This page covers my project from about January 2005 to February 2006.
Story begins sometime around fall of 2003. I am working on my 1941 Farmall H tractor, doing a total mechanical rebuild, and deciding that this is way too much fun. I really enjoy learning how engines work, solving the thousands of problems that arise in figuring out how to take something apart, how it works, how it goes together, etc. After a year of thought, I decide to build a chopper mainly because I knew I could get it into my basement to build it during the winter months if that's what it came down to. Hopefully, I'll have this bad boy burning fuel and making noise before the riding season is done up here in the great white north.
In January of 2005, I hired Wally Hellstrom and his team from Wally's World Custom Choppers to build me the two wheeled casket. Here are the chassis specifications:
1 up, 7 out frame, with 48 degrees in the neck
Oil-in-frame curved backbone
6 degrees in the trees, 10" over American Suspension inverted front end
(That 54 degrees of total rake puts this bike just shy of 10 feet long.)
Softtail rear end with air ride suspension
7" stretched hand made tank
330 Avon venom rear tire on a 17 x 12 Weld "redneck" rim -- 13" wide
21 x 3.25 Avon front tire on a matching Weld "redneck" rim
Custom bars
Other cool stuff like brake lights mounted in the ends of the swingarm...
Wally and his team are THE BEST people to deal with -- true artisans with impeccable skills and vision. Extremely friendly, and humble. They can fab, they can weld!
I purchased a polished S&S 124 cubic inch Kendall Johnson motor. That will put just shy of 150 HP to the rear wheel. Giddyup! Kendall Johnson's organization is made up of some of the nicest people you ever wanted to deal with -- everything they have done has been beyond my high expectations -- I just can't say enough good things about these folks!
As of April 6, that's as far as I got. The next three were taken at Wally's on March 23, 2005 when I was getting sized for bars and making a few changes.
This bike is just shy of 10 feet long. The top of the handlebar risers is about 3' 5" tall...
And check out the 13" wide road paver! I've got to do all the sheet metal work on the rear fender yet.
Here's the Kendall Johnson S&S 124 cubic inch nuclear horsepower factory that arrived on April 6, 2005!
Update May, 2005:
I've been spending my time putting together my shopping list for all the remaining parts. I also decided I needed to trim up the rear fender a bit to practice my metal cutting skills and to get a better feel for how the bike needs to look. In the next month or so, I'll buy all the remaining parts I need.
July 12: I've got a really huge project going on at work that is eating up all my chopper building time, but I did manage to finish the shopping list, and get everything on its way. Some of the parts won't be here for 4 more weeks, so waiting for the Brown Santa to come in his ugly brown sleigh is all there is to do. I did finish the body work on the tank, and have about 2 hours of touch-up and sanding on the frame molding.
Transmission: Baker
6 speed, right side chain drive with hydraulic clutch release
Primary drive: Hitech
5" Dominator with Barnett Scorpion billet clutch (monster stack!)
Integrated radius license plate holder and brake light. (see below!)
Rear brake: Hawg Halters (HHI)
drive side with 4 piston caliper
Front brake: Hawg Halters
(HHI) 6 piston caliper
Forward controls: Performance
Machine (PM) Contour
Hand controls: Performance
Machine (PM) Contour with integrated switches
Exhaust: Stainless
Creations 2 into 1 custom modified "Mayhem" -- stainless steel
baby!
Lots of little stuff to get yet, but at this point, the expensive stuff is bought and paid for. I gotta figure out what I'm going to do about paint yet. <sigh>
Here's two quick shots of my lucky Hitech primary drive score. You
know when you go to the grocery store, and unload your cart onto that conveyor
belt? That's how wide my primary drive is! 5" of power delivery
to a clutch that can handle the horsepower! Overkill to excess!
That license plate holder mounts on to the back of the primary drive for a super clean look. Killer!
Here's a couple of pictures of the KILLER exhaust that Clint at Stainless Creations made for me -- it's a modification from their Mayhem pipes. Of course, the pictures don't do the pipes justice -- the weld molding is flawless, and the thickness of these pipes is awesome. I think they might be loud.....yep. Gonna be loud.
September 6: Now we're on the verge of making some SERIOUS progress. A local motorcycle shop picked up the bike from me today and will be welding on the brake tabs, the exhaust mount, mounting the front fender, mocking-up the driveline, and cutting wheel spacers. That's all work I either don't have the tools for or comfort in my skills to do correctly. So here are two quick parting shots of the bike I took last night after I dropped the engine in it. The next update will have some shots taken over at the shop in a week or so...
September 20: (No pictures on this update.) Well, Dan A. (extraordinarily skilled and artistic craftsman who works at a local shop) has been working on the bike for a few days, and called me in this past Saturday to meet with a machinist who is going to design a top motor mount for me, and some other pieces of jewelry. We also discussed a spacing issue on the rear wheel, and that was the start of another one of those problems that I find so rewarding to solve. This one is a design challenge: right now, the largest available transmission offset sprocket is 0.90". Lining that up with the rear sprocket required that I shift the rear wheel 0.25" left of center. We talked about options for keeping it in center, but none of them sounded appealing, safe, or cheap. Surely someone manufactures a 1.25" offset front pulley? I can't be the only person building a 330-based chopper who won't compromise on wheel placement (even though it's almost impossible to detect visually, and has no bearing on the ride whatsoever.) A call to Baker and a number of other sprocket manufacturers confirmed that 0.90" is the most they make. Luckily, I found out through a fellow in the UK that Ricks Motorcycles in Germany manufactures a 32mm offset sprocket. Better yet, I found out that a local Harley Davidson dealer is one of three U.S. distributors for Ricks. $175 plus some shipping, and the sprocket is on its way! Now we're going to be able to keep everything absolutely centered, and I won't need to monkey around with second best solutions. This problem is now solved, but I created two new ones -- I'll need a longer clutch rod (no biggie), and I'll need to figure out an effective way of moving the hydraulic clutch out -- should just be a matter of shimming it somewhere between 0.375" and 0.50".
I also bought a new Wimmer 4" velocity stack this week. I'm still trying to decide if I should put dual carburetors on this baby...
September 24: Five pictures added. First one is the bike on the lift, where we are patiently awaiting the arrival of the 32mm offset sprocket. To pass the time, they've done some some body work and found a place to hide my coil, as well as mounted the brakes, rotors, and driveline pulleys.
Here's a shot of the finish work on the tail of the gas tank -- smoothed and
contoured to rejoin the frame. There is more sheet metal body work to come
-- I'm probably going to do some fancy stuff around the seat, and also some work
between the seat down tube and the rear fender to finish it off.
You can see the coil buried in the tunnel -- this was Dan's idea. He
lopped-off the polycarbonate mounting bracket on the coil and fit it in. A
cover is forthcoming... Great work, as always. Clean and clever.
October 23, 2005: More parts arrived -- Dakota Digital HLY-6000 speedo, Headwinds Mariah Rocket headlight, TP billet oil filter housing, Wimmer velocity stack, nickel plated chain, and some other stuff. The two wheeled casket is starting to look more and more like a bike. I'm just missing some small stuff at this point -- Hotmatch weld-on kick stand, Paul Yaffee Double Trouble Mirrors and a bunch of other jewelry that's either in transit or is waiting for me to make up my mind on.
I'll get right to the updated photos. First one shows the cover for the
coil that Dan fabbed (see previous photo).
Here's another inconspicuous detail: travel limiter for the air-ride. Essentially, it's a bumper, but note how Dan built it to match the wheels and general circle design element I'm going with here. Sorry for the fuzzy photo! Below that, you can see how we're dealing with routing cables. Since the frame is the oil tank, we can't drill into it to route cables. This idea was mine, and goes back to my bicycle racing days -- all the high-end frames had brazed-on cable guides instead of cable clamps.
And now for some fun. The air ride is working now, and you can get some idea of how it will looked parked and slammed, versus the "nosebleed" upper limit ride height. We're going to trim up the rear fender a bit more, giving it a better edge profile, following the tire better. There's also a bunch of sheet metal work to do around the seat, and in the area between the seat down tubes and the rear fender.
Last thing we're working on right now is some trick starter switch stuff. I think I'm going to put the starter switch on the starter solenoid to reduce the cabling necessary. But for security, I'm thinking of installing a reed switch in series that will be activated by a magnet. I'm not telling you where it will be, but it will be inconspicuous and clever. If all goes well, we should be getting into paint real soon. I'm planning on doing a deep violet/blue House of Kolors Kandy pearl base with a mild flame job. Rock and roll, people.
November 5, 2005: The fabbin' continues, but we're not ready to get painting yet. New front fender on the way -- the old one didn't follow the profile of the 120 x 70 Avon Venom tire perfectly, so I spilled frogskins on a FatKatz Vegas fender. Can't wait for the brown Santa to show up with that. Here's a few pictures to give you some idea of what's going on these days:
Have a look at the wiring tunnel that we came up with to keep the underbelly
of the bike clean. It transitions into the seat space clean and hidden,
following the lines of the frame and the power plant.
Inside of the rear fender, Dan made up a nice wiring housing to transition
into the battery box area. Nobody will ever see this or appreciate it, but it's
just another part of putting a clean ride together.
Finally got the rear fender trimmed to look the way I want...
Here's a better bumper shot. You can also see one of the
braze-on cable guides in the upper right.
We were able to pack the Dakota Digital speedo on under the
bars above the tank. TIGHT. Gotta love them PM controls and
switches.
In the next week, I'll receive the custom made rear wheel hub and top motor mount. The hub is BOLTLESS!!! And there is more to come. All told, there was a time that I thought I could get this fuel burner titled in 2005, but that ain't gonna happen. What is most important is the grin factor remains at all-time highs -- I see the bike, I grin.
November 11, 2005: I'm 16 hours of fabbin' away from primer. Just need to mount and trim the new FatKatz Vegas front fender, and mold in the seat pan area. I'll let the three pictures do the talkin'.
Here's the big meat. Stand back, junior:
Loooooooooooooooooooooong
One last view from the rear, which most will see when riding with me.
See ya.
November 29, 2005: So much going on, so little time to update. Here's a quick shot of the sheet metal work around the seat. That should keep things neat and clean (won't see the battery, cables, and the seat will "emerge" from the frame rather than looking like it was plopped-down on it.
I also took all the body work off the tank, and am having it epoxy sealed at a radiator shop this week. The rear hub cap is done, the front fender is mounted (again) and already in primer. Next, we need to get the rest of the sheet metal ready for paint, and decide how much of job it will be to switch over to a single sided swing arm that Wally is concocting for this frame....
February 3, 2006: I've put about 70 hours into the bodywork on the frame using fiberglass reinforced body filler (2 hours at a session over two months). 90% of the work I did early last year was a waste, so I sandblasted the frame and redid it. It will be sprayed and blocked in the next week. Paint is next! I'm also going to have the seat upholstered in the next 30 days. Here's what 70 hours of body work looks like:
