From:Eric Smith e-mail:kwmxla2@verizon.net
Subject:RE: RE: MORE INTERESTING HISTORY Date:Wed Oct 22 11:50:28 2014
Response to:5387
Old Erwin must have had a million great stories. Too bad that so many of the pioneers of motorcycling passed without the recognition they deserved. I guess you have to be in sports, or a crooked politician to be remembered. Excelsior used the Eclipse clutch, as did most every American manufacturer. Eclipse was a big company, and were eventually absorbed by Bendix. Eclipse also successfully sued Harley-Davidson for patent infringements on the release mechanism which was a 3 start acme screw. H-Ds redesign was quite a bit better than the design they "borrowed" from Eclipse.

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Erwin Weiss, chief engineer for Excelsior 1915 raced on the boards as well! What a long interesting life this dude had. The bit about "inventing ' the motorcycle clutch maybe challenged!

Yup, I think the clutch thing is a misunderstanding of some sort. Harley had a clutch at least a year prior. Could be he designed the Excelsior clutch of the first Excelsior 3-speed.
Rick