'67 Iron Chop

[tunacantom]

Hey there folks. Figured it was finally time to make some sort of build thread so people know I do things other than crank my hog all day long. Also figured it'd be good so I can ask you fine gentlemen questions about things I have little to no experience with. Anyways, I'll start with a quick background on me and then start talking about the two-wheeled-dude-magnet.

My name's Tommy but my friends call me Tom. I'm 21 years of age residing in Boston, MA and I'm a third year Mechanical Engineering student at Wentworth Institute of Technology. I grew up in my dad's auto body shop lending him a hand with all his cool projects (mostly crusty old VW's) where I kind of learned what I'm doing. Alongside that I grew up on a BMX bike so it made sense that I'd continue on two wheels with the addition of a big vibrator when I came of age. First bike I bought was a 2000 Sporty that I did some typical bolt-on things to; but those things just weren't enough for me to be satisfied, so I decided to start looking for a project bike.

Knew I wanted to build a chopper, knew I wanted it to be lean and clean, and knew I didn't have too much money to spend. Shortly after starting my hunt, I found a pretty sweet 1967 XLCH in an old Paughco frame that didn't run in Connecticut...for too much money; but, that didn't stop ME. I went back and forth with the guy for a while trying to get some information on the thing but he didn't have any. Turns out is was his dad's bike and his dad died a few years back and the bike had been sitting. Asked him if he had the title and he said he did! Unfortunately, the title he had was already signed and dated for sale to someone else...in 2008...and not even to his dad, but to the guy before the guy who sold it to his dad. I knew this could turn into a headache later, but hey, I hate myself, figured why the hell not.

Used the no-good title as a bargaining chip to offer the guy half of what he had it listed for...and he said yes. Slapped my dads friend's trailer on the back of my truck, picked up my friend Rob, and made the trip to pick up the bike.



Rob and I didn't get back until about 1 AM so we left the bike on the trailer and went home.



Now I know what you're thinking at this point...why the fuck did this little dingus probably STILL spend too much money to get a non-running bike with no title? and I can assure you that I also did not know why the fuck I did that.

Next post coming soon...

[tunacantom]

PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED: I bought this bike in December of '16. This thread is currently just going to be getting up to speed with where I am now and then hopefully continuing through the end (never really an end) of the build.

Anyways, the next day I woke up, hooked back up to the trailer, and moved the bike over to my dad's garage.



This was the first time I got to look at the bike in real light; and, it was definitely in worse shape than I had hoped...but that just meant I'd be getting much more familiar with it than expected. I got the bike with no fluids, two random Chinese carbs, no brake internals, no wiring, and no idea what condition anything was in. I kicked through a few cycles before I left that day and was really excited to hear how solid the compression was...almost seemed like the engine had just been gone through.



After this I decided it was too cold to keep sitting around staring at it and that I'd continue the following weekend after looking into the whole title issue. (Didn't want to start dumping money into parts until I knew I'd be able to make something work).





So I got back in my truck, drove home, got on my computer, and started doing research. I had a ton of different thoughts of ways I might be able to get the title for the bike into my name; but, none of them were too legit and I didn't want to take any risks yet. Then I had another thought.

I hopped on Facebook, got my stalking skills ready, and started searching for the owner who's name and PO Box was listed on the front of the title (the last owner to ACTUALLY own the bike). Took me about 30 seconds and I found him. Drafted up a nice, formal message to him stating my situation and asking if he would be willing to request a duplicate title for the bike and sign it over to me for a few bucks. To my disappointment, I didn't hear anything back from him...

[tunacantom]

Flash forward another week. I still haven't heard anything from the Facebook guy, and my hope and morale was low; but, I was bored so I figured I may as well start ripping some stuff apart. So I drove over to my dad's, opened up the garage, and got to work.

Didn't have a bike jack, so I just stole a cinder block from my dad's neighbor and man-handled the bike up onto it...



and then just starting removing parts...



by this time my dad got home and gave me a hand lifting the motor out of the bike...





after this I called it a day and went back home.

[tunacantom]

A few more days passed before I went back to my dad's with my buddy Sean (@ScubaSheen on here). Sean gave me a hand carrying the bike down the basement stairs to my dad's house so I wouldn't have to keep dealing with the Massachusetts winter cold.

Pit stop on the way from the garage to the house for a picture next to the '61 Econoline P'up my dad and I scored a few months prior (another project still ongoing)...





I have no pictures of us actually carrying anything into the basement because we both had our hands full, but it definitely looked something like this:


Sean is a top and I am a power bottom as seen above

Once it was in the basement we stared at it for a little while and probably decided we did enough work for the day and needed to get burritos...

[tunacantom]

In retrospect I have absolutely no idea why I brought it into the basement. All I did down there was take the wheels, fender, and sissy bar off before lugging it back out and bringing it to my dad's body shop.

Once I got it to the shop I used some big wrenches and bigger hammers to un-stuck the stuck fork tubes and get the rest of the bike apart...



Once it was apart I grabbed a 4" DA and some 80 grit and started ripping as much paint off the frame and brake drum as I could. After this I broke out the trusty angle grinder and removed a bunch of tabs that I probably didn't need. Next came the welder to fill it any cavities I made with the angle grinder...oh...and the series of miscellaneous holes drilled in the frame.





After I had the frame in a pretty good place, I brought it to some place a town over that had a sandblasting cabinet big enough to fit the frame. They cleaned up everything I couldn't get to with the DA nicely. The guy who ran the shop also took a jab at my manhood by asking if the frame was for a mini-bike...



Oh, and remember Facebook guy? Well I finally heard back from him. He was really confused, but willing to help. For me this meant it was time to start ordering some stuff

[tunacantom]

At this point my winter break was coming to a close and it was time to move back to school. So, while I was waiting on parts to be delivered, I was learning about things and stuff. I got back home about a month later to start playing with the bike again.

I got a tank, fender, bungs, and a bunch of small odds and ends from Lowbrow. I also got a sweet set of "Boomarang" bars from the guys at The Eazy Company in Worcester, MA. Good dudes, good work, highly recommend.

Tank mocked up with some zip ties...



Next I tossed the front end and bars on so I could find a good spot to mount the tank where it wouldn't get in the way too much.

Bars on...



Tank lined up...





Once I found a spot I liked, I popped some holes in the frame, welded in the bungs, and grinded 'em nice and smooth. After this it was back to school for me.

[tunacantom]

The next time I got back home I was pleasantly greeted by the headlights I snagged on Ebay. Immediately went to the shop and threw them on for a photo shoot. I was definitely stoked on these.



It was sunny so I decided to pull it outside and rinse off the body dust from sitting in the shop...



At this point I got side tracked helping my dad with one of the other million projects we have going on...we're really bad at keeping our focus on one thing until the end. Bonus: check out the '65 Harley Aermacchi my dad scored at a swap meet. I think he was mad that we both had two bikes at the time so he needed to buy a third (and then a fourth a few weeks after???)...



Sean (@ScubaSheen) stopped by that afternoon as well to rest his Haifley Brothers King & Queen on my bike. Loved King & Queen seats already; but, now I knew I needed to get one for my bike.



Somewhere during all of this I went to order a new rear tire because mine was dry-rotted to shit and I wanted something with a white-wall. To my confusion, I realized that my rear wheel was a 15" not a 16". Not too many chopular 15" tires on the market that I liked, so I used this as an excuse to order a new rear wheel as well.

[Rjcinelli]

Looks like a solid starting point, I have a similar situation with title, well I don't have one, just a bill of sale, going to have to go through NH for that. I'm from the Boston area too man I'll keep an eye out on this thread, good luck with it!

[tunacantom]

Few weeks later my rear wheel and tire came in...



so I brought 'em to my guy and my guy mounted the tire...



went back to the shop and slapped her on, looked a million times better than the crusty old 15"...



told you my friends call me Tom...



and finally I mocked up the fender and old sissy bar before heading back to school...



It looked good, but I wanted to keep the bike a little slimmer so plans to fab a new sissy bar were added to my mental list.

[tunacantom]

Looks like a solid starting point, I have a similar situation with title, well I don't have one, just a bill of sale, going to have to go through NH for that. I'm from the Boston area too man I'll keep an eye out on this thread, good luck with it!

Thanks man. Since the guy I bought it from and his dad and the guy his dad bought it from and the guy before that had never actually registered the bike there would have been some funny stuff with the bill of sale seller not matching the last owner. I'm sure there's ways to get it to slide, but Facebook guy ended up coming through for me in the end.

[tunacantom]

Next on my mental list was to mock up the pipes and weld some tabs to the frame. They were previously mounted with clamps and I wasn't a big fan of that. Before I could do this I had to put the motor back in the frame. So I grabbed Sean again (at least I think it was Sean?) and we lugged it back out of the basement. Again, not sure why I put it in the basement in the first place. Pic for reference...

EDIT: Sean just reminded me that we almost dropped the motor like four times.



Once it was out, I brought it to the shop, took it inside, laid it down on some cardboard, and scooped it up with the bike.



That was a hard day's work...but boy was I happy to just look at the motor in the frame again...



Few more weeks passed after this before I worked on it again. My Spring semester at school had came to an end and I had started a co-op (internship) as an Automation Engineer working on large-scale manufacturing automation projects. Long story short work started to take up most of my time and I was a tired grump in my free time.

At some point in June I did find enough motivation to get back to the shop and get the exhaust mounted up, though...



started looking like a motorcycle again...

[Tattooo]

^^^^^^^^Looking damn nice so far....^^^^^^^^^^^

[tunacantom]

At that point I decided to take a break from the Iron. The weather outside was nice, I had a running '67 Beetle I was daily driving, life was good...and I didn't want to deal with the impending frustration that I knew was going to come soon. Instead I spent a weekend designing and fabricating a bike rack for my Evo Sporty...



Ended up coming out pretty damn solid if I say so myself. Was awesome to be able to ride my bike to the skatepark to ride my bike at the skatepark.



I got some good use out of that rack for the next month until I ended up breaking my foot at a skatepark and not being able to ride home...oh well, called my dad, he rode the bike home, I drove his truck to the hospital. Luckily it was a pretty fast healing time, only ended up being about 6 weeks.

[tunacantom]

While my foot was busy healing I spent a few minutes one day mocking up a king/queen with some cardboard and my old sissy bar. Anything to pass the time...



old sissy bar was still a little wider than I would have liked...



I also finally was able to get the title for the bike from Facebook guy...maybe 9 months after the initial message. Went to the RMV, they took it, and the bike became officially mine.

At this point in time summer had come to an end and I was moving back to school. Sean (@ScubaSheen) and I dormed together that semester and both bitched about how neither of us came out of the summer with running bikes, but neither of us actually did anything about it.

During my Computer Aided Manufacturing class I took advantage of some class time to program some cool spacers for my rear fender to replace the stack of washers I had previously been using...



Also at some point around then I swindled Sean into selling my his Haifley king/queen ...



Those two things were all I actually accomplished during the entirety of the Fall semester. But the second I moved home for winter break I decided it was time to get things going again.

[tunacantom]

The week after finals when I was back home I decided it was finally time to do something about that old sissy bar. So I called up Metal Supermarkets and got myself some 9/16" cold rolled round and got to work. I knew I wanted to do something asymmetrical, and I knew it wanted it to be skinny. I also had the king/queen seat soft mounted so I would have something to trace on my way up. I quickied a little bending jig and threw it in a vise and got bent. I also used the same jig to bend up some flat stock for my bridge.



I seriously wish I had taken more pictures during this process but the metal was hot and I didn't want to take my gloves off...



I was and still am very happy with how it came out. Not bad for my first sissy bar. Only thing I plan on adding to it is some sort of small brace up top to get ride of some side to side flex (gonna wait until I'm back at school and machine something cool probably).

At that point the roller was pretty settled and I knew it was time to get looking at the motor on the bike. From all I knew, the bike hadn't ran since '08. I also had no idea where to start with magneto ignitions. I threw a plug on one of the wires and kicked the bike a few times and was happy to see spark.

However, I was starting my next co-op soon after with GE Aviation as a Manufacturing Engineer and knew I wouldn't have the time to figure this bit out myself, so I put the bike back on the trailer and brought it to my guy to figure out...and it's a good thing I did.

First off, the mag was on backwards, second off, the mag was toast. My guy got the bike to start one time with the mag in that state before telling me it was fucked. I was dissapointed, but it happens. I had him box the mag up and ship it to Morris who agreed it was fucked. They rebuilt it almost completely and sent it back. They mentioned that it was basically ready to start dropping components into my cams and grenade my engine so it's a good thing they got it squared away. My guy got it back, put it on, and set the timing. He also made the executive decision to drop the random Chinese carb in the trash can and set me up with a bitchin' Mikuni he had sitting in the attic of his shop.