1913 Harley Belt Drive Prototype

[LouieMCman]

Interesting article in "Motorcycling" May 1913.......

[jurassic]

[Slojo]

Belt drive twins are the coolest, great photos. Notice the increased offset primary cover, they had to move the chain out further to fit the wide V belt and pulley. Graton and Night must have used a long engine main shaft for this application. Look to the center of the (chain drive style) engine case you can see the webbing in the sprocket shaft main bearing casting boss.

joe

[c.o.]

So that was a proto-type in '13 eh? It sort of reminds me of the earlier Spartan setup.

[gary.h]

well thats just as damn beautiful as it can get on a fine machine like that!

[Slojo]

Are there any right side views of this bike?

joe

[jurassic]

I found this original picture on ebay a few years ago. No shots of the right side. This picture is the same exact picture that was used in the Spartan ads. and if you look close its the same bike that is in the article that Louie posted. If it is a prototype, then it's a Spartan prototype. I doubt that they sold any of these conversions, and this bike was probably the only one built. Notice how the rear section of the frame has been modified for belt drive. It looks like they repainted the bike too, cause some of the pinstriping doesn't look factory. It must have been a major job to install one of these belt drives.

[LouieMCman]

The article says it is from Graton and Knight Co makers of Spartan belts. If someone has a copy of the Motorcycle mag from May 29, 1913 maybe it has a picture of the right side?

[Slojo]

Notice the pedal crank has been rubbing on the back side of the cut out hole in the primary cover. The bike uses the chain drive style FreeWheel clutch drum without the sprocket and mounts the rear pulley on the back side of the clutch drum cover plate. The offset outward on the front chain must be a lot. On my 14 Cannonball bike I can't fit an O-ring Primary chain without it coming into contact with the rear drive chain. Maintaining the magneto certainly would be a difficult task. Very interesting.

joe

[c.o.]

I would have to dig for the date for this ad but I do have the info here somewhere.... http://www.antiquemotorcycle.org/bbo...hlight=Spartan