From 1920 through 1924, Ace motorcycles were built in a ... - WebRing

Joe Stephan – Ace Mechanic Copyright © 2000 by Joe Stephan
“Now, I tore it completely apart and everything was okay.” Doc paused. “The over engine,
XP-3…that had blown up on the Martin’s Creek Hill Climb in 1924. Not with Red on it,
somebody else was driving it…and it blew up.
“Evidently, nobody got into it all those years because I tore that engine down and found that
the oil feed to the center main bearing was plugged and this cut out the oil feed to the two and
three connecting rods. And, the pistons were disintegrated—they were in pieces—and the
rods were like pretzels.
“So I straightened the rods and through Doug I got a set of stock pistons and put them in.
Now it wears stock pistons. I should have brought one of the old pistons along. One ring.”
“Yeah, one ring.” Joe confirmed.
“It’s running now too. And it’s lively, even with the stock pistons. Aw, that son-of-a-gun will
go. But it has a Simms magneto on it so there’s no trouble starting it or anything like that. I
would start this for you, but we probably better not. The neighborhood—.”
“No! Don’t start it.” Joe was quick to turn down the suggestion. “I remember what it sounds
like.”
“Why not?” Joe’s daughter asked
“Oh, it screams!” Doc said enthusiastically to her. “Hey, it screams. And I…to tell you the
truth…I’m not a good driver. I love to ride motorcycles—my street bike is a fifty-four Harley
and I love to ride—but I’m not really good. So, what I should do sometime is have a real race
driver drive the thing. Hey! This will go!”
“Well, we don’t have anymore of those guys around,” Joe expressed his sentiment.
“There’s some good guys out there,” Doc countered quickly. “But they don’t understand the
foot clutch and the hand shift. These forks… It handles beautifully. See there’s just a little
action. Do you see that? Just about an inch. It handles very well, really.
“The only thing is now I’m getting old. See, I’m sixty-eight. I was born in twenty-three. And
to put my head… I’ll tell you… Let me show you.” Doc got on XP-4 and leaned way over the
tank. “He rode, he said, like this.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Right down there.”
“But I can’t twist my head up. All I can see is down in front. And I get a headache from trying
it. He would put his hand here like this and hold here. And he said his chin was bloody the
first trip from banging on the tank there. So they put a pad here for him.
“Hey, I want to tell you. It’s lively! It’s no good at all at low speed. When you get up above
thirty-five or so, it’s a sweetheart.”
Old Photos
“You know something, it was funny. I was telling you about how I got myself into a lot of
trouble because I knew a heck of a lot.” Joe said.
“I think he gave most of these away,” Joe’s daughter Helen was telling Doug off to the side
while Doc and Joe were talking about Red’s riding style on the XP-4. “You can see that
they’ve been torn out of here.” She was holding a tattered old photo album, the kind with the
heavy black pages on which people mounted photos.
“That was one of his, I think?” She said looking at the panoramic of the picnic.
“Yeah, that picture is from Gene,” Doug told Helen. “In fact, I got two from him and I let a
friend of mine have one. It had old Harley Davidsons on it.”
“It looks like that’s all I have left. Show him that that’s all I have left. Tell him,” She
prompted Doug.
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