[MV] New book: How to restore your MILITARY Harley-Davidson

PietJan Baarda (pjbaarda@solair1.inter.NL.net)
Thu, 10 Dec 1998 00:02:35 +0100

Hi List,
Just received a copy of this new book by Bruce Palmer III. Bruce Palmer is
well known for his book: "How to restore your Harley-Davidson" (book-1). It
is considered world wide as the bible on restoring older HD's. His new book
is presented as a companion to book-1. So it does not cover the restoration
of the engine, transmission, wheels, etc. It does give detailed
descriptions of the relation between engine-numbers, War department
registration numbers and contract specifications that describe the parts
and finish of military HD's built between 1932 - 1955. Bruce describes 38
mass produced types, among which 7 flavors of 42WLA. Very valuable is a
matrix describing all parts that differentiate the 17 types of WLA. Using
these books it is possible to restore your military HD as a factory-fresh
bike.
The XA is described in the same way as the other type, but lacks support
from book-1.
For unit markings the reader is deferred to AR 850-5, and it not treated in
the book beyond common pitfalls. In general I would have liked more photo's
of bikes in actual use. But of course all bikes started as factory-fresh
ones and would change in a lot of ways once in the field.
It is really a wonderful book, that is bound to get again the label 'bible'
attached to it. And rightly so! In my club there's always a lot of
discussion on what is right and what is wrong for a certain WLA or WLC, and
until now nobody was really convincing because the supporting material was
lacking. This will change shortly.
In short: recommended!
Cheers,
Piet Jan Baarda
1943 42WLA

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