Something you don't see every day

Liquid-cooled Knucklehead

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Back in 1937, midget race car tuner Dale Drake redesigned a Harley Knucklehead he could race in those little cars that had gotten so popular at the track back then. Drake had given up on the air-cooled two-cylinder opposed twin he was designing in favor of converting the Knuck to water-cooled cylinders instead. This was his answer to the Offenhauser four-cylinder motors that were dominating midget racing at the time. Compared to the Offy, Drake’s V-twin was 10 percent smaller, made more torque, weighed less, and gained better traction on the slick dirt and board tracks used for midget racing.

This was all to the good on short runs, but put the Drake knuckle on a longer race and it ran into problems. They tended to overheat over time, losing power in the process. The cars shook so bad they were named “poppers.” Run one more than 4,000 rpm for a length of time, and parts started popping out all over the track.

By the 1950s some drag racers used the Drake Knuckles, but by that time Drake had sold off the parts and patterns. They passed through several owners, finally coming to rest with Edgar Elder in 1952, who had the original patterns until now.

Jesse James got the patterns from Elder. That’s where this chopper enters the picture. Dan Bacon Carr built it using a set of Drake barrels Jesse fabricated just for that purpose (while he was making some for himself, of course). Dan put his cyls to good use between the rails of a long chop with a sick stance to it for Born Free 2012. Here’s what Dan had to say about building this sick puppy.

Street Choppers

Cool!
Almost 80 years ago someone decided to fix the short comings of the air cooled Harley V-twin.