New to Board

[NickK]

Kind of a barn find, cleaned my barn and found my bikes

P5180117 (2).JPG (414.18 KiB) Viewed 10740 times

Hello, my name is Nick, I have two 52 K's. 52K 1107 and 52K 2829. They have been sitting a few years due to a lack of time. Now I'm determined to ride one if not both this summer. I'll be bugging you guys with lots of question here shortly.

[EKHKHK56]

Welcome Nick. My standard answer is please ask a lot of questions. Nice low #107 production number. Erik K

[hennesse]

Hello, my name is Nick, I have two 52 K's. 52K 1107 and 52K 2829. They have been sitting a few years due to a lack of time. Now I'm determined to ride one if not both this summer. I'll be bugging you guys with lots of question here shortly.

Nick,

Welcome, and fire out those questions. We're here to help owners of these "orphan" models. Your green bike appears to be a pretty original 52. The yellow bike has a 1954 gas tank and 1956 taillight/rear fender, and I'll bet that's the 2829.

Well, whichever one you want to work on first, get going on it. After 3 weeks of rain and cold (at least here in Virginia), summer is fast approaching, and I'm way behind schedule - I've been lounging around indoors, instead of out in the garage where I should have been. Don't follow my lead!

Dave

[JerrryR]

Hi Nick,
Welcome and at the risk of sounding too nerdy the existence of your 52K VIN 1107 that appears to be pretty much barn fresh is exciting to those of us who are into restorations. If you don't mind the questions I have several of them about your Ks. First your blueish 52K has the rarely seen non reinforced bottom of the tail long fender. Most folks are aware of the early rivetless K rear fender like yours is but I have never seen the non reinforced bottom fender like yours is.

Early K Fender.JPG (70.05 KiB) Viewed 10706 times

Is the primary plug vented or not? If vented does the hole look "homemade"?

Ventless Primary Plug Early 52K.JPG (55.56 KiB) Viewed 10706 times

I have several questions about your two K frames and would love to talk with you about features that they have if you don't mind? My cell if you feel like calling is 1-815-423-5709. My main frame question about your 1107K is what are the rear downtubes like? Threaded or smooth?

Thrreaded Downtube K Frame 1.JPG (130.74 KiB) Viewed 10706 times

Have a great night,
JerryR

[hennesse]

at the risk of sounding too nerdy

Jerry, - you are the embodiment of a "K-model nerd". Look it up in the dictionary - your picture will be there

[NickK]

I bought 1107 in October 81, I was 20 years old and had no idea what a K model was. I had taken a friend to a bike shop to get his bike. The motor was pretty much there and the frame. It had a bolt on hard tail, springer front end, coffin tank etc... all in boxes. I gave $315 for the motor and a few hundred more for all the boxes. I was gonna have me a chopper. I finally gather all my parts to put it together when someone brought me a picture of a stock K. So then I sold all the parts and began the search to build a close to stock K. It has a lot of repro parts. Nick Muth in Williamstown, NJ helped me with finding many parts. It was red, had it painted yellow and just hated it. Never rode it again.
The blue one, 2829 I bought in 2004 from a man in Maine, said he had 5 or 6 of them in the barn and was retiring and selling some off. It started on the first kick, always ran great. I believe it is mostly original since it sat almost 40 years in a barn in Maine and I have done nothing to it. I plan to get it outside tomorrow and clean it up.

1107 non vented plug, but may not be original.
2829 has a vented plug, looks factory. I'll try to get a good picture of it.