JerrryR wrote:The last topic I wanted to comment on is when the trap door appears to have been rolled out in 54. Below I have provided a table of sorts showing some of the information I have collected from some of you and whether or not your VIN has a trap door or not. I think the only conclusion (for now) that I can reach is that the trap door appears to have been rolled out in the VIN 2100s. Perhaps we could come to a conclusion (for now) that bikes prior to 2100 would not have a trap door and bikes after that VIN may or may not have. The may or may not have after 2100 does not surprise me in that we know Harley threw nothing away, implying they would have used up any remaining non-trap door cases and second since the KHK was a bit of a custom job who knows for sure when they got numbered and how long they sat around?
Jerry - The very bottom part of your trapdoor table shows that Harley was making both the trapdoor and non-trapdoor versions from around 54 KH 2100 to the end of production. With nuts and bolts, workers might wily-nilly grab a RevA or RevB part, but I think that crankcases would be a little better orchestrated. Normally, with a major change like this, they would use up the old parts before using the new. The thought occurred to me that perhaps Harley was doing a "live test" of the new trapdoor design before switching over at the beginning of the 1955 model year - if problems occurred in actual usage, they would find out, and could fix them before the 1955 model year.
Using the
Shipping Date Guess-O-Meter, 54 KH 2100 shipped around mid-May 1954. Perhaps Harley took their projected sales through the end of the year, subtracted the number of non-trapdoor crankcases on-hand, and produced/purchased that many trapdoor versions. Then used two from pile A, one from pile B for the next three and one-half months.
At the end of the 1954 year, all the non-trapdoor cases were gone, no problems had developed, and 1955 dawned with all trapdoors. Well, it's a theory.
By the way, Bruce Palmer tells us that the Circle-E mark in aluminum castings stands for
Eck Industries, Manitowoc, WI. Eck has a long (and intertwined) history with Harley-Davidson, starting just about the same time our beloved K-models were first coming out of Milwaukee.
