Congrats to Gentleman Nelson McCullough for the stunning Steel Tanker - this month's featured bike in the POG calendar. What a gorgeous restoration, and very well photographed.
For great pics, you can't go wrong with the classic 3/4 view, in soft (late afternoon) light, with no background obstructions.
Great job on the bike and great job on the pic, Nelson.
Since Dad's in FL or the month, with no Internet access, I'll say thanks for the compliments Ted.
I'll provide a bit of background on the bike for starters, and then I'll let Dave jump in on the restoration since he's provided all the sweat on that.
Dad and I towed the trailer to the ISDTRR in Tulsa in 2004 and stopped in Collinsville, IL to meet a fellow and pick up a Can Am project for Dave. I called one of my daughters and she found us a Yamaha dealer where we planned to kill some time waiting to meet the seller.
Collinsville Yamaha at the time was a building of about 40x50, and we almost did not stop. We quickly struck a conversation with the owner and while telling him about the ISDTRR and my recently restored '71 Six Days ST, he shocked us when he said he had a red steel tank in his warehouse.
Three blocks down the street sitting in a nondescript block building with several other barn-fresh bikes was the Berkshire at the beginning of this album
http://gallery.me.com/baxtermcc#100371
Bud and Dad discussed price, but when Bud indicated he thought it was worth $10,000 we knew it was a steep climb to any middle ground. Having three bikes in the trailer already we departed for Tulsa without it, but indicated we would give him a call on our way home on Monday. When the seller was unavailable we filed the photos away and quietly went about with other projects.
Fast forward to the fall of 2006 and the ISDTRR in MO. Dad and I returned to the photos and decided it was worth a call to see if the bike was still in Collinsville. Once we learned the bike had not moved in the two years since we found it, we were encouraged and a call by Dad to the dealer caused us to leave room in the trailer.
We stopped on Thursday on our drive west and found the bike exactly where we had last seen it. We rescued the bike just in time I think. The dealer was preparing to move into a new building and consolidate all in one location; I doubt the Berkshire would have made the trip. The bike has since been to Pittsburgh, back to Tulsa and is again here in the Pittsburgh.
I'll have to pass the baton to brother Dave from here; he's got the history of the restoration.
Bob McCullough
Ted,
Thanks also for the compliments and hope everyone enjoys taking a look at a bike with special meaning to me. Looks like brother Bob is asking me to take over and so here's the story behind the bike.
After dad and Bob rescued the Berkshire in October of 2006 it sat patiently waiting in dad's basement for a year or so while he was working on another bike. All the while dad was busy gathering up parts needed to bring the Berkie back to life. Dad almost immediately sent the engine bottom end to Doug Wilford so he could work his magic. Then he had the forethought to buy one of the last few NOS gas tanks from Al B and get it autographed by John Penton at the POG AMA museum meeting in Feb of 2007. He had the cylinder and cylinder head bead blasted to make them look like new again plus much more than I can think of right now. I would ask dad about the bike's progress from time to time but then during our phone conversations planning for the Mid Ohio trip in 2008 I had an idea. I asked dad to consider bringing the bike and all the acquired parts to me at VMD so I could take it home and accomplish the restoration for him. He agreed and so after VMD the bike headed west with me in the summer of 2008.
Once the bike was here in Tulsa I completely disassembled it and then proceeded to sandblast the frame and all the painted parts. All of this was done in the late summer and fall of 2008 so that I could get all the paint work done before cold weather arrived. Once the paint work was done all the parts were carefully wrapped in newspaper and placed in a couple large Tupperware storage containers for safe keeping. The exhaust was sent to a local shop for a dip in the hot tank to de-carbon it. The pipe was then repainted with Duplicolor High Heat gloss black. I got a nice referral from Kip Kern about sending the seat to Jeff Martin down in TN for recovering. The seat came back a few months later and looked fantastic. Jeff did a great job making it look as close as possible to the OEM cover. Over the cold winter months I worked on all the small parts. I cleaned all of the bike's hardware using a bench grinder wire wheel and then everything was taken to a local shop for some shiny cadmium plating. The rear shocks were diassembled and all the chrome parts taken to a local chrome shop for refurbishing. The shock springs and bodies were plastic media blasted and then repainted gloss black. I measured and honed the cylinder and found it to still be on the stock bore. The piston to wall clearance was near the outer range of the wear limits but all the parts looked real good. At that point I decided to take the piston to a local shop and have an anti-friction coating applied to bring the clearance back within specs and save the stock bore. After the piston was coated the top end was reassembled with new rings, wrist pin, clips and wrist pin bearing. I then dissambled, cleaned and rebuilt the clutch pack using all the original parts. The clutch and clutch cover were then reinstalled to basically finish the motor. The carb was rebuilt using all new internal parts from Bing. The forks were completely disassembled, cleaned and then reassembled using new fork seals and new rubber gaiters.
I started reassembling the bike in late January of 2009 just after receiving the hardware back from the plating shop. Shortly after starting the reassembly, I found a crack in one of the nipple holes of the front rim while polishing and truing the rim. Fortunately this bike came equipped with factory aluminum rims and so I was able to get the rim welded and then re-drill the nipple hole. The rim repair turned out much better than I hoped and is almost impossible to see now. Next came remounting some era correct Continental tires on both wheels with new inner tubes. The rear shock parts were slow to arrive back from the chrome shop and so I didn't actually get the bike built to a rolling chassis until early March 2009. After getting the bike to a rolling chassis next came reinstalling the engine and handlebars which made it start to look like a motorcycle again. I made steady progress from that point installing the carb, airbox, new fenders, new number plates, NOS VDO speedodmeter and all the electrics back on the bike over the next few weeks. The reassembly was completed in late April 2009 and the picture used for the calendar was taken in my front yard before attempting to fire the engine for the first time.
With great anticipation I rolled the bike outside on a bright sunny Saturday morning in early June 2009 and added some fresh premix into that NOS tank. Turned the petcocks on and filled the float bowl. At that point I always start thinking to myself about firing the engine for the first time. Okay what did I forget to do ?? Let's see... spark plug tight and plug wire attached... check...transmission oil full...check...kill switch tested...check...no fuel leaks...check. Okay everything seems to be in order so I squeeze the enriching lever in and give her a go. The bike fired up in just a few kicks and sounded great. Now with a big grin on my face I allow it to warm up and then proceed to tweaking on the carb to set the mixture and idle speed. Before too long she's purring like a kitten. Next comes the moment of truth with the first test ride. I swing my leg over the Berkie and squeeze the clutch several times and then gently shift into first gear. I slowly pull down the driveway and then turn left heading up through my front yard and everything is working flawlessly. The bike is accelerating smoothly and shifting great and so I made what seemed like a hundred laps around my yard that morning. It was so much fun I hated to stop. I just knew I was going to run the bike out of gas if I continued much longer and so back up the driveway toward the garage I go. As I pushed the bike back into the garage and up onto my bike lift I realized that the grin on my face had grown even larger than before. That huge grin wasn't caused from being overly happy but rather from something much better that was still yet to come. I knew this project would only be truly complete when I saw dad's face light up as I returned the bike to him. All I can say is, seeing the big smile on dad's face that day as I rolled the bike out of the trailer at VMD 2009 was well worth the effort.
Dave McCullough
Great story Dave. The whole McCullough family is #1 in my book. Thanks for the picture.