible I guess. The main engine numbers should be on a boss below the left side cylinder bases. They should start with year then W, then serial #. There also should be crankcase numbers on both R & L engine cases. The 1947 will be 47- 1234 (4 digits max) a change was made for 1948 with the addition of a 1, it should be 148-12345 (5 digits max). There is no exact location of the case stampings. I hope this helps. I'm not an expert, I have a book used by many law enforcement agencies to help ID stolen bikes.