1917 Excelsior Restoration
April 5, 2016
Antony Gullick has been working for a few years to restore his 1917 Excelsior, and sent these wonderful photos of his results. The pics were taken by Adrian Veale and show a lot of neat details. If you are working on an Excelsior, hopefully these photos will help you. I could have used them back when I bought my boxes of parts and had to decipher how they all went together!
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Occhio Lungo 
Beautiful restoration of a great looking Excelsior!!!!!!!
That’s as good as you get, well done Tony.
Wonderful restoration Antony – top job!
Nicely done, but I must mention that the small ‘X’ tank decal wasn’t used until 1919, and the primary cover is also 1919 for the improved clutch. Also the cylinders should be nickel, and the maroon border on all red panels should be edged in bright orange. I finished my 1916 Excelsior 2 years ago and did extensive research, and had the benefit of knowing many Excelsior gurus. In spite of my nit picking, Mr. Gullick did a great job and I know how hard an Excelsior is to restore.
HI Eric I was aware of most of the things you pointed out except for the lining. I ran with the clutch I could find or parts there of and got the primamry from Geloman, so that was the decision. I did nickel the barrells using a process that gets inside all the fins but it came out a dull silver and looked like silver frost, as well as the bozos got nickel in the bore and ports, so I had it stripped. I wasn’t aware of the small x stickers as well. Thnaks for the advice
Now I just needto get it running right
Regards
Antony
Antony, you did a superlative job, and I should have kept my big mouth shut. The most important thing about old motorcycles is having fun with them, and enjoying the people you meet through them. I’ve owned and restored quite a few early American motorcycles and you and I would have to agree that an Excelsior of our vintage is one of the most difficult to put together and make everything work. The complexity of a teens Excelsior is fascinating, but the simplicity, and good engineering of a like year Harley shows the wisdom of that philosophy. I just want to say that I love your motorcycle, and know what you went through to make it look that good.
Benchmark bike! Well done.
Stunning, attention to small detail. Even if some of the items are a year or two off, which i do not know personally the difference. Just completing a restoration of anything of this vintage is difficult and as we can see well worth the effort.
Wonderful restoration job! Beautiful attention to detail.