Harley-Davidson Panheads

HARLEY-DAVIDSON PANHEADS

CW BOOK REVIEW

Greg Field Motorbooks International P.O. Box 1 Osceola, WI54020 715/294-3345 128 pages, $20

IN KEEPING WITH THE RULES OF JOURnalism and literary criticism, let the record begin with the fact that the author of this book and the author of this review are friends; in fact, this reviewer is mentioned in the introduction, and the review copy arrived autographed. Not only that, Greg Field gave me the tip that led to my buying and restoring a really neat bike, one Greg spotted during the course of his research and told me about.

So you could say I owe him.

What wouldn't be fair to say is that a good review is a return of that favor. That wouldn't be fair because the book earns the praise it will get here and elsewhere.

For those who just arrived, Harley's Panhead was the second major version of the Big Twin, which was originally introduced in 1936 and is still in production today, in terms of general configuration if not in actual parts.

Officially, the Panhead was the plain E (61 cubic inches) or F (74 cubic inches), the tuned FL or the heavyduty FLH. The nickname "Panhead," adopted because to those with imagination the rocker covers looked like upside-down cake pans, came from the public and was only recently adopted by the factory.

As engine and as motorcycle, the Panhead went through a tremendous amount of change, probably more than any other Harley model. It was introduced as a new top end for the original E and F engines (the Knucklehead version, in 1948) in a chassis with rigid rear suspension and a springer fork.

In due course came a telescopic fork, swing^ arm rear suspension, foot shift and hand clutch and, in 1965, its last year, electric start. With that came H-D's first

proper names, as in Hydra-Glide and Electra Glide.

The Panhead was an important and complicated model, and Greg Field has done an important and complicatedmake that detailed-book to describe and explain it.

What he did first was a massive amount of research. Field had to read everything ever written about Pans, a job made all the more difficult by the factory's lack of help. Something we're told will change in the future, but a handicap I can vouch for firsthand.

Field tracked down the experts, the owners and restorers of each of the several versions, and took what must have been hundreds of photos. The best shots, 80 by the publisher's count, are in the book.

Everything is in the book, more than can be listed here. Suffice to say that I've written two books (and Lord knows how many articles) concerning Panheads, and I learned new stuff from Field's manuscript.

Perfection? Nope. This is his first book, and he made the mistakes that come with that territory.

There's the occasional obscure explanation, as when he tells us about the adjustable early telescopic fork and writes, "If two large chrome plugs stick up above the cover...it's most likely the adjustable model," and later in the same paragraph, "...if the top cover is smooth, without showing the nuts, the fork is the adjustable model."

Well, you think, he says it both ways, let's check the photos. That's the second first-timer's flaw. There are lots of full-frame portraits, but they printed smaller than they looked when Field wrote the captions and there aren't nearly enough detailed photos. Too much of the time, the art department has cropped out what

the caption tries to tell you.

But that's all that's wrong. If

there's ever been anything anybody wanted to know about Panheads, here is where to find it.

Allan Girdler