John,john HD wrote:ben
very nice bike! looks to be a mostly original survivor. cotton is correct about the valve covers, nice to see it wasn't all dolled up with extra chrome.
as for the color matched primary, 1955 was the first year for the last style steel primary cover. they offered it in hollywood green with the primary, oil tank and the rest of the sheet metal painted to match. your bike probably would have had the primary painted gloss black.
however, when it came to paint anything was possible from the factory. there are many examples that have surfaced that do not fit the normal schemes as offered in the order blanks. a perfect example is dave swanson's '56 that is a civilian bike factory painted in black and white police colors.
a careful examination under the trim or tail light may reveal if the bike was a repaint or not. most folks rarely remove all of the original paint when updating the look of their machines.
by all means do what ever you like with it, but keep in mind it may be a rare example of a custom ordered bike!
enjoy your new machine and please let us know how it runs!
john
Thanks for the info. That is why I posted here, I know that you guys are very knowledgeable on these. I will try to look under the tail light to see what the original color was, hopefully, I will be able to find it. The '55 looks very nice. I will get it running soon, It does run, but the battery needs to be charged, I do not have a 6 volt charger, and it needs new spark plugs. It has Harley number 3 plugs in it, and I want to find replacements for it. Also, I want to clean it a little, underneath has a lot of grease or gunk build up, I had to scrape off a 1/2 inch to read the case numbers. I am looking forward to riding it!