I’m trying out my word processor to see if I can write a decent article with pictures. It seems to be working so far. Here is a shot of my ’06 Sportster that I built from a wreck. It was so totaled it never should have ran again. Since the frame was twisted beyond hope I cut the neck off and started over. I used a torch to straighten the front legs and added two inches with a piece of auto trans input shaft inside for strength. I raked it about five degrees, while I was at it. I only paid $1000 for the pieces with a title. Everything else came from swap meets except the Wisco1200 kit with ten-to-one pistons.
I gave a hundred dollars for a HSR 42 Mikuni carb. I used an earlier steel oil tank because I had one. I had to make a battery box and hang two computers different than they were. I scored the 17 inch rear tire and wheel for seventy five because it had a pinched tube. I made the pipes out of scrap pieces I had laying around. It runs great and handles great and is still a rubber mounted engine. I would ride it anywhere. I built this one over last winter and rode it all summer. My total investment to date is 4300 dollars.
Back in 1971 I had a ’49 pan. My old friend sold his ’36 knuckle that he was running a ’34 VL front end on. The new buyer didn’t like it so I traded him out of it. I was riding a red ’49 pan with a chrome VL front end and a Sportster tank much like Dave Mann’s. I didn’t know of Dave at that time.
I was riding that bike flat-out across Oklahoma with my first wife Wanda on the back when the rear rod broke and shelled the cases. Wanda called her cousin Lilly from a farm house and we loaded the whole bike in the trunk of a ’64 ford. I traded that bike to my friend Eldon for a ’56 Triumph.
Fast forward to 2008. Old Eldon wants to buy my ’85 FXR. He still had that front end in his attic. Eldon traded me a low mileage ’82 FXE and the VL front end for my FXR. I cleaned up the chrome and it still looked almost as good as it did in the day.
I started looking for the right project. I had been emailing a tattoo artist in Kansas about various projects and he said he had a ’49 Pan basket. Off to Kansas I went. I loaded up a truck for $2,000 and went to work. Here is where it is as of this writing. I hope to have it running by February.
The frame is a ’58-’60 with a weld-on hardtail that is modified for a disc brake and late style axle adjusters. For ground clearance I am going to run this 19-inch dual flange wheel on the rear. I never liked wide tires anyway. I am in it around three grand so far. I think another fifteen hundred will finish it first class. I usually sell my project, once I ride them for a while, but I want to hold on to this one and maybe make one of those Smoke outs, not on a trailer.
I have another friend named Wes. He has acquired, mostly through the barter system, four ironhead Sportsters. He is riding one and the other three are in the process of being built. Actually we will probably use one for parts.
The guy in Kansas has a ’56 Triumph and he just traded me a whole pile of parts to clean it up and get it running. I got it running after cleaning the mag and the slow jet in the Amal carb. It runs good and doesn’t smoke. It’s the first time it has been started since 1980.
As you can guess, I have been building and riding old bikes like this since about 1968. You guys published a story by me back in ’03. I was very proud of that, and it has taken me this long to write another one. I was living in Las Vegas back then. I got divorced in ’02. She got the boyfriend and I got the house. In ’04 the housing market in Vegas went crazy and I sold out for more than twice what I owed. I moved back to Oklahoma to be around my family. It has been an adventure running into all the old buddies, who are still alive. Most of the bikers are still doing it. They are the ones who have piles of parts at the swap meets.
When I left Vegas I bought this clean ’56 Pan and brought it back here with me. I found a deal on a FXR and so, like a dummy, I sold the Pan but I did make 2000 dollars with it, and since, except for that house deal, I have never had any money in my life, so when some comes along I usually grab it. I am a little like George the Painter. I really enjoy his articles and I can really identify.
My lower back is shot, not so much from riding as from 35 years as a heavy line mechanic for car dealers. My right shoulder is wiped out from crashing my kids minibike in 1993. I’m not complaining, I am really lucky that I can still ride and walk around.
I seem to be going back in time with this story, so here is a Sportster I built for a guy here in Oklahoma about three years ago. All I heard was how he wanted a springer on it. He is a house painter who got the bike as payment for a paint job. He never could get the hang of riding a right side shift and finally found someone to give him about 4 grand for it.
After this Sportster build I helped a neighbor get his ’56 Olds running. He broke a piston and had no money. I pulled the old 324 out and went through it and replaced all the pistons with a new set from Egge machine. He had a Shovelhead trike basket in his basement, and he gave it to me for all the work I did on his old car. The trike was a mess and needed to be redesigned. I learned a lot building it. The guy who owns it was in an accident when he was about 20 and has been in a wheel chair ever since. He is about 33 now. Here is a shot of the trike after I finished it. I sold the trike on Ebay for 6600 dollars. It went to Ohio to another accident victim.
To go a little farther back in time, here is a couple of pictures of bikes I built in Vegas between ’02 and ’04. I like old Sportsters because they are cheap and with a little work can be really strong runners. I don’t want to be in any chopper build-offs; I just wanted you to see a real home-built chopper builder guy.
When I was in Vegas I was acquainted with the late Bones. I knew him for ten years and never knew his real name. He had two bikes featured in Iron Works. He always rode those great bikes he built. I never got acquainted with Mongo or any of the more well-known Vegas builders, but I knew lots of cool people out there.
Here is a shot of me at two in the morning with a bike I was building for a Vegas bodybuilder. He brought his stripper old lady by to show her where I was with his bike.
Here is a Sportster on a homemade frame with a story that is too long to tell right now. I rode this one for almost two years in Vegas.
