Building Choppers

Fast Eddie, your article brought back memories of my chopper building days. Here are some pictures of a Sportster chopper I built back in 1970 and won first place in a local bike show. I machined and fabricated almost everything on this bike. I fabricated the frame from a stock Sportster frame by welding on a rigid tail section and a whole new front section neck, etc. I made the narrowed triple trees and made the handle bar risers so they screwed right into the ends of the fork tubes. The front end wound up so narrow that I couldn't buy a spool for the front wheel so I had to make a narrowed spool also . Note the SU carb. A lot of us ran them back in those days because they were a dime a dozen and they worked pretty good also. I made dozens of other things on this bike but I think you get the idea. I think this bike resembles a lot of the choppers they are building nowadays. By the way , I was a pretty good looking kid back in those days huh.

Jack

Thanks Elliot , that Sportster I chopped was only a year old when I chopped it. It was a 1969 XLCH , 900 cc , no battery and had The old reliable Fairbanks Morse magneto on it. I did port and polish the heads and put in a set of better cams and afew other goodies. What bitch to start when it was cold . I wish I had a nickel for every time I kicked that bike. In fact once the kicker crank ratched right thru when I was giveing it a good healthy kick and I broke the cartilage in my right knee . Man did that hurt and still bothers me after 30 some years. Another thing I remember about this bike is I did all the fabricateing and everything in the shop and then I had everthing painted , chromed etc. When I got all the parts back I put this bike totally together in third story appartment bedroom . I left the front end off and me and a couple of bros rolled and carried this thing down three flights of stairs , slipped the front forks and wheel on the front and I rode away. Oh the good old days. Good thing the landlord didn,t live in the same building or he would have **** a brick.

My bros And I still reminisce about the way we usd to take a perfectly good bike , make it so it rode like a piece of ****. handled like a piec of **** ,wouldn't start , wouldn't stop , threw away all the conveniences , but man did we look cool and that was all that mattered .

This is my first attempt of building a Chopper. The Boat in the back ground is our drag boat from the years past. This was at my Modesto Speed Shop.
The bike has a rebuilt 45 inch engine and would run a true 45 Miles per Hour maybe. The kids loved it and did most of the riding that was done on the thing. I put Gabriel High Jackers on it and you could raise and lower the box about 6".

Adrian

Kinda slow getting in on this post, but here is a shot of my 48 Panhead when it had a 31" over springer and rigid frame. I didn't put any fork stops on so the front end would turn nearly 90 degrees. The bike could turn around in a one car drive way.

my 70 sporty