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Have a seat 'round the fire, this is going to be a long one.
The idea for this build started when I was hammered in Chicago with some friends at Motoblot. We had ridden our bikes from west Michigan to Chicago, and entered them in the show. I brought my vintage Ducati which has good patina and is a rider, it's not really a show bike. It's pretty rare in the US, and was a bike that everyone in my town knew of because it had sat in a local record store for years.
Anyway, I entered it in the Italian category and lost to a Ducati Monster.
So I did what anyone who had just taken an L would do, I proceeded to get black out drunk and talk about all the reasons I should have won. My friends being the supportive drunks they are, did the same and we came up with the idea of building an evo sporty chop, 0 up 0 out, stock rake, and a 6 over springer front end...because Frisco chopper.
I got home from Motoblot and bought a Paughco frame off Ebay directly from Paughco. Stock rake, zero up, zero out. Awesome.
I was set on a springer front end and being the cheap fuck that I am I scoured Ebay for front end. Found one and the pictures did not do it justice...it was an absolute piece of shit. The welds for the bottom cups were filled with air bubbles, someone must have tried to repair the thing and did a shit job. Then they chromed over it. The guy I bought it from gave me some guff for trying to send the front end back, but I kept at it. He relented and I wised up; always do stuff right the first time. I ordered a Bone Orchard Springer, 6 over and waited a few months for it to finish.
In the mean time I bought another sportster as a donor parts bike. I managed to destroy the clutch hub in the process of parting it out because I'm an idiot. So I replaced all that and set about ordering parts.
Wasn't sure what to do with the fender. I was either going to do a King and Queen seat, or a seat between the fender and frame. I ended up doing a modified cobra seat so I took a trailer fender and bobbed it to fit.
Now my shop was set up for 440 3 phase, unfortunately I didn't have any 220 outlets close by. An engineer friend of mine made a device to step it down with a 220 outlet attached to it. Once you let that bitch warm up it puts out what you need. We welded up bungs and attached the fender to the bike, and welded plates where the frame neck meets the rear of the bike.
All of that occurred before COVID 19 was a thing. Since I haven't stopped working - I'm actually working more now - I've made some progress. The most finished picture is how it's sat in my shop since last week. I still need to tack the brackets for the oil bag on, build a battery and electronics box, and complete some other odds and ends. I'll keep this updated as I go along.
The idea for this build started when I was hammered in Chicago with some friends at Motoblot. We had ridden our bikes from west Michigan to Chicago, and entered them in the show. I brought my vintage Ducati which has good patina and is a rider, it's not really a show bike. It's pretty rare in the US, and was a bike that everyone in my town knew of because it had sat in a local record store for years.
Anyway, I entered it in the Italian category and lost to a Ducati Monster.
So I did what anyone who had just taken an L would do, I proceeded to get black out drunk and talk about all the reasons I should have won. My friends being the supportive drunks they are, did the same and we came up with the idea of building an evo sporty chop, 0 up 0 out, stock rake, and a 6 over springer front end...because Frisco chopper.
I got home from Motoblot and bought a Paughco frame off Ebay directly from Paughco. Stock rake, zero up, zero out. Awesome.
I was set on a springer front end and being the cheap fuck that I am I scoured Ebay for front end. Found one and the pictures did not do it justice...it was an absolute piece of shit. The welds for the bottom cups were filled with air bubbles, someone must have tried to repair the thing and did a shit job. Then they chromed over it. The guy I bought it from gave me some guff for trying to send the front end back, but I kept at it. He relented and I wised up; always do stuff right the first time. I ordered a Bone Orchard Springer, 6 over and waited a few months for it to finish.
In the mean time I bought another sportster as a donor parts bike. I managed to destroy the clutch hub in the process of parting it out because I'm an idiot. So I replaced all that and set about ordering parts.
Wasn't sure what to do with the fender. I was either going to do a King and Queen seat, or a seat between the fender and frame. I ended up doing a modified cobra seat so I took a trailer fender and bobbed it to fit.
Now my shop was set up for 440 3 phase, unfortunately I didn't have any 220 outlets close by. An engineer friend of mine made a device to step it down with a 220 outlet attached to it. Once you let that bitch warm up it puts out what you need. We welded up bungs and attached the fender to the bike, and welded plates where the frame neck meets the rear of the bike.
All of that occurred before COVID 19 was a thing. Since I haven't stopped working - I'm actually working more now - I've made some progress. The most finished picture is how it's sat in my shop since last week. I still need to tack the brackets for the oil bag on, build a battery and electronics box, and complete some other odds and ends. I'll keep this updated as I go along.
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