by thefrenchowl » Wed Sep 23, 2015 7:37 pm
Hi,
The KL was started around 1948 and was stopped in 54/55, which gave H-D very little time to derive the Sportster engine from the K bottom end, hence the huge compromises it got...
KL was in fact, if you study the photos, a big bore/short stroke engine, so at a guess, with little torque and high revs... The management thought this would never sell to the H-D traditional clientele. So we got the small bore long stroke Sportster instead, which suits me and others just fine.
The only remnants of the KL is a set of cases with cast in cylindrers if I recall right... From 1954/55, with more case finning than on the 53 Pohlman photo, which also show it was running pretty hot!!!
All the H-D photographic archives were held and owned by the Pohlman Studios in Milwaukee. There was a time when you could order 8 x 10 shots directly from them if you knew what to look for, it is mostly 8 x 10 glass plates stored consequently by number and the listing is not a help, being usually filled by non motorcyclists.
So you'd order 18654 to 18666, and got whatever they were. I managed to get some help from Allan Girdler in 1985, actually purchased a copy of the listing in 1988, it covers some 30 000 negatives over 127 pages tightly hand written or typed... The early listing, neg. 1 to 13607 was so worn out it did not survive. So page 1 starts at 13608, 06-12-1934, listed as "tourists", probably visitors at the factory.
Some time ago, when the H-D museum came about, H-D purchased back all the negatives from Pohlman. They are now in a vault and nobody can access them...
What I managed to get is on my site, mostly racers which is my thing...
As far as I know, there're only a few copies out there with collectors, it's a rare thing
Patrick
Last edited by
thefrenchowl on Thu Sep 24, 2015 6:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.