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

Nelson Dionne (aa1mo@nsradio.org)
Thu, 10 Dec 1998 08:21:12 -0500

Greetings from New England:

Home of David Sarafan & Harry Roy!
I bought a copy of the book when it came out, and on one hand was much
impressed, and on the other, as a WLA owner of 20 years, knew that this book
should not be taken as "Gospel" or "the final world".
I checked with Harry, a Harley owner since '47 (which he still has) and
got a different view on the book. For one, the parts supply does NOT support
the restoration of a bike to "factory fresh" condition. David Sarafan, with
Harry have been scouring the world for military Harley parts for almost 25
years. David is part of the Sarafan family, of Spring Valley New York fame.
They started selling WWI surplus trucks! He is constantly traveling to buy
(and of course sell) parts. By and large, they just are not available.
Right now, bikes that are not much more than rolling frames are selling
for several thousand $$; enough, that when combined with the cost of
necessary parts, could mean that a bike could easily run $15,000 or more to
do a restoration. If you tried to do a "factory" restoration, I doubt that
any collectors budget could afford it, nor would they want to spend the time
necessary in chasing down the "right flavour" of part.
On a different note, it appears that Palmer did spend much time at the
various archives. He references "MCM 9a" as a source of much info in the
book without telling us exactly what "MCM" is. I do research in MV's, and
have been on a search for "MCM 32" for some time, as well as a number of
"OCM #####, sometimes dated". I believe that much contract, specification
info still exists in the archives, and in the case of jeeps,) a much more
common MV), should be dug out. If a new book on "How to restore your MB/GPW"
was written to the level of Palmer's book, the parts are pretty much there
to support factory restorations.
Harry also pointed out that the book does contain errors and omissions,
which whould result in an "eratta" sheet being produced sooner or later. I
do know, that at least the hobby will have the ability to detect totally
bogus restorations, and be better able to pay for the more correct ones.

Nelson Dionne
Salem, Massachusetts
MVCC #411
Owner 1942 WLA
1954 ex-USAF Simplex
-----Original Message-----
From: PietJan Baarda <pjbaarda@solair1.inter.NL.net>
To: mil-veh@skylee.com <mil-veh@skylee.com>
Date: Wednesday, December 09, 1998 6:28 PM
Subject: [MV] New book: How to restore your MILITARY Harley-Davidson

>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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