Registration for motor

[paulie01]

Does anyone have experience with getting regi on just a Harley Davidson motor...I have a shovel head and want to run it in an older numberless frame...and help or direction would be appreciated....Paulie

[stevecrout]

Hi - it's been my experience with ICBC that you only register the frame of any vehicle not the engine. So if your frame is without a number now, they'll want to sight the bike then assign a new/homebuilt status to it.  You'll probably find it will be given the current year as date of manufacture. As long as you are just going to ride it then I suppose it doesn't matter but if you want to go for a special status then you'll need to find a registered frame and make the switch and punch in the right numbers on your numberless frame then toss the old numbered frame, then take the rolling unit to ICBC for sighting and registration.

Suggest you confirm this with ICBC.

[paulie01]

I'm trying to avoid that process....Harley never numbered any frames before the early 70's and motor Vin were the numbers used to register bikes ....but will do some more investigation with icbc....will see what they say stevecrout

[Dennis]

I like to hold myself out as the Club expert on registrations;  I have done or been involved in many.  I have seen all kinds of issues successfully resolved.

I have been involved (but not at the helm) of registering older Harleys.  It is true that they were registered by the engine, not the frame.  I did many statutory declarations for an unnamed Harley collector to help him get them registered, but all of these were finished motorcycles.

Please report what you learn from ICBC.  I will check in with my collector as well.  My thoughts are to not worry about it until the end.  The risk is a finished bike and then discover .... problems (like it was stolen ...).   I am pretty sure you cannot just register a pile of parts.  We used to be able to register just a frame, but ICBC has an issue with that now (and I have a way of fixing that also).

Peace & Grease, Dennis

[paulie01]

I will see what info I can dig up as well....I would prefer to avoid the ubuilt process on this and have just got numbers off motor today....any help is appreciated Dennis

[paulie01]

After lots of phone calls with icbc on the coast I understand why the full build Dennis...thanks for the input ....I bought the bike....it is A 1939 Straight Leg Knuckle Head frame that was modded to fit a shovel....it's a bit of a survivor bike and should be a fun build