Fifteen Dollar Piston

That's Paul Riding My Old Ironhead With The Fifteen Dollar Piston

Blasting over the mountain, I was giving her the gas, full throttle, right against the stop, passing all the cars. That's when I heard the bang. BANG. Sounded like a 12 gauge, and the Ironhead starts losing power. Cars that I passed, start to pass me. And I notice that she’s smoking some. Well, something ain’t right; I’m turning around, I'm heading for home…

And by the time I get home…I’m limping, mostly running on one cylinder. FUCK! I think that was the word out of my mouth. And I’m laying down serious smoke. The trouble was the front jug. Front one is easy to take off, so I pull off the head, and loosen the cylinder, start to slide her up over the piston. And here, is where I actually showed a lick of sense: Before I pull the jug all the way over the piston, I put a clean rag around the connecting rod, under the piston, to prevent broken metal from falling off the piston, into the crankcase below. That proved to be a good move.

So I slowly slide the jug up over and off the piston. Huh…the piston rings look just fine. Huh. So…I slowly start to turn the rings in their grooves, examining them as I go, and a funny thing,,,the rings are fine, but as I turn, chunks of the piston, parts of the lands between the grooves, actually, come loose in my fingers. Chunks….FUCK! I think that’s what I said.

So anyway…I had a set of Hastings rings, brand new, in my garage, and I had some gaskets, I figured all I needed, was a new piston. It was a few days before the Am-Jam event in Cobleskill, and I wanted to ride. I didn’t want to do a complete rebuild, I just wanted to get The Sporty together…and ride. So I went into Moroney's, and tell the dude I want a piston for a Sportster.

Well. I Made It To Am-Jam

“You can’t buy one piston,” he says. So I argue…I tell him what I want to do, and he tells me, “…you can’t buy one piston.” So in the mean time, I must have been attracting some attention, all argumentive and greasy, and Pat, he must have overheard, ‘cause he comes up to the counter and says, “…you want a used piston?” He tells me that he has a “take-out,” low miles. “How much?” I ask.

So he figures it out in his head. It’s almost lunch time, and I can tell he’s trying to figure out how much his lunch will cost, and he says…”fifteen dollars.” So I bought the piston, practically snatched it out of his hand; I was so glad to get it. And I went home and installed it. And a few days later, I made the run up to Cobleskill. And I rode the bike, just like that for several more years, until I sold it to my buddy Paul, who rode the shit out of it, even going as far as Sturgis, South Dakota. And that Fifteen Dollar Piston held up well. It just goes to prove that every once in a while, you get a good deal. Yessir. And I still got the old one, the broken one. Makes a mighty fine ashtray, out in the garage.