Happy New Year 2012!

2012???? What the hell happen to 1972! Or...1962, for that matter.
Tempus Fugit........

To all my friends, readers, and supporters.......

The Doherty Phantom oil filter......

Tim Doherty gave me one of his Phantom Oil Filter kits to try out, at the Laughlin River Run about 11 years ago, when the kits were fairly new. I've never had a chance to do just that, until now.

Doherty Machine made some great products, the best known were their PowerVents for both crank and head breather Big Twins, the Power-Pak air filter kits, and their "Mist-Free" head breather conversions for Twin Cams.

Unfortunately, Tim passed away in March of this year, and Doherty Machine ran into some operational problems. It's my understanding that Trask Performance , in Phoenix, AZ acquired Doherty, and is supposed to be producing the old line of products. Whether the Phantom is available again I'm not sure, you'd have to give Trask a call. The old Doherty product distributors show it "unavailable".

The Phantom Oil Filter was designed to be installed in place of the center fill cap on rigid frame 4 speed, and Softail 5 speed horseshoe-style tanks. But, it would mount on any oil tank - like the end of a round oil tank - that gave you a flat 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" surface to work with, and clearance for the filter length inside. The kit took the internal-style oil filter replacement cartridge used in Harley's ElectraGlide 4speed oil tanks, and is easily found.

You can see, Doherty changed the cap on the later kits, to a side feed for the return line, vs. my kit's threaded center feed location, and 1/8" NPT 90 degree elbow. This is the location of my Phantom - LT. side of the tank, between the belt drive runs. When I was figuring out the width of my tank, I was sweating the dimensions to not only get clearance for my starter, but enough side surface for the filter mounting flange. I made it, with an 1/8" extra on each side of the flange - whew! Instead of the the original inlet spigot, I installed a 1/8" NPT male to -6 AN male fitting. Totally hidden oil filter!
See how trick the Phantom was? You just remove the return line, unscrew the cap, and remove the filter for service. Hopefully, Trask will include this in the Doherty product line when they are up to speed.Here's where I'm at on my oil tank. The feed bung is A. in the photo, and the vent line goes into bung B., where there is an internal stand tube that bends over to the right to clear the filter cartridge, then up to about a 1/4" of the tank top. Darin from Bung King has my filler bung and screw-in cap on its way to me.......

Hip Ghosts........

Photo courtesy of Glenn Caley Bachmann
"...East side of Moultrie St., between Cortland Ave. and Eugenia, in Bernal Heights, San Francisco". 06 (?) 8 68 Joe Jerry Hells Angels Frisco

The photographer also pointed out that partly visable in the upper R/H corner (see my arrow) is the name Loaded Linda.

Bernal Heights is just below The Mission Dist. in San Francisco. Bachmann also stated that unfortunately, this strip of sidewalk was torn out and redone shortly after he photographed it in 2005.

Let's dig in the mailpouch again.......

Always in the "Top 10" most viewed posts on Applied Machete are the one's that I did on the Psychedelic Love Temple, the subject of the David Mann Painting by the same name. Not a month goes by that I don't get an Email or two from somebody who partied there, lived there, or crashed there when they were passing through L.A. Some of the accounts I get are concise, clear recollections with dates, times, and names, others are disjointed random pieces (go figure, huh?).

I thought I'd share one Email I just got a couple days ago, from "lewis.kl1". Read on.....

I lived at 1039 S. Ardmore , from mid '67 till the last party, my room/home was the front balcony set of room's. If you came to the house, I'm the one who normally opened the door if it were closed, or I greeted you as you came up the front stairs. We knew when people came in because of the noise the gate made, the gate had a very unique sound. The trike in one of the Roth posters was Tankers, the Panhead was mine. It was a great time of brotherhood, every day was a party.

The painting that "lewis.kl1" referred to, containing his and Tanker's bikes. Everybody calls this painting Bikes, Booze, Broads, but the actual name of this is A Taste Of Honey. "lewis.kl1" didn't specifically say weather he was a member of the Barons MC or not, but Tanker was. Tanker's trike was also featured in the very first issue of Roth's Choppers Magazine - under the title Tanker's Love Machine.