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resqued a sportster

rhino

Banned
resqued an old sportster today from the scrap pile, it was about 20 yards and 20 minutes away from the scrap shredder. not sure how to tell if the motor is good. stepped on the kicker and everything moved freely. if anyone has any quick ways to determine its fitness before i get too deep in it it would be appreciated. at the very least its spare parts for my 70. thanx.
 
Gee, I can't imagine any Sportster getting pitched for scrap. At any rate I'm glad it was saved. Obviously I assume unless one can get parts and perhaps do his own work you could get more money tied up into a junkyard cycle than it would be worth...

Speaking of junk motorcycles. My Grandfather worked for many years at the J. Trockman and Sons Salvage Company in Evansville IN. This company was a major landmark in the community and still a very viable company which is well over 100 years old. A grandaughter of the founder once told me that when her Dad was one of the high company officials he had a policy about junk motorcycles. The gent I am talking about was Ben Trockman. Ben noticed that folk from time to time would come to his junk yard looking for motorcycle parts because they could either not afford to buy a new part or the parts were not available. I had always heard that Ben was a very generous and accomidating gent. Anyway Ben developed a policy of having the workers in the yard separate the junk motorcycles and set them aside away from the powerful shears that they had cut up anything and everything.

Then when someone would come to the junk yard in search of a part, if they found the part they needed Ben would just give them the part. NO CHARGE. Now he would not give them the complete cycle. Just the part off of it that they needed. Ben figured that way he could help more people who needed parts.

Ben passed away in 1971 and I dare say this practice at the junkyard could have taken place in the 1930's to 1950's. I don't know that for sure.
 
There is no such thing as a"junk" Harley or a parts bike:s .I say if the bike is complete then it is a resto candidate not a donor bike.
 
Gee, I can't imagine any Sportster getting pitched for scrap. At any rate I'm glad it was saved. Obviously I assume unless one can get parts and perhaps do his own work you could get more money tied up into a junkyard cycle than it would be worth...

Speaking of junk motorcycles. My Grandfather worked for many years at the J. Trockman and Sons Salvage Company in Evansville IN. This company was a major landmark in the community and still a very viable company which is well over 100 years old. A grandaughter of the founder once told me that when her Dad was one of the high company officials he had a policy about junk motorcycles. The gent I am talking about was Ben Trockman. Ben noticed that folk from time to time would come to his junk yard looking for motorcycle parts because they could either not afford to buy a new part or the parts were not available. I had always heard that Ben was a very generous and accomidating gent. Anyway Ben developed a policy of having the workers in the yard separate the junk motorcycles and set them aside away from the powerful shears that they had cut up anything and everything.

Then when someone would come to the junk yard in search of a part, if they found the part they needed Ben would just give them the part. NO CHARGE. Now he would not give them the complete cycle. Just the part off of it that they needed. Ben figured that way he could help more people who needed parts.

Ben passed away in 1971 and I dare say this practice at the junkyard could have taken place in the 1930's to 1950's. I don't know that for sure.

thought i found a goldmine for parts, ive been in the scrap business for almost 20 years. over the years ive done a lot of work with miller compressing in milwaukee. several years ago i was there and a rolloff truck dumped a load close to where i was it was full of harley gas tanks, frames, shocks and even a few wide glide front ends, i thaught i was in heaven and started to root through it. it took about 10 seconds for miller employees and harley davidson security to ruin my fun. HDs security stayed until everything was smashed with a mag ready to shred. since then i have seen every part there is and even a couple of nearly complete bikes all mangled and useless. its hard to stomach when you think how much you pay for parts like that. now i run a shredder for my company and have a strict no harley policy, they all come home with me.
 
thought i found a goldmine for parts, ive been in the scrap business for almost 20 years. over the years ive done a lot of work with miller compressing in milwaukee. several years ago i was there and a rolloff truck dumped a load close to where i was it was full of harley gas tanks, frames, shocks and even a few wide glide front ends, i thaught i was in heaven and started to root through it. it took about 10 seconds for miller employees and harley davidson security to ruin my fun. HDs security stayed until everything was smashed with a mag ready to shred. since then i have seen every part there is and even a couple of nearly complete bikes all mangled and useless. its hard to stomach when you think how much you pay for parts like that. now i run a shredder for my company and have a strict no harley policy, they all come home with me.

I was having a conversation a few years ago with the owner of Southside Harley Davidson of Indianapolis IN. Bob Schulteti advise me that back in the 1940's and 50's at their then much smaller shop. It was not uncommon for his Dad George to give him the assignment of taking a cutting torch to cut up new frames and other Harley parts which had not been sold for scrap. In order to make room for newer stock that was coming in. Also once they were pouring a cement ramp. Under this ramp is a lot of old Harley parts they used for "fill". Bob said it is a crying shame all the nice old Harley Parts that they scraped out back then. However it was common place I guess as they were in business to make money and had to do what they could to basically survive.

There was a different gent not to many years ago in our community that had been a Harley Dealer long ago. His barn which had a large stash of old harley parts burned down when struck by lighting. The newspaper reported that the value of these parts was about $500,000.00 The sad truth was that the gent was not carrying any fire insurance. Hence he had to take a loss.
 
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