Let me lay out the background for this project. Scooter is anattorney. Maybe that makes him a yuppie, who the fuck cares? He’s acriminal attorney of the highest order, in fact recently herepresented a prostitute and we will have a full report on thatepisode. In this case, he was representing a jealous Bouncer from a stripclub whowas going after his girlfriend’s lover and was busted in route. Thecharges called for 20 strikes that would put him away for threelifetimes. As payment for Scooter’s courtroom talent he gave up thisbasket case. He ultimately received less than two years sentence andtwo strikes against his spotty record. He’ll have to be damn carefulin the future.
Scooter is a rider with a Dyna Glide, and a man who loves tolearn. He doesn’t stop at the surface of any project, but digs forall the knowledge he can muster to get the job handle properly. Thisis his first project bike which started out as a scattering ofassorted parts in boxes and strewn around the oily concrete floor,plus a rolling chassis which gave the rider a glimmer of hope.
It began life as a ’98 Softail Custom, but other than thesheet metal and wheels, not much of the original bike remained. Theframe was replaced with a Jammer 2-inch stretch with a 35 degreerake. The drivetrain kept the original H-D jugs, that were bored andhooked up to an S&S bottom end for 89-inches of pure power and aDelkron tranny. Rumor has it the engine work was done by Sonny atWestminster H-D before Scooter got the stuff, but it was expertlyassembled by Todd, who insisted on refitting with original H-D casecovers for a quality fit with (hopefully) no leaks. Before theengine could be mounted, the frame had to be heated and peened a tadto provide clearance for the rigid mount engine. It looked just alittle too tight when they did the mock-up, so they createdadditional vibration clearance. Also, the welds were rough andneeded some grinding and smoothing. We decided to paint the casesblack to match the cylinder fins.
The next step was to powder coat the frame to match the H-DLaser Red color on the stock sheet metal. The red they got wasbrighter and flatter, so we took it to a painter and got a niceclear coat to dress it up. Unfortunately, we now have to repaint thesheet metal to match the powder coat color, at least on the basecolor of the custom paint job. I spoke to Rock and Roll CustomPaintworks and Al Martinez about my paint scheme ideas, but haven’tcommitted yet. They both had some great looking airbrushed nudes onseveral tanks in the showroom which scooter drooled over, but wasconcerned about pulling up to courts and creating problems. Maybesome deep understated ghost flames instead.
Scooter was fortunate to hook up with a great custom bikeengineer named ScottLongnecker who currently builds custom bikes and just about everything elseat Kendon Industries. They manufacture a line of ‘stand up”trailers. Scott hooked Scooter up with a set of billet forwardcontrols and hand built a custom 2 into 1 pipe that’s currently at thechrome shop. The pipe is straight and clean, withthe collector running cleanly along the frame. The performance should bean improvement over the drag pipes that came with the basket, but thedownsideis they have no shields. Oh well, he can sometimes use the extraheat on his scrawnylegs when the temp drops and the cold wind blows. On the other hand,it’s not a problem to build a set of shields.
They’ve ordered up are the fat drag bars and stainlessbraided cables and hoses. The law says you gotta have front andrear turn signalsvisible from the sides and bright and big enough to be seen by everyonewithin your sphere of existence, but stock signals look … well…stock.Heopted to risk an uncomfortable discussion with the local constable byinstalling minimal lighting. Kuryaken has a new LED marking light/mirrorcombo that pairs a nice looking oval mirror and billet look stem with abright LED light mounted in the front side of the mirror housing. At about$180/pair they aren’t cheap, but may streamline the front end and stillprovide a degree of safety.
The rear lighting situation was confusing ashell, because everyone and his cousin makes a fender strut mounted markerlight. Scooter chose one that has a long, sleek housing that coversthe holes andhardware on the strut for a cleaner look. It also has a larger lens with adouble filament bulb and comes with both red and amber lenses. He’s alsohaving a tough decision with the pegs and grips. He really likes the lookandfeel of the Iso-pegs by Kuryaken, but… when I found out I couldn’t usethestock forward controls because the new frame wasn’t tapped for the rearmaster cylinder, he shifted to billet controls with an integralmaster cylinder.
-Nuttcase
