1946 Harley-Davidson WL Flathead
With the rise in popularity of events like The Race of Gentlemen, the 45" flathead WL and WR Harley Davidsons have become once again a quite sought after motorcycle due to the amount of abuse those fantastic old motors can withstand. Originally being produced mainly for military use during the second World War these mighty mini motors were on the frontlines for several years. However after the war ended the civilian market was flooded with several of these great bikes that have since survived all these years later to still be ridden today. After being bitten by the 45" Flathead bug after coming home from an exciting weekend on the shores of Wildwood, NJ for the races last year we sought out a good friend back in the midwest Billy "Mumbles" Miller who has been holding onto a rather interesting 1946 WL Flathead. We wanted to get the full story on just where his 45" came from and he gave us the opportunity to actually take the bike out for the day and give this hand shift beauty a go out on the streets of Speedway Indianapolis just south of the Indianapolis 500 track. After getting the hang of it on a few side streets we found this bike to be incredibly fun to ride and it was easy to understand what made the old war vets back in the day want to drop the weight and rip these down the neighborhood drag strip at high speeds. We shot some photos and spoke with Billy about how he learned to love this old bike and where his love for old machines stemmed from.
Let's start with a little info on who you are and what kind of bikes you would say you specialize in?
I'm Bill Miller and bikes I specialize in are probably most definitely shovelheads. It's because I'm at the age where they are old and I'm not to the point where I remember ever having a knuckle but it's like I started off on a shovelhead then I just tended to collect a bunch of them.
So you've come from a line of great bikers in your family would you care to talk a bit about what got you into old bikes in general and maybe some background on that?
Well my dad is an old clubber, he was probably the 1st one in my family to become a biker and I kinda just always enjoyed it. You know, It's like I really like getting out and going a cross the country riding old things. I mean motorcycles yeah of course but even old cars too. I'm into old things in general you know just seeing things off the interstate and having stuff with a history to it, I like that.
So is that what got you into old harleys and just old bikes in general like growing up around it or would you say your love for old bikes came on your own?
Probably really on my own you know because it's like when my dad had shovelheads it's because that's when they mainly had those to ride back in the day. I think it's just because as I got older though I just always liked the look of the old fat shovel heads and just the way them things looked you know. I like a motorcycle you can work on yourself and you understand. A good example I had to adjust my clutch on the side of the road on my 76 out in Avon, IN years ago and a guy pulled up on a brand new V-rod and the guy actually said to me if his bike didn't start 1st thing he was doing was calling the dealer. Then if it didn't start when he pushed the button he said he wouldn't even know where to start at. Then he actually asked me if working on my bike like this was going to void my warranty and I laughed and said this thing aint had no warranty in years I built this bike from the ground up, it's just like though for him to say that blew my mind. It's like if my bike didn't start I would just jump the solenoid and if that didn't work I would push start it, something. I tell you what I know how to get a bike going that's for sure.
Well I think over the years becoming accustom to old bikes in general by necessity you have to just pick those skills up along the way. I think that shows that people who have only ridden new bikes all their lives, that their mindset is totally different then that of someone who truly appreciates the simplicity of old bikes and has adapted to accommodate that. Well in regards to simple yet fantastic old machines let's dive right into what the make and model is of the 45" Flathead you've got sitting right here.
It is a 1946 WL flathead with a 45" motor and it is not a military bike it's actually a civilian bike it was produced for civilian use at the time since it is a 46 it was the year after they stop producing heavily for the army although it has a lot of military parts in it though.
It's funny because I bought a 45 transmission off of a guy who had a random little shop in the middle of nowhere years ago and just had it sitting on a shelf then years later I ended up with the entire motorcycle to go with the transmission. This bike when I got it actually had no kicker gears left in it though so I took it to a guy I knew and he said how do you know this other old transmission is even good and I said I didn't but I just had it all that time and it ended up being able to work.
So would you say the bike is mostly all stock then?
Yes it is all stock and I put the original transmission back in the bike after rebuilding it
Do you have any history on the previous owners this thing has definitely had a long life?
The bike was originally restored by Johnny Bravo of Warsaw, Ohio he specializes in kawasaki's but he does very specific harleys too sometimes. Well also the guy from colony hardware, the Asian guy that works there, he is the one who also restored the bike at one time and he remembered restoring it. Basically the story goes a friend of mine bought it during Daytona bike week and he basically just treated it like a dirt bike right out the gate and it really offended those guys because they put a lot of time and love into restoring that thing and all he did was beat it up and ride it in the dirt. That's kind of why it's banged up a little bit when he bought it, it was a museum quality restoration back then. Well then I ended up with it years later by default.
Well can you give us a little back story on how you finally came to own it?
Well, the guy had a court date and he didn't have no money and if he showed up to court with no money, he was going straight to jail so he basically kind of pawned the bike to me at the time well as time went on I realized if he didn't have money for court he didn't have money for me so he ended up forfeiting the bike to me and I was smart enough to make sure I knew who he had bought the bike off of and I got ahold of that last owner and he ended up sending me a title. Come to find out the whole time this guy owned the bike it never had a title in his name, he just paid the guy a load of money and walked away never even asked for a title. So the deal was when I contacted the guy it had a very special seat on it, it was a knucklehead seat and the guy said if I sent him the seat he would send me the title so that in a nutshell is how I got the bike.
So what did you have to do to it once you got it?
Well 1st off I had to fix the transmission in it. I had the other one and we rebuilt it you see the thing is with a 45 transmission I had never rebuilt one before because I know a lot about the 4 speeds but the guy who helped me rebuild this was like these are nothing like a 4 speed where the kicker gear is on a 4 speed it's near the outside, on a 45 it's clear on the other side you gotta rebuild it all the way out just to put kicker gears in it. I mean you can hold a 3 speed transmission in your hand like it's a lawn mower transmission, they are like nothing. So anyway the guy who helped me with that ended up also having a seat to go with it it wasn't pretty but it was original and that's why you can see it's pretty crusty., it's the one on there now.
You'll also notice the bike has been shot a couple times, you'll see there's a patch on the gas tank, it was shot that's not fake.
Wait, no way, like with a gun?
Yup me and my dad got into it one night and long story short he shot my bike but I fixed it. Ha,ha
That's amazing, you know when I rode it and took the pictures of it I noticed something a little odd on the gas tank but I didn't even notice it was a bullet hole?
Yup that's an authentic bullet hole. Haha. Thankfully I wasn't on the bike when he shot it but yeah.
OK now I've really gotta ask cause this is just too strange, but what in the world did you do that would make your dad wanna shoot your 1946 Flathead?
Well I told him he was a little too intoxicated to ride my 1972 Harley that day and I got a ride back to the bar and rode it home. I was going back to get the Flathead and somebody just had to be the instigator and tell my dad how could he let me treat him that way, so me and him got into a pretty interesting bar fight out into the parking lot. Which in turn kind of got me to get my dad to quit drinking and partying like a 17 year old rock star which was good because at the time he needed to stop. Looking back though it was a bit hilarious cause no one knew what to do with us. Haha
I'm sure looking back years later it became something to laugh about eventually.
Yeah it did and it was and that was a time he really slow down a lot after that too, so something good came out of it.
Well aside from the tank you fixed, what is one of your favorite parts of the bike?
Probably the front end I like big FLH front ends and old school Springer's that one there I really like cuz it's got a short springer on it it just looks good.
Yeah I agree especially with that original fender that was meant for it too. Well if you could change anything on the bike what would it be?
Probably the primary cause it leaks oil every time I roll the damn bike. Apparently there aint nothing you can do to fix that either besides convert it to a belt drive. So yeah anyway you know with 45's the oil tank is right beside the gas tank and with the oil tank being so high it tends to leak a bit. That's why I always keep a pan under it.
That's always been a cool detail that I don't think a lot of people realize is that the concept of the split Harley tanks actually came from having oil on one side and gas on the other. Then years later they went to putting gas in both and making room for a separate oil tank below which increased the capacity for gas and of course the capacity for putting more miles on the bike while traveling long distances. Well in regards to that note what is the furthest you've actually ridden the bike yourself?
Well I was going to Wauseon with my buddy Indian Joe. Well here's the thing Indian Joe has all these old Indians and he wants me to meet him at this bar for bike night so naturally I ride my 1946 Harley out there. Well then Joe shows up in a 1982 Chevy cavalier haha and the kicker of it all, with a trail 70 Honda in the back seat of it with no back seat. He somehow figured out a way to fit the trail 70 in there if he pulled out the seats? So anyway I rode it all the way out there to his place went to Wauseon rode it for a couple days and then rode it back home. It's really only left me stranded maybe twice and it's always over the battery though. It's kind of hard because I got a use 6 Volt batteries in it and they are hard to find but I normally just use sign batteries in it when I can find them. You know, cause they are kind of small but they work, the sign batteries that you can find on exit lights the ones you'll just randomly see in old buildings well the emergency backup battery is actually a 6 Volt battery and it's just perfect for that bike.
That's awesome! I'm sure a lot of people didn't know that and you had to figure that out along the way?
Yup and it's kind of like my '69 I have as well. I'm actually running a sportster battery in it. Haha
So just giving our readers a little insight you suffered a pretty extreme bike accident several years ago that resulted in the loss of your lower leg. Do you find that this bike being a hand shift foot clutch set up is easier or harder to ride with the use of your prosthetic leg?
When I first got the bike I couldn't hardly ride it at all . Hell some of the scratches on the Fender are from me just ripping it up through the backyard here. So you see they got something on it called a rock and roll clutch which is basically like 2 pedals and if you push it it stays down so you got a rock it back-and-forth well I couldn't do that with a prosthetic left leg so I would take my foot and tap it until it took off which in my back alley was OK but on the highway was terrifying. Well I found out that old servi cars and race bikes had the WR clutch pedal which was more like a car pedal. So I got online and I parted one together I got lucky enough and found everything I needed I put her on the bike and that helped a lot. It's like on my Springer soft tail I have the shifter beat up pretty good and it's really sloppy now, mainly because I just can't tell how hard I'm hitting it. I wear the bushings out a lot. So anyway it's kind and equal in difficulty. The first thing you gotta remember though on this Flathead is that the front lever on the handlebars is not for the clutch pedal! If you grab that it will grab that front brake and you will go down haha
That was definitely something that when you let me ride the bike I figured that out real quick coming to a couple nice abrupt stops getting used to that.
I don't know why back then they put that lover on the left side but they did.
So is the carb on here original to the bike as well?
I believe so I have never had to change it but I did have to rebuild it its a linkert M88 it was funny though the bike ran beautifully after rebuilding it but it poured gas right out of it as it ran come to find out after studying it there was a vent hole that was plugged off I took some welding wire and poke to the vent hole in gas stopped pouring out it worked great after that so ironically the guy who helped me rebuild it wanted to shine up the carb and ended up plugging off the vent hole with compound.
Well our last question what's one of your happiest moments or memories on the bike since owning it.
Probably the year that I won the rockers reunion bike show here in Indy on it, I had a blast on it that year.
Well thank you so much for letting me ride it and talk with you a little more about it. I know our readers will definitely enjoy it.
Let's start with a little info on who you are and what kind of bikes you would say you specialize in?
I'm Bill Miller and bikes I specialize in are probably most definitely shovelheads. It's because I'm at the age where they are old and I'm not to the point where I remember ever having a knuckle but it's like I started off on a shovelhead then I just tended to collect a bunch of them.
So you've come from a line of great bikers in your family would you care to talk a bit about what got you into old bikes in general and maybe some background on that?
Well my dad is an old clubber, he was probably the 1st one in my family to become a biker and I kinda just always enjoyed it. You know, It's like I really like getting out and going a cross the country riding old things. I mean motorcycles yeah of course but even old cars too. I'm into old things in general you know just seeing things off the interstate and having stuff with a history to it, I like that.
So is that what got you into old harleys and just old bikes in general like growing up around it or would you say your love for old bikes came on your own?
Probably really on my own you know because it's like when my dad had shovelheads it's because that's when they mainly had those to ride back in the day. I think it's just because as I got older though I just always liked the look of the old fat shovel heads and just the way them things looked you know. I like a motorcycle you can work on yourself and you understand. A good example I had to adjust my clutch on the side of the road on my 76 out in Avon, IN years ago and a guy pulled up on a brand new V-rod and the guy actually said to me if his bike didn't start 1st thing he was doing was calling the dealer. Then if it didn't start when he pushed the button he said he wouldn't even know where to start at. Then he actually asked me if working on my bike like this was going to void my warranty and I laughed and said this thing aint had no warranty in years I built this bike from the ground up, it's just like though for him to say that blew my mind. It's like if my bike didn't start I would just jump the solenoid and if that didn't work I would push start it, something. I tell you what I know how to get a bike going that's for sure.
Well I think over the years becoming accustom to old bikes in general by necessity you have to just pick those skills up along the way. I think that shows that people who have only ridden new bikes all their lives, that their mindset is totally different then that of someone who truly appreciates the simplicity of old bikes and has adapted to accommodate that. Well in regards to simple yet fantastic old machines let's dive right into what the make and model is of the 45" Flathead you've got sitting right here.
It is a 1946 WL flathead with a 45" motor and it is not a military bike it's actually a civilian bike it was produced for civilian use at the time since it is a 46 it was the year after they stop producing heavily for the army although it has a lot of military parts in it though.
It's funny because I bought a 45 transmission off of a guy who had a random little shop in the middle of nowhere years ago and just had it sitting on a shelf then years later I ended up with the entire motorcycle to go with the transmission. This bike when I got it actually had no kicker gears left in it though so I took it to a guy I knew and he said how do you know this other old transmission is even good and I said I didn't but I just had it all that time and it ended up being able to work.
So would you say the bike is mostly all stock then?
Yes it is all stock and I put the original transmission back in the bike after rebuilding it
Do you have any history on the previous owners this thing has definitely had a long life?
The bike was originally restored by Johnny Bravo of Warsaw, Ohio he specializes in kawasaki's but he does very specific harleys too sometimes. Well also the guy from colony hardware, the Asian guy that works there, he is the one who also restored the bike at one time and he remembered restoring it. Basically the story goes a friend of mine bought it during Daytona bike week and he basically just treated it like a dirt bike right out the gate and it really offended those guys because they put a lot of time and love into restoring that thing and all he did was beat it up and ride it in the dirt. That's kind of why it's banged up a little bit when he bought it, it was a museum quality restoration back then. Well then I ended up with it years later by default.
Well can you give us a little back story on how you finally came to own it?
Well, the guy had a court date and he didn't have no money and if he showed up to court with no money, he was going straight to jail so he basically kind of pawned the bike to me at the time well as time went on I realized if he didn't have money for court he didn't have money for me so he ended up forfeiting the bike to me and I was smart enough to make sure I knew who he had bought the bike off of and I got ahold of that last owner and he ended up sending me a title. Come to find out the whole time this guy owned the bike it never had a title in his name, he just paid the guy a load of money and walked away never even asked for a title. So the deal was when I contacted the guy it had a very special seat on it, it was a knucklehead seat and the guy said if I sent him the seat he would send me the title so that in a nutshell is how I got the bike.
So what did you have to do to it once you got it?
Well 1st off I had to fix the transmission in it. I had the other one and we rebuilt it you see the thing is with a 45 transmission I had never rebuilt one before because I know a lot about the 4 speeds but the guy who helped me rebuild this was like these are nothing like a 4 speed where the kicker gear is on a 4 speed it's near the outside, on a 45 it's clear on the other side you gotta rebuild it all the way out just to put kicker gears in it. I mean you can hold a 3 speed transmission in your hand like it's a lawn mower transmission, they are like nothing. So anyway the guy who helped me with that ended up also having a seat to go with it it wasn't pretty but it was original and that's why you can see it's pretty crusty., it's the one on there now.
You'll also notice the bike has been shot a couple times, you'll see there's a patch on the gas tank, it was shot that's not fake.
Wait, no way, like with a gun?
Yup me and my dad got into it one night and long story short he shot my bike but I fixed it. Ha,ha
That's amazing, you know when I rode it and took the pictures of it I noticed something a little odd on the gas tank but I didn't even notice it was a bullet hole?
Yup that's an authentic bullet hole. Haha. Thankfully I wasn't on the bike when he shot it but yeah.
OK now I've really gotta ask cause this is just too strange, but what in the world did you do that would make your dad wanna shoot your 1946 Flathead?
Well I told him he was a little too intoxicated to ride my 1972 Harley that day and I got a ride back to the bar and rode it home. I was going back to get the Flathead and somebody just had to be the instigator and tell my dad how could he let me treat him that way, so me and him got into a pretty interesting bar fight out into the parking lot. Which in turn kind of got me to get my dad to quit drinking and partying like a 17 year old rock star which was good because at the time he needed to stop. Looking back though it was a bit hilarious cause no one knew what to do with us. Haha
I'm sure looking back years later it became something to laugh about eventually.
Yeah it did and it was and that was a time he really slow down a lot after that too, so something good came out of it.
Well aside from the tank you fixed, what is one of your favorite parts of the bike?
Probably the front end I like big FLH front ends and old school Springer's that one there I really like cuz it's got a short springer on it it just looks good.
Yeah I agree especially with that original fender that was meant for it too. Well if you could change anything on the bike what would it be?
Probably the primary cause it leaks oil every time I roll the damn bike. Apparently there aint nothing you can do to fix that either besides convert it to a belt drive. So yeah anyway you know with 45's the oil tank is right beside the gas tank and with the oil tank being so high it tends to leak a bit. That's why I always keep a pan under it.
That's always been a cool detail that I don't think a lot of people realize is that the concept of the split Harley tanks actually came from having oil on one side and gas on the other. Then years later they went to putting gas in both and making room for a separate oil tank below which increased the capacity for gas and of course the capacity for putting more miles on the bike while traveling long distances. Well in regards to that note what is the furthest you've actually ridden the bike yourself?
Well I was going to Wauseon with my buddy Indian Joe. Well here's the thing Indian Joe has all these old Indians and he wants me to meet him at this bar for bike night so naturally I ride my 1946 Harley out there. Well then Joe shows up in a 1982 Chevy cavalier haha and the kicker of it all, with a trail 70 Honda in the back seat of it with no back seat. He somehow figured out a way to fit the trail 70 in there if he pulled out the seats? So anyway I rode it all the way out there to his place went to Wauseon rode it for a couple days and then rode it back home. It's really only left me stranded maybe twice and it's always over the battery though. It's kind of hard because I got a use 6 Volt batteries in it and they are hard to find but I normally just use sign batteries in it when I can find them. You know, cause they are kind of small but they work, the sign batteries that you can find on exit lights the ones you'll just randomly see in old buildings well the emergency backup battery is actually a 6 Volt battery and it's just perfect for that bike.
That's awesome! I'm sure a lot of people didn't know that and you had to figure that out along the way?
Yup and it's kind of like my '69 I have as well. I'm actually running a sportster battery in it. Haha
So just giving our readers a little insight you suffered a pretty extreme bike accident several years ago that resulted in the loss of your lower leg. Do you find that this bike being a hand shift foot clutch set up is easier or harder to ride with the use of your prosthetic leg?
When I first got the bike I couldn't hardly ride it at all . Hell some of the scratches on the Fender are from me just ripping it up through the backyard here. So you see they got something on it called a rock and roll clutch which is basically like 2 pedals and if you push it it stays down so you got a rock it back-and-forth well I couldn't do that with a prosthetic left leg so I would take my foot and tap it until it took off which in my back alley was OK but on the highway was terrifying. Well I found out that old servi cars and race bikes had the WR clutch pedal which was more like a car pedal. So I got online and I parted one together I got lucky enough and found everything I needed I put her on the bike and that helped a lot. It's like on my Springer soft tail I have the shifter beat up pretty good and it's really sloppy now, mainly because I just can't tell how hard I'm hitting it. I wear the bushings out a lot. So anyway it's kind and equal in difficulty. The first thing you gotta remember though on this Flathead is that the front lever on the handlebars is not for the clutch pedal! If you grab that it will grab that front brake and you will go down haha
That was definitely something that when you let me ride the bike I figured that out real quick coming to a couple nice abrupt stops getting used to that.
I don't know why back then they put that lover on the left side but they did.
So is the carb on here original to the bike as well?
I believe so I have never had to change it but I did have to rebuild it its a linkert M88 it was funny though the bike ran beautifully after rebuilding it but it poured gas right out of it as it ran come to find out after studying it there was a vent hole that was plugged off I took some welding wire and poke to the vent hole in gas stopped pouring out it worked great after that so ironically the guy who helped me rebuild it wanted to shine up the carb and ended up plugging off the vent hole with compound.
Well our last question what's one of your happiest moments or memories on the bike since owning it.
Probably the year that I won the rockers reunion bike show here in Indy on it, I had a blast on it that year.
Well thank you so much for letting me ride it and talk with you a little more about it. I know our readers will definitely enjoy it.
Photos and words by Mike Vandegriff