“It looks a bit rough!”
The date was set for 20th April 2024 for the Bangers & Cash team to bring the WLA down to London and for us to start filming.
As the owner of any business, I was nervous about having the cameras in and making sure our workshop looked as good as it always does and that one of us suffered from stage fright. My biggest concern was what state the bike would be in and whether we would be able to do the job Bangers & Cash wanted us to do. At this point, we had only seen photos and a video, so we really had very little idea how bad a state the bike would be in.
Harley Davidson WLA Flathead Restoration It Looks a Bit Rough
As my own experience with Harley Davidson Flatheads was very limited, I roped in my good friend and friend of Zenith Motorcycles, Peter Ardanou, from Bone Rockin Bikes in Holloway. Pete is a longtime friend and Harley Davidson connoisseur and also owns a 45 WLC (see our previous blog post – “What is so Special About a Harley Davidson WLA” as to what a WLC is). So, with the Zenith Team and Peters’s knowledge, I had pooled all the knowledge I could on the flathead scene.
John (camera operator extraordinaire) and Holly (producer) arrived with the Bangers & Cash trailer and opened the back to have Peter, Klodi, Bernie and Aiden all jam themselves in to get the first look at the Harley. The bike certainly looked authentic, and it was for sure the fastest unload we have ever done on a recovery vehicle. As soon as the bike was under the lighting of the shop, I asked Peter what he thought, and he gently muttered the wise words of the North London motorcycle mechanic: “It looks a bit rough”.
Peter wasn’t wrong. The WLA did indeed look tired and uncared for, but this only made me feel better. Let’s face it – whatever we did to it could only be an improvement!
Harley Davidson WLA Flathead on the Bench
We put the bike on the bench and started to inspect it, all the time the camera was running and me and the team were trying our best not to argue about the best approach and where to start.
We began by removing the battery and putting it on charge, removing the old oil-sodden canvass saddle bags so we could see the rear end, and then the most important thing….cleaning the engine so we could check the engine number to confirm it was indeed a ’42 WLA. With a lot of degreasers and held breaths, the engine numbers started to show through, and there it was 42WLA35768. We had ourselves a genuine ’42 WLA! This was it, my dreams come true.
Once we had settled down, we started checking the running likeness of the bike, we changed the condenser and points, checked the oil pump and tappet clearance and changed the spark plug. We had a good spark and oil and fuel circulation, but the compression of the engine felt low. Although on most bikes, this would be a concern on the WLA, we knew they could run on low compression, so we were not too worried.
The Bangers & Cash team really wanted us to be able to get the bike running on day one, but it was a big ask. The bike had been standing for years, and it would turn over, but we just couldn’t get it to run, so, with a heavy heart, we called it a day for the first day of filming. It also meant that we could start to strip the bike and make a plan without the pressure of the camera.
The next day we all agreed that we needed to remove the engine and see what was happening inside, so Kodi and Pete began the process of removing the engine and I started to pull off the cosmetic parts of the bike to see what would need restoration and what we could keep as original.
Watch the episode on channel U&Yesterday now.
Nice one Karen! Congrats.
42WLA35768 was built in the spring of ’43 (May or April), making it a late type III.
I’m curious about it’s bellynumbers though..
Best wishes